50% isn't arbitrary, it's the exact dividing line between keeping the majority of your wages and losing it to taxes.
"Your" money is actually a privledge granted to you by the government. "Your" ability to amass that money is controlled heavily by the safety, services, and financial policy pursued by your government. Sure, there's a lot of hard work that you do . . . but given that the only reason you can complain about the loss of your wages is due to the environment created by those you're paying, I'm not sure you can really argue that the 50% dividing line has any real meaning at all.
Yeah I will never agree with that philosophically.
It's not a philosophy. Look up the definition of 'Legal Tender'.
All I see are references that require money to be recognized as payment for debts. Nothing more.
I think the philosophical difference isn't about the actual minting of currency, it's about how you perceive your own success (or lack thereof).
It's my position that most (meaning well more than 50%) of your financial standing in life is pure luck. Where you were born being the major indicator of later financial success and this has nothing to do with your own choices/skills/hard work.
So, if like me, you think your position is mostly luck based on your surroundings, you will feel more obligated to contribute, and force all the other lucky folks, to contribute heavily to those surroundings that allowed for fertile ground in which people like me could flourish.
For those people like you (I presume) who think their own skills and choices are the predominant reason they are in their position are less likely to believe their hard work should be taken away and given to others because those others failed to make the smart decisions and hence your problem with > 50% tax.
My own life is like this: 1) I was born to poor immigrants but was born in a rich country that allowed me to get a valuable skill set, 2) I did try decently hard at school and work to advance this skill set, 3) I now make > $400k/yr with this skill set.
So, did I do most of the work of acquiring this very lucrative skill set? Or was most of the work the luck of my parents moving here, being in a rich place with relatively cheap education, being able to migrate to Silicon Valley with ease, and being part of the recent tech boom?
It's hard to say how much % is the luck part and how much is me working hard/making smart decisions. Sometimes I tend to think I'm really smart and deserve all the money. Other times I look around and wonder how I can make so much, am I really that different from the McDonalds drive through person I just got my coffee from but that person couldn't get a tech education? It's tough.
Anyway, in recent years I'm coming down on the side that me and the McDonalds person probably aren't that different except for our environments and hence I (and the folks lucky enough to be in my position) should pay more in tax to allow that person to have a better life.