Iz Man wrote:got tonkaed wrote:not to turn this into a capitalism thread....but considering the proportion of wealth that the top percent has, should we really be all that surprised that they have to pay as much as they do in taxes?
It's not surprising given the progressive tax system that we have.
My point is in rebuttal of the standard "class envy" tactics employed by most leftists. That being:
"The rich need to pay more in taxes"
"Tax cuts only benefit the rich"
etc.
The answer to economic problems is not to throw more money at it by taking it from the wealthy.
Education is a prime example. More and more money gets dumped into education with little if any results as compared to the dollars being spent on it. The answer lies in holding those that are teaching, and those that are taught, to higher standards;
and make sure that these standards are met.
Lowering taxes allows more money in the pockets of consumers. What then do they do with this money? They spend it and they invest it. This is good for the economy, not bad.
Don't you want more money in your paycheck?
on a practical level i certainly agree with you. I bitch as much as the next guy when i see the pittance that is left to me after the gov gets what they have coming to them. Then i realize wait...i dont have that much money if the gov didnt take anything out anyway....so goes crappy summer jobs.
But actually for funs sake, ill venture that from a critcial view of capitalism i greatly disagree with you. well maybe not greatly but i do nonetheless.
Essentially one of the errors that Marx may have made, in his analysis on capitalism, is he did not understand the mitigating influence on class struggle that the state could have. Its hard to fault him for this, since states were still kinda a new and forming concept, or at least they werent very strong, but nevertheless, Marx doesnt really account for the fact that the state can help ease some of the burden on the lower classes.
How will they do this without the taxes...Essentially marx would argue you probably arent going to get a revolution if the basic necesities and infrastructure needs arent priced out of the hands of the lower classes, which has proven to be a legitamate fear in states that are struggling against some of the globalization policies of the IMF/World bank (think the food and water riots which have rifled through latin america). Marx forsaw this possibly, but did not forsee the idea that if states continued to tax, the burden would fall less on the capitalist class (at least up until now, when it theorectically may begin to revert anyway) and thus we have less of a need to throw off those tricky chains.
Also a bit on wage theory. Marx, as i paraphrase him here, implied that the principle advantage that the capitalist had over the wage worker was the simple fact that the capitalist reinvested the profit in labor power from the worker into his business, whereas the worker was required to spend his wage in order to sustain himself and therefore was required to continue returning to work. In time and i suppose under the right light this is the basis of the wage slave type of mentality. Truth be told, i do wonder on some level, whether or not more taxes, (and lets face im poor, so why not take them from the rich eh?) isnt a terrible thing in order to prevent the burden from falling on the capitalist class, in which case i do not see long term good in store for the general population.
And in a completely semi unrelated note, we need fairly high taxes for that universal health care system that was due about a decade ago...
