I totally wouldn't mind it if none of use payed taxes, but the rich did and as a token of gratitude, they got statues made in their honor and they'd be talked about and known in society - and in history.

Taxes should be an honor! You're literary keeping society prosperous and allowing everyone to thrive and be their best selves! Instead, these fuckers look for loopholes on how they can pay as little as possible. No wonder everyone hates them, they want us to hate them.

"I make so much money i just throw it at the government so the poors can have running water" is actually such a flex ngl.

Unfortunately im so poor i have to pay to bomb brown people against my will 😔

The wealthy these days have no honour.

The idea of workers funding the state is that workers own the state, and everything that comes along with it including the ability to write and enact laws as well as the monopoly on violence. Workers may then own education, the healthcare system, the infrastructure, research institutions, resource extraction and various industries. These conditions are prerequisites for a democracy. (Preconditions, not the realization of.)

This is, or has been, normal in most countries including Europe and the United States. However, in the past couple of decades, the worker-owned state has been dismantled and a monopolistic oligarchy has formed, often working closely together with the bureaucracy of the state.

So essentially the model of parliamentary democracy with taxes on labor has failed, as it allowed other entities to grow stronger than the worker-owned institutions.

The fix isn't to tax the rich. It is to disallow power to consolidate into opaque institutions. This isn't something we should regulate, it's something we should quench.

I like the idea of rich people getting a plaque with a letter telling them they will be taxed at 98%

Then the 31st richest will just give away some of his money to stay below the threshold and....

Actually, nevermind. Nothing wrong with this plan, I say bring it on.

Fine as a compromise but personally I'd rather abolish such wealth than celebrate it.

The rich Athenians wanting to get out of paying could call out a richer person to pay if the richer man wanted to get out of it then they would exchange estates and now the richer man would pay.

If memory serves this is λειτουργία (pardon if I get the Greek wrong; I’ve only ever studied Koine and I’m typing on a phone), which is the root of the concept of “liturgy.” Basically “liturgy” (in a religious ceremonial sense) harkens back to the feasts and festivals that wealthy Grecians were obligated to provide for the benefit of the populace.

nobody should be able to put their name on buildings they didn't build themselves.

Many public feasts were completely or significantly sponsored by the “president” of the moment. Obviously, each one wanted to prove they were the best ever, so they spent lavishly from their own pockets. So much so that a well known election campaign argument was how rich the potential winner was, such that they could sponsor everything.

As someone who has worked in donor services, this sounds like a terrible idea. This is how we get little Johnny Turntables Jr to be in charge of all picnic tables built across the country.

Also goes hand in hand with that whole no taxation without representation thing. For examples, you can see nearly all oil rich countries where the basic citizen has to pay little or no taxes, and therefore have little say in how they are governed.

It was a demonstration of capacity to charity which signalled superior wealth accumulation capacity. Same thing as showing off your house or boat, or company stock price or collection of vintage ball gags, or whatever weird shit rich people are into. I'm guessing the acquisition of difficult to acquire things was a smaller field to fight on than it is today.

We just democratize this