Wealth tax absorbs progressive energy and legitimates the market

(Dean, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, https://www.bostonreview.net/forum_response/dean-baker-wealth-tax-distraction/ , 4-5)

Stepping back from all the practical and political obstacles, the idea of a wealth tax has been an obstacle to progressive steps to reverse the upward redistribution of income. Apart from its effect of absorbing the energy of progressives, it also serves to legitimate the upward redistribution by implying that it was the result of the natural workings of the market, rather than the of a system that was deliberately rigged to shift income to the rich. Market outcomes enjoy considerable legitimacy, especially in the United States. If the rich can maintain the illusion that their immense wealth is the result of their talents, hard work, and possibly good luck, this gives them an enormous and undeserved political edge in the public debate. The reality is they structured the system to generate extreme inequality. It is far more difficult to justify extreme inequality when we show it was the result of policy choices, such as patent monopolies, that were designed for this purpose, often at an enormous efficiency cost to the economy. It is difficult to justify patent monopolies that make drugs unaffordable just so that a few well-placed people in drug companies can get immensely rich. Similarly, it is hard to justify eight- and nine-figure executive pay that comes at the expense of the companies for whom they work. An attack on inequality must center on exposing the corruption that created it, not accepting this corruption and coming up with a tax fix of dubious effectiveness.