alt Hacker NewsPeople that can be taxed at several order of magnitude of wealth compared to a median income obviously didn’t work several degree of magnitude harder/longer/smarter. They more "efficiently" capture the benefits, certainly, but that’s it. And even there, mainly through network effect and pre-existing social forces.
If instead distribution of wealth was flatter in an equally wealthy society, a tax could still capture just as much.
When vladms speaks about high taxes on the rich, it already assumes the continuation of social structure which exaggerates the uneven distribution of wealth.
This is great in theory, but not practice and not practiced anywhere. You could site some EU countries with a very homogeneous population and a GDP < half of the states, but it's not convincing.
I don't think we currently have the most efficient tax vs productivity situation now, but I don't agree with equality being the goal.