Buying Civilization
But how to "deliver a minimum level of existance to all"?*
I think that's the crux, actually. I don't think that I mind people's being rich, not even fabulously wealthy — it's all part of the American dream, although most of the wealthy are euro-style old-money wealthy. But then, I don't buy into the argument that the poor are "deserving", because they won't get off their fat asses and work; I don't agree that being poor is a moral failing. I believe I thought this way even before my current 3-year-plus stint at unemployment, which might well have had the power to convince me that there's more than just my personal motivation and work ethic involved. I'm still quite creative and unusually productive, but yet to find a way to generate income from my productivity.
Twenty years ago, I was more of the flat-tax persuasion, because it seemed logically fair to me. I got older and began shifting towards progressive taxation, which I had previously reviled. I don't think I have a short explanation for that shift, alas. Somehow, the "self-evident" criticism that progressive taxation is just hidden income redistribution became its desirable feature.
From where I am at now, I've centered my reflections around the idea that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization". Some are able to buy more civilization than others and I seem to be tipping ever more towards Marxism, believing that — despite the wealthy's notion that they made all their money themselves — their wealth is really (at its simplistic root) the result of exploiting the worker. The wealthy like to think that they are independent noble savages, but they are not; they are imbedded in a socially constructed economy to which they implicitly owe more than they acknowledge.
But, my radical notions are not all unbridled rage directed towards anyone who has more money than I do (which is a pretty large group at the moment!). During the most recent "debate" about an approach to a national health plan during the Clinton presidency, I concluded that universal (American) health care was something we should do because it was a good idea and, as a nation, we could afford it.
I guess, in other words, I had decided that universal health care was a piece of civilization that was worth buying. I think it's silly and unproductive to have libertarian-style arguments over whether taxation is theft at the point of a mob-controlled gun, because "do you support higher taxes" as an isolated principle is so clearly a strawman that anyone would set fire to.
There are things that we, as a society, can choose to do together that acknowledge our mutual dependencies — none of us has created our modern, technology-dependent lifestyle on our own, and none of us pays our own way without reference to others. Most noticably, we can choose to do some things that none of us individually or in smaller groups could accomplish alone. In other words, we can choose to buy some civilization, and choosing which bits of civilization to buy, I think, is the more productive discussion to have.
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*This started out as a comment to an article at S.W.Anderson's "Oh!pinion" blog, "Look at who’s ‘helping’ working poor, small business", and then it grew, and I decided to put it here, too. The discuss had moved towards tax policy and the divide between the wealthy and the poor, which led to the opening rhetorical sentence.