Something I don't understand that is sure to get me flamed

[tim]

So there's this idea that if we increase taxes on the rich, then rich people will stop working so hard (that the rich work hard is already questionable, but let's go with it) and, I don't know, stop producing all the social goods that rich people produce.

I mean, I think it would be great if just increasing taxes, by, say, 2% on household income above $500,000/year would make some of those high earners say, "Goshdarnit, it's not worth it for me to earn this much money if the government is just going to take it away. I better get a job teaching in an inner-city elementary school instead, brb." But somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.

Is it *really* that easy to stop people from being greedy? I'm not sure greed would deserve its deadly-sin status if it was that easy to eradicate.

And while I'm at it, what's up with accusations of "class warfare"? Rich people have been waging war on everyone else since, oh, whenever it was that some people started being rich. (In fact, that's how you get rich in the first place.) The rest of it is just class self-defense.

Comments

[eriktrips]

is that the reasoning? I just thought that rich people don't have to pay their debt to society because they control the government, especially the federal government. I didn't even realize there was a rationale behind it, but I guess that they have to use something so that the poor slobs who will always be poor will keep supporting the rich who have no intention of ever doing anything good for the poor slobs. I suppose if someone who really does work hard thinks that taxing earnings based on investments and interest and other types of nonwork is actually an assault on Hard-Working People, then they will continue to let those with way more money than they will ever have make sure that they will continue never to have it nor any sort of safety net should they lose their jobs.

it's all propaganda to me. I mean, it's all propaganda, left and right, but the right is motivated by greed almost exclusively, except when they are motivated by morality, except when morality somehow gets in bed with greed, which is where we get things like the prosperity gospel. "class warfare" I think is a term that the right borrows from Marxist writings in order to try to make people think that defending their class interests is the same as believing in communism--which maybe it is, and maybe that's not such a bad thing, but I think they are counting on "us" not thinking critically about any of that. personally I think time is past due for class warfare. when I first heard the phrase being used to preempt discussion I thought "but wait--class warfare is precisely what we need!!"

I guess I am not "mainstream."

[tim]

There really, really is a popular argument that if you raise taxes, people will just stop working, or will move someplace that has lower taxes. You'd think that if the latter were true that there'd be a huge exodus from western Europe to the US over the past 50 years. And you'd wonder how it is that people can just "stop working" unless they're already filthy rich. But that's the argument.

I most recently encountered "class warfare" on the cover of one of our local weeklies, but since said newspaper is dedicated mostly to bashing the mayor for no particularly discernible reason, I tend not to read beyond the cover.

[etb]

You'd think that if the latter were true that there'd be a huge exodus from western Europe to the US over the past 50 years.

I don't think so; there are plenty of reasons (cultural, linguistic, nationalistic) why Western Europeans wouldn't want to just up and move to the US. You might be able to make the point with English Canada and the US, though.