And so the solution is that in order to help the working poor and disadvantaged, we need to focus not on them but on taking money away from other people based upon what you think they "deserve". That's what I am hearing. Not much discussion on the benefits to the poor or disadvantaged but more of the need to tax this group of people because they have it or because we don't think they deserve it. So we are going to use the government and the laws to take that away from them. Who get's to decide on who is or is not deserving. The government? You? GoU? So somebody works their whole life and sacrifices, takes risks, to accumulate an estate to take care of themselves and their families. Along the way they provide for their employees and pay taxes. When they die, you want a say in who deserves to benefit from their estate? Who in your view "deserves" it. So pardon me to objecting to such as scheme and going back to a concept of fair and reasonable taxation. I know you don't like the term but I think it is much more reasonable than a system of taxation primarily designed on some vague emotional concept of using the tax code to punish the "undeserving".
I have said before that I don't take issue with the idea of taxation. Taxes are necessary. But they should not be punitive. They should not be based on some emotional concept of taking something from somebody because we don't think they "deserve" it. That is not my idea of living in a free country. It is not the governments job in a free country to pick who or what gets my estate when I am gone. You can tax it as long as those taxes are fair and reasonable but the remainder and who gets it is none of your concern.
Oh, yes, the old "works all their lives blah, blah, blah" meme. Tell me what a hedge fund manager contributes to society. Tell me what non-productive wealth contributes to society. I grow tired of the bullshit of "punitive taxes" and "redistribution" and "socialism! communism!"
The vast majority of people do work all their lives. And, yeah, I read Chrystia Freeland's "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else." Interesting reading. The plutocrats do work hard. Many of them much longer own a day than most people. That is not the question. Working hard is irrelevant. Distortion, asymmetry, knowledge control, access control, legislative capture, agency problems and the poor-mouth cry of wealth have resulted in the mess we have because there is no alternative when "freedom" is based upon economic theology. You mentioned freedom. Such a word is meaningless unless you can frame it writ large. A poor man is not free. A poor man who lacks for food, shelter, clothing is not free. Justice systems based upon retribution and vengeance for property is not freedom. Destruction of cities by deindustrialization is not freedom. Sanctioned extortion by capital for "tax breaks" is not freedom. You are not free either. That isn't because of government. It is because of the private sector which controls everything you do.
You fail constantly and continuously to understand that the system lies at the root of the problems faced by this country and the world at large. Look into the PRC which has seen high growth for many years, much higher than ours. They are regressing politically because they fear social unrest due to mass internal migrations. For all the trumpeting of raising millions out of poverty the PRC understands and fears what slow to no growth means for their country in general and the party in particular. The answer is not free markets because such a thing does not exist.
You say that we should address the poor. You are right. How do you do that? Train them up? In what? Automation is continuously destroying labor and it is accelerating.
You tell me what to do. Parasitic wealth does nothing. Those who have much of them much will be expected to go back to morality. Yet philanthro-capitalism is no better. WTF does a Bill Gates know about complex social relations in sub-saharan Africa? WTF does Zuckerberg know about indigenous peoples in the Amazon basin? Philanthro-capitalism seeks to impose a value system based upon exploitive development derived from western capitalism.
Start with this: the concepts of return on investment, interest and profit are all claims on future growth. Thus growth MUST be infinite. Yet resources are not infinite. Technology will not "save" anything because wealth controls access to resources and population aggregates and concentrates. Rural America which is in crisis helped elect the idiot-in-chief with his bleating of making America great again. Ain't happening because greatness was not defined although it was dog-whistled as keeping white Americans on top. Foolish that because those same buffoons wouldn't get a hand out from wealth no matter the color of their skin.
You want to help? Drop the punitive tax nonsense because it means nothing. Look at the rot around you and ask where the flying phucque the money is going to come from. Crumbling infrastructure (I work in that industry so I know) isn't going to get fixed by the free market. Private-public partnerships (P3 a new buzzword) relegate public to a junior position because private ONLY CARES ABOUT RETURN.
So, communitarian or libertarian/free market? One may work, one doesn't. Not really much of a choice, is it?