France General Discussion II: Living under Marxism

[MrMittens]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, that's already a huge weakness in your vision of what "justice" is. Because, from your statements, I gather that a fair tax system is one in which everybody pays the same share. Deviating from that rule means "taking money from someone to give it to someone else" as you said before. If this is the only just system - if, in other words, this is a moral rule - it ought to be universally true (morality is made of categorical imperatives and suffers no exception clauses). So, the possibilities are two. Either your idea of taxation is morally right, which means that it is also morally right to ask a starving man to give up 10% of his income. Or it is not. This doesn't mean it is morally wrong of course, there can be other reasons to support it. But if you yourself admit that your system doesn't work in its pure form, if you admit that there can be an exception, then you cannot, on a moral ground, object to further exceptions, even if enough "exception" will eventually make the system progressive.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yeah, I see. But then you have to define what are one's "basic needs". And if you have an extensive definition of what one's "basic needs" are (including things like education, health care, etc.), then the number of people who would be excluded from taxation - and thus the flat rate imposed to the others - would be so high, that the resulting tax system wouldn't be much different from progressive taxation, just rendered completely silly by the fact you would go from paying nothing to paying an enormous amount of taxes.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, these are countries exiting from communist regimes, so, in terms of income inequalities, the started off very low. Still, if you search for a correlation between flat taxation and income inequality, I'm confident that the result will be clear.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You might not like it, but taking someone else's money and giving it to someone is part of the State's prerogatives. The collective's right to socialize and redistribute a certain part of one's wealth is broadly accepted as a part of the social contract in all modern democracies. It is fairly understandable that you think your money belongs to you and not to your neighbor, but as long as you live in a society and accept its common rule, you also have to accept that such society, through a democratic vote, can oblige you to contribute financially for the society's greater good. There is absolutely nothing unfair with that. Especially considering how much every one of us (and the wealthier in particular) owe to the society and how screwed they would be without it.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, we've got a huge problem here. Because if wealth doesn't equal merit, this means some people have more than they deserve, and some have less. You can say they have earned their money, but have they earned it by working hard and doing something good for the collective? Have they earned it by inheritance? Have they earned it because they got help from people in a position of power/influence? Have they earned it by gambling (which is what the stock market is about, after all)? Have they earned it by tricking people? If there are so many ways to earn wealth that are unfair and/or detrimental to the greater number, why is the right to enjoy what you earned so sacred?

It's not like, even if wealth equaled merit, progressive taxation would be unfair: after all, the fact you are successful doesn't mean you don't have a moral duty to help those who didn't succeed like you. But the way reality work, and the way money is so often unfairly earn, makes your moral stance further absurd.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Do you realize that, in all countries which substantial welfare states, the very poor don't pay taxes anyways? Do you know many serious countries where, say, the bottom 5% is taxed? I might be wrong, but I highly doubt it's the case. So your plan is, let's stop taxing the poor who aren't taxed anyways, but in exchange, let's shut down the programs aimed to help them. I'm sure they'll like your idea.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, indeed, please let me laugh. A theory which has been put in place for 30 years now and never, ever worked (to be more specific, it produced short-lived bounces followed by huge recessions which canceled all benefits) ought to be laughed at. Or at least it would be laughed at if it hadn't been such a tragedy for mankind, steadily eroding the fruits of decades of social progress and bringing us back to the 19th century.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

By what, your trickle-down magic? Sure, that's why the median income in the US today is the same as it was back in the 1970s, after years of Reaganomics and tax cuts of all kinds for the wealthy. The same, despite all the growth in the overall wealth. In which hands do you think all that growth ended up? Seriously, it would be nice to at least acknowledge basic realities.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, I notice that none of them (tax heavens aside) is a developed western country. This might be indicative of something... If your role model for a country is Czech Republic, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia or Andorra, I would guess something is wrong with your principles.

