Why Wealth Taxes Backfire And What Works Instead

A state can look rich on paper while ordinary life gets harder fast and the bill comes due. We sit down with Hephestion Bolaris of Class Unity and Hank Adler, an accounting professor and former Deloitte tax partner, to ask the uncomfortable question behind every big promise: who pays, how, and what happens when the payers can leave?We pressure-test wealth taxes and “tax the rich” politics against real examples, from European welfare states that lean heavily on income taxes and VAT to France’s experience with wealth flight. Then we bring it home to California and New York, where a small share of residents funds a huge share of income tax revenue. When budgets depend on capital gains and billionaires’ residency decisions, social services, homelessness responses, and long-term planning start to look dangerously brittle.From there we move past slogans into structure: how wealth can “trickle up” through rent seeking in housing, debt, and insurance; why deindustrialization and financialization can feel like modern feudalism; and what Sweden’s model suggests about pairing social support with growth, industrial capacity, and entrepreneurship. We also debate monopolies, “toll booth” tech companies, and whether AI will widen opportunity or simply reshuffle winners while workers absorb the transition.We close with the toughest trade-offs: jobs guarantees versus universal basic income, minimum wage hikes versus automation in fast food, and why price controls rarely end well outside emergencies. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend who argues economics at dinner, and leave a review with your answer: what should society guarantee to everyone?Support Our WorkThe Center for Demographics and Policy focuses on research and analysis of global, national, and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time. It involves Chapman students in demographic research under the supervision of the Center’s senior staff.Students work with the Center’s director and engage in research that will serve them well as they look to develop their careers in business, the social sciences, and the arts. Students also have access to our advisory board, which includes distinguished Chapman faculty and major demographic scholars from across the country and the world.For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, Associate Director for the Center for Demographics and Policy, at (714) 744-7635 or [email protected] us on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-feudal-future-podcast/Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalismLearn more about Joel's book 'The Coming of Neo-Feudalism': https://amzn.to/3a1VV87Sign Up For News & Alerts: http://joelkotkin.com/#subscribeThis show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time.