Make big companies pay tax? A joke.

[Seth]

I think this just highlights the class rhetoric that some people believe in. Some people obviously view "redistribution" not as an attempt to help the poor, but as an attempt to punish the rich. I think that's paranoia.

Except it isn't. Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich, but even if he gets everything he wants, what will get collected amounts to only 8 days worth of federal government operations.

What you don't understand is that the wealthy are the goose that lays the golden egg...again and again...reliably...every single year, but Obama is planning on slaughtering the goose precisely as a short-term punishment for "the wealthy" based on his Marxist Progressive plans and intentions. If Obama simply seized all the money that the top 1 percent have, it wouldn't make a dent in his multi-trillion dollar deficit...and then the wealthy wouldn't be wealthy any more, they would be part of the dependent class and all that cash Obama stole won't begin to replace the permanent revenue stream from businesses and corporations that actually keeps the country running.

One of the biggest reasons the economy still sucks is because the wealthy (and corporations) have withdrawn their capital from the markets so as to both have reserves on which to operate when the economy once again goes into recession, and also to deny the Obamanation the tax revenues that Obama wants to use to fund his Marxist social welfare plans. No investment, no interest earnings. No interest earnings, no income. No income, no tax due. It ain't rocket science and the wealthy (and corporations) can hang on for another few years while sitting on their capital precisely to deny Obama his needed tax revenues.

So, you can slaughter the goose and have a grand celebratory meal over Obama's electoral victory while lighting cigars with $100 bills, and then be even more completely fucked than you were before, or you can feed the goose and keep it happily producing golden eggs every day on into eternity.

Obama's stupidly (though predictably) chosen the former course because his intent is not to serve the poor or the middle class, his intent is to humble the US, bring it to its economic knees, and punish it for its colonial presumptions while participating in the creation of a one-world Marxist government. What Obama doesn't understand is that he's a Marxist useful idiot to the REAL powers behind the throne: The globalist banking industry and people like George Soros, who ACTUALLY want to run the world...for their own financial benefit.

[pErvinalia]

"one-world Marxist government". You heard it here first, folks.

[Seth]

"one-world Marxist government". You heard it here first, folks.

Actually, we heard it first from Marx, then Stalin, then Mao, then a whole bunch of other Marxists through the years.

[pErvinalia]

And apparently a centre-right neoliberal president.

[Cormac]

At this point in time, to a large extent, Seth is right. Governments do have to tailor their statements and policies to keep the large scale financiers sweet.

And, incidentally, these are, for the most parts, companies that you'll never have heard of, but they control vast funds that are invested in government stock, or just loaned in some other manner. Being frozen out of these funds makes things extremely difficult for a state to stay solvent. Solvency and cashflow are everything. Economists are nearly useless. Politicians, for the most part are out of their depths in these areas.

[Cormac]

I think that people are being disingenuous in their interaction with Seth on his core point - which is that the concept of taking money from wealthier people and "transferring" it to poorer people iris a Marxist concept.

This seems to be a reasonable assertion to me, unless it can be pointed out that there are other societal roots for this concept.

It certainly seems to me to be a Marxist concept.

The concept, as described, certainly predates Marx by some measure, the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 may have established the first tax specifically for poor relief.

The levellers and various peasant revolts might have more relevance. There have always been poor laws, but they don't have the concept of "redistribution".

Maybe not stated, but logically implied, surely?
If you're taxing people, then they have money, and then some of that finds it's way to the poor... Sounds like redistribution to me, if only on a small scale...

The issue is that "redistribution of wealth implies a number of things, primarily:

1. That "wealth, and indeed, all property belongs to the state, (essentially a feudal concept).
2. That "the people" have a right, or vested interest in that wealth
3. That there is no right to private property
4. The state tolerates private ownership, only in limited circumstance.

None of this would have been accepted by people engaging in charitable activites in 1601, except insofar as the king/queen being the ultimate owner of all lands. (And in fact, the history of the development of democracy is one that traces the tension between the aristocracy and the monarch over such property rights and the limitation of regal power).

[pErvinalia]

So let me get this right... Bankers are Marxists?

[pErvinalia]

Solvency and cashflow are everything.

Not in One-World-Marxist-GovernmentTM they're not. There's no such thing as those principles in Marxism.

[ronmcd]

At this point in time, to a large extent, Seth is right.

But to a larger extent, no, no he isn't.

[PsychoSerenity]

The issue is that "redistribution of wealth implies a number of things, primarily:

1. That "wealth, and indeed, all property belongs to the state, (essentially a feudal concept).
2. That "the people" have a right, or vested interest in that wealth
3. That there is no right to private property
4. The state tolerates private ownership, only in limited circumstance.

None of this would have been accepted by people engaging in charitable activites in 1601, except insofar as the king/queen being the ultimate owner of all lands. (And in fact, the history of the development of democracy is one that traces the tension between the aristocracy and the monarch over such property rights and the limitation of regal power).

Well there is no inherent right to private property. The right to private property is only guaranteed by the state. It's the state that gives legal and enforceable protection to private property. Likewise with the right to trade and profit from capital, through laws and a legally protected currency. Those rights are only granted on condition of taxes being paid (from everyone in the system in general; but if they wanted the could legislate otherwise, then see who starts paying their taxes). What the government collects in taxes and how they spend the money raised doesn't have to be redistributive; that's a mater for democracy and should be decided purely at the ballot box, not based on who is paying for their influence.

If private property wasn't guaranteed by the state, then you'd have Seth's favourite fantasy where he defends his private property with his guns. Except he wouldn't really like the results because most people would decide to work together, and would easily take his property from him, and probably his freedom too.