I'll make a point on your criticisms of the flat tax.  Flat Taxes are more than about economics, a Flat Tax is about morality. It is not moral for someone to have to pay 75% of their income (as I'm guessing you support) just for the 'crime' of being rich. The politics of jealousy has never worked economically, but neither I believe has it ever stood up from a moral viewpoint. The idea 'he has more than me, he must be brought down to my level' is just what is wrong with left-wing thinking on the economy, as opposed to right-wing thinking which suggests 'he has more than me, how can I get to his level'. Hopefully you can guess which is more positive. A flat tax is a perfectly moral tax to adopt, as if all are equal (again a touchstone of the left) surely they should be equal in tax as well.

Also with your criticisms of 'trickle-down', you seem to forget that what came before, attempts to 'guide' the economy as well as priming the pump with excessive government spending, failed dismally in the 1970's, if it could ever be said to have worked. Then of course we have the planned economy. Hopefully that has been totally discredited and will never be tried again. Your criticisms of trickle down as wiping out all the gains of growth is absurd. In 2012, most people have a far higher standard of living than they did in 1972, this supposed 'golden era' of social solidarity and progress.

[MrMittens]

I'll make a point on your criticisms of the flat tax.  Flat Taxes are more than about economics, a Flat Tax is about morality. It is not moral for someone to have to pay 75% of their income (as I'm guessing you support) just for the 'crime' of being rich. The politics of jealousy has never worked economically, but neither I believe has it ever stood up from a moral viewpoint. The idea 'he has more than me, he must be brought down to my level' is just what is wrong with left-wing thinking on the economy, as opposed to right-wing thinking which suggests 'he has more than me, how can I get to his level'. Hopefully you can guess which is more positive. A flat tax is a perfectly moral tax to adopt, as if all are equal (again a touchstone of the left) surely they should be equal in tax as well.

I just made this point in another thread: If you accept that your pretax income is rightfully yours, any level of taxation will seem unjust. But your pretax income isn't the correct moral baseline from which to base this kind of debate because you don't really own anything except what is protected through laws made and enforced by the state.

Yes but we're not living in the world of philosophical debates on the nature of money. We're talking about bread and butter issues here, I believe if someone recieves a pay-packet for a days work done, then frankly that is their money.

A flat tax is a perfectly moral tax to adopt, as if all are equal (again a touchstone of the left) surely they should be equal in tax as well.

Well all isn't equal - not in the least - and so your equal taxation doesn't remotely apply in our disgustingly unequal societies. Thankfully we have progressive taxation to readdress that to varying degrees.

Your criticisms of trickle down as wiping out all the gains of growth is absurd. In 2012, most people have a far higher standard of living than they did in 1972, this supposed 'golden era' of social solidarity and progress.

Where is your evidence for that? In Britain we've seen the acceptance of significant levels of unemployment, alongside the disappearance of pensions, affordable homing, regulated rents, decent - and rising - wages, affordable and subsidised transport and higher education (with the need for both having risen exponentially). That's the tangible stuff. Other important losses are the belief you'll be bringing up your children into a better future, you're guaranteed a job if you look for one, the belief that if you work hard enough throughout your life you're entitled to a comfortable retirement and that workers have enough strength that you don't have to accept every one of the bosses demands.

To answer your first point, what exactly have the rich done wrong in order to merit losing 75% of their income, in order to simply give it to the poor, who may or may not be deserving people.

Your second point, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think unemployment has passed 12% in the UK since the 1930's. A significant level of unemployment is something like 25-30% out of work. The current unemployment rate is 7.9% I think. Most of the rest of what you say is simply fantasy economics as:

a)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The Government doesn't have the power to keep wages at 'decent - and - rising' levels, unless you live in a command economy. The government's attempts to 'guide' the economy as you seem to be suggesting here are doomed to failure.

b)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

People have had this belief for most of the period between the early 80's and 2008. This loss of belief that your children would have a better future was widespread in the 1970's, in fact so was the belief that western society was on the edge of collapse. Again your belief that people should be 'guaranteed a job if you look for one' is only one that can be achieved by the government taking control and micromanaging the economy. This, 'workers have enough strength that you don't have to accept every one of the bosses demands' is nonsense, its this kind of militant attitude that is the reason for the collapse of western manufacturing not the 'evil policies' of Thatcher and Reagan.