Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
"The rich should pay their fair share because it's the moral thing to do." How does one begin to evaluate a statement like that? Who are the "rich," what constitutes a "fair share," and in which terms does the person making such an assertion define morality?
Jonathan Cohn, no doubt an earnest liberal, explains what he believes is the moral case for raising taxes on the rich in The New Republic:
Almost by definition, people who are successful have benefited from some measure of good fortune. That fortune can take the form of obvious, material advantages--like access to advanced technology and good schools. Or it can take the form of more subtle, but still important, assets for moving forward in life--like good health or loving parents.
Yes, a good work ethic will take you far....But I’ve met many people at the bottom of the income ladder who work just as hard, for far less reward. Between 1980 and 2005, the richest 1 percent of Americans got more than four-fifths of the country's income gains. Does anybody seriously believe that the other 99 percent didn't deserve to take home a much larger share?
The other...flaw in the conservative argument is that it fails to acknowledge the debt wealthy people owe to society...[T]he proverbial self-made man is not exactly self-made. He (or she) is benefiting from the accomplishments of past generations, not to mention the support of public institutions (like the National Science Foundation) and services (like schools) that foster innovation and lead to greater productivity.
This is a supremely incoherent argument, but if you are so much as acquainted with a liberal, you've heard it before: Since some people are lucky and others are unlucky, the government is morally required to seize the assets of the lucky to help compensate the unlucky for their misfortune. Additionally, the lucky owe more to society than the unlucky do because they benefited more from it for some unknown reason.
A system of morality that considers the theft of a neighbor's property as righteous behavior should be rejected on its face.
- Comment (43)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
Aug '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
It is certainly is the sweetest suggestion I have ever heard for the seizure of private property. Excuse me,milord, would you please hold your cravat as we chop your head off ? Pretty please......swoosh !!
Everything up to the "swoosh" was well-mannered.
Luck is pretty relative too. If I had ten beautiful, talented children I would consider myself very lucky. But my neighbor has two kids, one 14 yr girl pregnant and the 17 yr boy is in jail again. By the logic exhibited, does that audience feel I should send over two of my children to the neighbor's house ?
Jul '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
I posted this in the Liberal Bigotry Thread, but it also works here...
.
When someone takes 100% of the results of your labor that is called Slavery.
So what does one call it when they take 90%, leaving you with only 10%?
Mostly Slavery?
At what point does enslavement end and freedom begin?
50%?
35%?
God asks for 10% of the fruits of you labor, government asks for 50%.
Does that make government 5 times better than God?
.
So liberals now believe that partial Slavery is Moral as long is it's the right people who are enslaved?
Sep '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
You can't legislate morality!
;-)
Aug '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
So why do liberals favor government helping the poor instead of having private charities do it? Simple; it all comes down to power. They can't control the private charities who may not take care of the poor in an "enlightened" liberal manner. They need to do it via big government because nobody else is smart enough.
BTW, the local rich boy idiot liberal Mark Dayton - who is running for governor - defines rich as any single person making more than $100k and any married couple making more than $150k. Unfortunately Minnesotans are just gullible enough to elect him (see Al Franken)
May '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
Leaving Cohn's fatuous tautologies and flawed logic aside, I suspect the public is largely unaware of how great a tax burden "the rich" already face. This disproportion would exist even under a flat tax, but it's absurd under a increasingly "progressive" tax structure.
May '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
Contra Cohn, I would argue the following. In a free market, those who satisfy consumer demand best - the entrepreneurs - will earn the most profits. Those entrepreneurs in a free market who have the most money tend to be the most productive.
In addition to this, entrepreneurs use the bulk of their profits to enhance their productivity, e.g., by acquiring additional factors of production (land, labour, and capital goods). They in turn use these factors to satisfy additional consumer demand. So, higher taxes upon these rich entrepreneurs will reduce their ability to satisfy consumer demand. Unlike the wealthy owing society, society actually owes a debt to the wealthy.
Furthermore, those who are inadvertently wealthy without having contributed to their wealth (e.g., young people who inherit tremendous amounts of wealth) must become productive to maintain such wealth. Inheritors of wealth who are unproductive will lose their wealth (riches to rages stories are as common as rags to riches stories).
Jun '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
I'll try to make the moral case that always seems to elude liberals. Capitalism is a good system for supplying the most to the many, but it has its flaws. The most obvious problem is that wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of a relatively few. Is that necessarily a bad thing? It certainly can be if plutocrats are allowed to buy legislation and use their wealth to subvert democracy. George Soros comes to mind.
The flip side to the problem of social stratification based on wealth is that it allows for progressive taxation. The wealthy can afford to pay more as a percentage because they have more. Is that necessarily a fair and moral argument? What is moral about a progressive tax code? Only this: we live in a society based on consensual government. Through our representatives we have established progressive taxation as policy. If you want to do business here, be prepared to pay the required taxes. If you don't like it, you have the option to go elsewhere. And that's exactly what capital does when the rates become unreasonable. It's called capital flight. And that's "fair" by any definition.
May '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
"With great power comes great responsibility." Yes, it's a quote from Spiderman, but we all know it's true. I mention it because it shows how the liberal's moral compass is just off... not completely broken.
