i don't think that's a fair characterization. i think if asked to answer "which is more progressive?" i think most people would say wealth taxes. and it's a great point that high income taxes without wealth taxes fix old winners rather than even the score. 1/

nevertheless, income taxes already exist. changing levels and brackets is a far easier lift than developing and imposing a new tax and necessarily complex enforcement mechanisms. so "progressives" tend to talk about income taxes more, as lower hanging fruit. 2/

plus marginal income tax rates alone have had and would have virtuous effects. 3/

in particular, the very wealthy, while not expropriated by income taxes, lose their capacity and so motivation to engage in destructive rat races to get richer and richer. 4/

instead, they allow income to collect in firms as retained earnings, where other stakeholders (workers, customers, vendors) compete for payouts with shareholders whose heart isn't in the fight, given the tax rate they'd pay. 5/

in other words, taxing payouts to the already wealthy is a powerful tool in favor of a better predistribution, even if it cannot alone rid us of our Elons. 6/

not getting rid of our Elons, though, is better than breeding more of them in the name of not locking in current winners. that Elon and Jeff were able to knock Bill off his pedestal never for a moment helped the rest of us. 7/

of course what we really want is both high marginal income tax rates, and wealth taxes to ensure no one can hold wealth of more than ~$100M over anything but a brief period. /fin