[drkycsqj] Global effects of income redistribution

One of the primary causes of income inequality has been globalization (most dramatically seen in loss of manufacturing jobs).  Evaluate proposed methods for reducing income inequality keeping globalization in mind: everything is connected.

I worry that straightforward "traditional" methods that may have worked before will not work this time because of international effects. For example, higher taxes on high income individuals and corporations might fail with those entities simply moving internationally to somewhere where they can keep more of their income.  Or equivalently, foreign firms not encumbered by U.S. tax code will succeed at the cost of U.S. firms failing, a zero-sum game.  Unfavorable tax and tariff laws might cause a foreign firm simply not to do business in the U.S., seeing enough global demand elsewhere, relegating the U.S. to a forgotten backwater of a nation (again, as certainly was the U.S. before WWI).

These effects may take a decade or generation to be seen.  A wealthy family isn't going to relocate to (say) Dubai on a whim, but over a long period, a new U.S. income redistribution policy may induce social, economic, and political forces in some foreign land to make attractive such a move, e.g., a town full of other American ex-patriots.

Perhaps not an exact analogy, but state tax codes have caused a great many U.S. corporations to flee to Delaware.