Over at the clown repository, Michael Medved has deigned to inform the mass of Americans why they, who do are not rich, should oppose tax hikes for the rich
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Of all the illogical, ahistorical, ignorant and just plain stupid arguments I've heard made in political arguments, and of course there isn't any shortage of any of that on any side, that has to be the most baffling. I'm assuming that neither Roberts nor Medved has actually been forced into hard phyical labor, endured corporal punishment for the slightest or no infraction, been branded as property or castrated/crippled for docility, raped, had their children sold away or killed outright, etc. etc. etc.. What are their ideas about what slavery actually meant for the enslaved? Where did they come up with these notions?
I wish I could find those old Paul Craig Roberts columns where he lays out the argument; they're really things of beauty. Basically, he argues that slavery=taxation in that they're both unfair exploitations of the products of one's labor (and argument, curiously, he never makes about capitalism as a whole), but taxation is worse because while a slave could always escape to freedom, there's nowhere in the world you can go to escape taxation or being imprisoned for avoiding taxation in your home country.
He sorta glosses over little details like how slaves could be murdered, raped, beaten and sold as property, as opposed to merely being fined, and how the living conditions of a slave were a million billion times worse than those of, say, Donald Trump.
he argues that slavery=taxation in that they're both unfair exploitations of the products of one's labor (and argument, curiously, he never makes about capitalism as a whole)
Well, JEEZ, they're TOTALLY different things, y'see!
'Cause if you don't pay your taxes it's against the law, and the men with guns will come and FORCE the hard-earned pazools out of your sorry hide.
While there's NO legal consequence in refusing to sell your labor to the lowest bidder - that's a FREE CHOICE and shiny freedom and Libertarianism and all that. Of course, there's the slight problem with, you know, starving to death in a cardboard box in an alleyway, but hell, you get to choose to do that!
Eat the Frank Richfeisty_robotJanuary 10 2007, 21:22:17 UTC
[The claim is] that rich people create jobs and stimulate development, while all stupid poor people do with their money is spend it.
The extra high-larious part of this implicit claim is that, to the extent it is true, it is actually a sound argument for progressive taxation. The reasoning is that wealthy people already own the stuff they need (tv, washer/dryer, car, house) and poor people, by definition, don't. Thus, poor people need to spend all their money buying goods and services, which is good for the economy, while rich people will spend (relatively) much less and therefore can be taxed at a higher rate.
Or something like that. It was around this point that the really hot chick dropped out of my econ class, so I quit going.
Re: Eat the Frank RichludickidJanuary 10 2007, 23:02:37 UTC
Yep. It's a totally disengenous argument on all levels; a basic understanding of the economy of scale suggests that millions of poor people spending money is better for production than hundreds of rich people, and, of course, rich people tend to spend their money on luxury items, which form a much smaller economic base than ordinary consumer goods. And Medved, as people often do, says that rich people "don't just hide their money in a mattress", but in fact, that's pretty much what they do: they invest in unproductive financial instruments, they save, they conceal assets (to avoid taxation), and they do their best to forestall spending. They don't get rich by spending all their money, after all. It's just 100% bullshit.
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Of all the illogical, ahistorical, ignorant and just plain stupid arguments I've heard made in political arguments, and of course there isn't any shortage of any of that on any side, that has to be the most baffling. I'm assuming that neither Roberts nor Medved has actually been forced into hard phyical labor, endured corporal punishment for the slightest or no infraction, been branded as property or castrated/crippled for docility, raped, had their children sold away or killed outright, etc. etc. etc.. What are their ideas about what slavery actually meant for the enslaved? Where did they come up with these notions?
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He sorta glosses over little details like how slaves could be murdered, raped, beaten and sold as property, as opposed to merely being fined, and how the living conditions of a slave were a million billion times worse than those of, say, Donald Trump.
Reply
Well, JEEZ, they're TOTALLY different things, y'see!
'Cause if you don't pay your taxes it's against the law, and the men with guns will come and FORCE the hard-earned pazools out of your sorry hide.
While there's NO legal consequence in refusing to sell your labor to the lowest bidder - that's a FREE CHOICE and shiny freedom and Libertarianism and all that. Of course, there's the slight problem with, you know, starving to death in a cardboard box in an alleyway, but hell, you get to choose to do that!
Reply
The extra high-larious part of this implicit claim is that, to the extent it is true, it is actually a sound argument for progressive taxation. The reasoning is that wealthy people already own the stuff they need (tv, washer/dryer, car, house) and poor people, by definition, don't. Thus, poor people need to spend all their money buying goods and services, which is good for the economy, while rich people will spend (relatively) much less and therefore can be taxed at a higher rate.
Or something like that. It was around this point that the really hot chick dropped out of my econ class, so I quit going.
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