We've got our versions of tulip crazes, adulterated food, patent medicines, and shell games, except now they're bigger, faster, and unlike many of the versions of these in the past, actively pushed by governments rather than opposed by them. Kleptocracy is culture as well as government

Springfielder Orick H. Greenleaf
wants to build a park
named Forest Park

"Barney made his fortune as a Civil War arms producer and later as a businessman, inventing clamp-on ice skates and rollerskates."

This article keeps getting funnier: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_...

If the ultra-wealthy can still fund lifestyles as lavish as now, you have not taxed them enough.

Yet another reason for eliminating large hoards of wealth is simpler: people should not have enough money to distort the political system. If they have so much that they can fund political campaigns on their own or essentially buy politicians / entire agencies, then they have far, far too much money

Another reason to eliminate wealth concentration are the *actual* unearned benefits: the wealthy are afforded special social privileges and respect just by virtue of *having* wealth, not even spending it. This gives them outsized, and quite dangerous, influence

The further divorced they are from the non-wealthy, the less they see, the less they care, and the less they believe that have to care. Of course, we all know that many care even *less* if they believe their wealth is "deserved"

A society with massive inequality feels unjust. It creates vertical social distance, which means that those at the top have radically different experiences than everyone else. It shields them from seeing the suffering of others. It shields them from normal interactions with people

Taxes are not just a means to fund public services; this is really just a roundabout way of attempting to control inflation. One purpose of taxing people so that they aren't much wealthier than everyone else is to reduce or eliminate the *destructive effects of inequality itself*

I'd argue we've tried the Best Version of Capitalism: Ordoliberalism in Germany. It's got strong social programs, unions with codetermination, lots of regulation of business, all those goodies that Good Goverment Social Democrats love. It's still got the same basic problem of exploitation

It is not "Capitalism with social programs." That's Social Democracy. What happens in the interim will look more like the latter than the former, but our goal is Socialism, not Better Capitalism