The wealth cap of $200 million in 1996 dollars, or $320,000,000 adjusted for inflation does not do enough to end inequaltiy and capitalist exploitation. I cannot find the SEP proposal for the wealth cap on their website, although I found Louisiana Governor Huey Long’s wealth cap which in today’s dollars equals about $100 million. The 1996  (first, original) Election Statement, which figured importantly in the About the SEP USA section, and no longer appears anywhere on the website, proposed a meager $10 an hour minimum wage, $14 an hour in today’s dollars.  Since then, a minimum wage demand has fallen entirely from the program, leaving a regressive gap.  The minimum wage belongs at $20 an hour, combined with guaranteed full employment.

The wealth  cap must fall to $20,000,000 in today’s dollars, with a $10,000,000 limit on home prices in the U.S. and mostly lower elsewhere, where smaller sums may suffice to purchase very large estates. All larger properties require conversion to common property and administration as socialist colonies devoted to various purposes such as schools, hotels, artist and writer colonies, laboratories, social or fraternal or sororital groups, abstinence or therapeutic retreats, or political organization centers.

Over 100,000 such properties exist in the U.S. During the 2007-2008 real estate and financial collapse, Americans lost their homes at the rate of about 1,000,000 a year for 4 years. Evictions of the rich can restore stability to the lives of 60,000,000 refugees denied stable housing by the capitalist system.

Once the $20,000,000 wealth cap takes effect, the rich should have 1 year to redistribute their wealth under government supervision to prevent their evading the Wealth Cap Service auhorities. Tax revenue could then fund the government budget on ordinary terms without the need to confiscate large sums of wealth to dump into the treasury. The new government must control the boards of any charities or other organizations accepting money as part of the redistribution in compliance with the Wealth Cap.

The current party program (as I remember it, but cannot offer any documentary proof) of $320,000,000 per capitalist allows them to earn, given a 5% return on assets, $16,000,000 a year. The median annual wage in the U.S. is $30,000 and the world average annual income is $3,000. This would create a system that allows some people to earn more than 500 times the median wage in the U.S., or more than 5,000 times the world average. To allow certain people 5,000 times the income of the majority of people does not create socialism but sows the seeds of its destruction.

A wage-income cap at 100 times the world average wage would limit people to $300,000 a year, preventing exploitation of the public through unequal pay. A total income cap at $1 million per year would allow special rewards for great athletes, entertainers, inventors, and artists.

At the heart of this criticism lies a theoritical difference on the revolutionary approach to ending exploitation. Does ending private ownership of the banks end all exploitation? Does public ownership over the 100 largest factories end wage exploitation? Should the party of the revolution position itself to the right of elected governor of Louisiana Huey Long, or Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who proposed a 3% wealth tax? Why does the SEP limit tax policy to income taxes alone?

A capitalist may own a machine, a means of production, for as little as $500 or more likely $10,000 or $100,000. In order to end wage-slavery, no one should have the excess capital to hire more than a few, up to ten, people. There should not remain any incentive to deny full employment to the work force. With a class of people existing holding hundreds of million of dollars each, the government could fall under their influence, providing a strong incentive to deny access to guaranteed full employment.