[JimC]

Cormac wrote:

The issue is that "redistribution of wealth implies a number of things, primarily:

1. That "wealth, and indeed, all property belongs to the state, (essentially a feudal concept).
2. That "the people" have a right, or vested interest in that wealth
3. That there is no right to private property
4. The state tolerates private ownership, only in limited circumstance.

None of this would have been accepted by people engaging in charitable activites in 1601, except insofar as the king/queen being the ultimate owner of all lands. (And in fact, the history of the development of democracy is one that traces the tension between the aristocracy and the monarch over such property rights and the limitation of regal power).

I don't think it necessarily implies all those things at all. Most posters in this thread have agreed that taxation is an inevitable requirement for any functioning society. In a democracy, people will use the ballot box to find a government that a majority can at least cope with, including their economic policies. The people, then, have a vested interest in what the taxation revenue is spent on. Most societies will want at least a portion of that spent on supporting people who are struggling to survive. (There will always be argy-bargy over the amounts, but that's what political compromise is all about)

This very everyday system of wealth distribution happens in the majority of western democracies without anybody blinking an eyelid, and certainly has absolutely no implication that "there is no right to private property" There may well be an implication that no one has the right to unilaterally stop paying their share of taxation, but after that, they can spend what remains on hookers or good works, the choice is theirs...

[sabell]

I think that people are being disingenuous in their interaction with Seth on his core point - which is that the concept of taking money from wealthier people and "transferring" it to poorer people iris a Marxist concept.

This seems to be a reasonable assertion to me, unless it can be pointed out that there are other societal roots for this concept.

It certainly seems to me to be a Marxist concept.

The concept, as described, certainly predates Marx by some measure, the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 may have established the first tax specifically for poor relief.

The levellers and various peasant revolts might have more relevance. There have always been poor laws, but they don't have the concept of "redistribution".

Maybe not stated, but logically implied, surely?
If you're taxing people, then they have money, and then some of that finds it's way to the poor... Sounds like redistribution to me, if only on a small scale...

The issue is that "redistribution of wealth implies a number of things, primarily:

1. That "wealth, and indeed, all property belongs to the state, (essentially a feudal concept).
2. That "the people" have a right, or vested interest in that wealth
3. That there is no right to private property
4. The state tolerates private ownership, only in limited circumstance.

None of this would have been accepted by people engaging in charitable activites in 1601, except insofar as the king/queen being the ultimate owner of all lands. (And in fact, the history of the development of democracy is one that traces the tension between the aristocracy and the monarch over such property rights and the limitation of regal power).

Oddly the thing that came to mind when I read this was Adam Smith.
It could be argued that the development of early capitalism also created a tension with the aristocracy and monarchy.

Smith clearly identified that the hereditary landowners extracting rent and the monopoly privilege of credit creation extracting interest were costs to production and not costs of production. While not an argument against private property he makes the case that such profit making were anomalies amounting to a free lunch, so much so he advocated taxing these profits away, judging they were the least harmful to free trade i.e. not a consumption or income tax affecting the cost of living.

These views were generally shared by the early economists, couple that with the ongoing poor law debates, the angle or justification is provided to make the evolutionary leap, rightly or wrongly, to get from taxing away the free lunch from the inheritors of private property to considering property as belonging to the state.

[Cormac]

At this point in time, to a large extent, Seth is right.

But to a larger extent, no, no he isn't.

Are you saying that government policy is not driven by the need to maintain stable lines of credit with lenders?

Because if you are, you're wrong.

[Cormac]

Solvency and cashflow are everything.

Not in One-World-Marxist-GovernmentTM they're not. There's no such thing as those principles in Marxism.

Unfortunately for Marxism, these are unavoidable even if "money" is "abolished".

[Cormac]

The issue is that "redistribution of wealth implies a number of things, primarily:

1. That "wealth, and indeed, all property belongs to the state, (essentially a feudal concept).
2. That "the people" have a right, or vested interest in that wealth
3. That there is no right to private property
4. The state tolerates private ownership, only in limited circumstance.

None of this would have been accepted by people engaging in charitable activites in 1601, except insofar as the king/queen being the ultimate owner of all lands. (And in fact, the history of the development of democracy is one that traces the tension between the aristocracy and the monarch over such property rights and the limitation of regal power).

Well there is no inherent right to private property. The right to private property is only guaranteed by the state. It's the state that gives legal and enforceable protection to private property. Likewise with the right to trade and profit from capital, through laws and a legally protected currency. Those rights are only granted on condition of taxes being paid (from everyone in the system in general; but if they wanted the could legislate otherwise, then see who starts paying their taxes). What the government collects in taxes and how they spend the money raised doesn't have to be redistributive; that's a mater for democracy and should be decided purely at the ballot box, not based on who is paying for their influence.

If private property wasn't guaranteed by the state, then you'd have Seth's favourite fantasy where he defends his private property with his guns. Except he wouldn't really like the results because most people would decide to work together, and would easily take his property from him, and probably his freedom too.

Well, here is where we disagree. Property rights are recognised first by the people, and defence and vindication of these rights is one of the core duties imposed upon the state by the people, along with other obligations, for example, provision of education, health, transport, policing, defence, and so on. The people create the state for this purpose, and allow it to continue to exist for so long as it stays within the boundaries of what the people permit.

There is therefore a balancing that has to be done by the state in exercising the authority delegated to it by the people, when carrying out its obligatory duties. Any excess or failure in any particular area will lead to loss of confidence in the state, and can potentially lead to its overthrow.

That is apart from the obvious economic idiocy of over-taxation (a.k.a. killing the golden goose).