On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 Ellen Frank wrote: > Look, my students are mostly liberal-democrats in their political > sympathies and mostly middle to lower-middle class in socio-economic > status. And when I ask them to do a debate on progressive taxation they > cannot defend it. The anti-side always wins, hands down. [What is the > best way to make this case in terms an American can understand and > accept without having to entirely remake their frame of reference]?
I've been thinking about in the back of my mind for a few weeks and I think today I accidentally hit on the answer in the midst with a libertarian friend: you have to tell that the presumption that society and the economy could themselves without a government is nonsense. They are all indispensable and inseparable parts of one system. Abolish the American government, and you get a big Somalia -- in which, among other things, none of us would be anywhere near as rich. So the argument is: - Modern civilization, for all its flaws is something worth paying for. - It is worth more to the rich than to the rest of us, because they profit more from it. - Naturally it is only just that they should contribute more to its upkeep because they get more out of it. They have more of the fruits from this society from which to contribute, and they have lose for should it be taken away. They should be grateful than the rest of us for the privilege of living here. In other contexts, for example on this list, we usually dwell on how relatively uncivilized the US government is and how rich people don't pay nearly enough (with which I fully agree). But those take off points are only possible because we already agree with each other on a whole host of other heterodox points. The whole goal of Ellen's argumentational quest is too reach a bedrock that holds true for an average American who doesn't buy or understand any of those other points yet. And I'm putting forth that that bedrock is: it's a lot better to live in America as it is than it is to live in Somalia -- Somalia being rhetorical synechdoche for in a war of all against all. I think that's something an average orthodox American would have a hard time denying. In that context, it is becomes absurd for a Ken Lay to say the system that made his earnings possible is worth nothing to him, a pure dead loss. Like we should abolish government because he'd make just as much in a big Somalia. In short, what all of us make in the private sector is an indirect benefit from the government that makes that private sector possible, without which it could not exist. If they still disagree, tell them to find you a country in the world where there is no government and where everything is peachy. Or alternatively, a modern country where they could become more rich more easily and more safely than in the US and pay less for the privilege. There ain't. (Furthermore, we could charge them twice as much, and that'd still be true. Voila: a market clearing argument for raising taxes on the rich :o) The nice thing about this approach is that it not only establishes the case for progressive taxation, but also that the market isn't possible without the government, both in gross and en detail -- that advanced, productive markets aren't possible without modern extensive states. Which is both a deep point and a useful starting point for many other aspects of teaching political economy. Michael