That's how evil works. It rarely comes at us head-on like a monster. Poison is its usual form. Evil takes something good and corrupts it into something that kills despite its residual beauty and truth.
Wealth does come with proportional responsibility, but liberals fail to balance that understanding with respect for the free will of individuals... not only to give or not give as they please, but to give how and when they please. Liberals also fail to recognize business creation and development as moral endeavors.
Aug '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
Yes, Mr Cohn, success is usually the result of hard work and luck.
True, Mr Cohn, there is no such thing as a totally self-made man.
But how do you think you're going to help the poor by punishing productivity?
The successful man earns his living not because he "deserves" better than the rest of us in some cosmic sense, but because he is productive. And he doesn't let his "surfeit" of productivity just sit there and rot; rather, he puts it to work, creating opportunities for others. But if you punish productivity by confiscating what you consider "excessive", he won't create as many opportunities for others: How does this help, rather than hurt, those who had fewer opportunities to begin with?
Who made you, Mr Cohn, the final arbiter of what your fellow men "deserve", anyhow?
And what, for that matter, makes you think we can all realistically get what we "deserve" in this life?
The best way a free man can pay his "debt to society" is by being productive, not by being taxed.
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
If there is a moral duty to give more of your income to the government, then that duty exists whether or not the government has recognized it. For rich liberals who find themselves morally compelled to hand over more of their income than the taxman requires, there is a perfectly legal procedure for making gifts to the federal government, right here: http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html
I wonder: have any members of the limousine liberal set availed themselves of this nifty program?
May '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
When's the last time a rich Liberal gave more to the IRS come 04/15?
May '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
Adam, great minds and all that.
Jun '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
There is arguably a moral act of charity when Group A gives to Group C. When Group A and Group C decide that Group B must give to Group C which group is a moral actor?
Everyone has probably seen A Parable: The Tenth Man WFB/ National Review at some time. Its a lesson never learned as we are seeing with the battle over extending the Bush tax-cuts to "the wealthy."
Edited on Oct 18, 2010 at 1:14pmAug '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
I'm not sure we can say with confidence that wealth concentrated in the hands of a few is a problem of capitalism itself, because I am not sure we've ever had capitalism pure enough to test whether this is true.
Even societies called "free-market" have fallen quite short of what a free market would really be (and by this, I don't mean free from Rule of Law, which is necessary for markets to work, but free of government favoritism, etc).
For example, one of the oldest political games in the world is for businessmen to talk their government into shutting down competition in their industry once they've made their pile. Or bailouts when they're failing. Etc. These policies might be labeled "pro-business" (though a more accurate label would be "pro existing business at the expense of future business"), but they aren't capitalist (I'm using capitalist and free-market interchangeably, BTW).
Capitalism, alas, needs protection from the businessmen as well as the politicians.
Edited on Oct 18, 2010 at 1:12pmSep '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
I have seen this discussion in various forms ad infinitum. It misses the point. Most of our taxes are flat rate, sales, property, corporate (which is passed through to each individual) excise, payroll etc. Income taxes are progressive. Federal government spending is approximately 24% of GDP. If it were 12% would we be having this discussion? Would we even have an income tax?
May '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
Aaron, actually its a bastardized quote from Churchill's speech at Harvard in 1943.
"The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilised world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes."
On topic, liberals love the "morality" of the tax code because they have abandoned the precepts of religion. Where religion tells us it is our individual responsibility to care for one another, they abdicate their responsibility to others through taxation and government programs. That's why the charitable giving of Democrats is so pathetic.
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
liberal jim: I have seen this discussion in various forms ad infinitum. It misses the point. Most of our taxes are flat rate, sales, property, corporate (which is passed through to each individual) excise, payroll etc. Income taxes are progressive. Federal government spending is approximately 24% of GDP. If it were 12% would we be having this discussion? Would we even have an income tax? · Oct 18 at 1:11pm
I'm not so sure it misses the point. For many liberals, the "moral" argument in support of higher taxes mirrors their argument for higher spending. Two sides of the same coin. Conservatives, in order to win the argument, must separately lay out compelling reasons both for why high levels of taxation and high levels of spending are undesirable.
Jul '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
EJHill
Aaron, actually its a bastardized quote from Churchill's speech at Harvard in 1943.
Actually it is a Variant upon Luke 12:48 - From those to whom much is given, much is expected.
Jun '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
Probably not -- and if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his butt. Is your argument that we should be concerned with overall rate of spending instead of progressivity of the income tax? If so, I agree, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Crossed with Diane's #17 which was a much more cogent argument
Edited on Oct 18, 2010 at 1:33pmSep '10
Re: Liberals Want to Soak the Rich Because It's Moral
While I’m irritated: In any 20 year period fully 60% of the richest 1% drop out of this category. So making the argument that the rich keep getting richer is false. High tax rates on any group tend to depress economic mobility. The rich don’t actually pay the higher rate; they become increasingly concerned with tax avoidance instead of risk taking. If the rich don’t take risks they don’t loose their wealth and economic activity is depressed ensuring that not only will the rich stay rich the poor will get poorer. So much for higher tax rates.