People don't mind paying taxes when they are getting something in return. Paying for unlimited bombs to be dropped on Iran, or to bail out banks, police militarization, implementing mass surveillance, building concentration camps, and variously and lavishly subsidizing the activities of huge corporations is not exactly what people want to see. They don't want to pay for that, other than maybe 2 in 10 who are actual fascist idiots. Getting to see a doctor and receive treatment, having decent infrastructure and education, having an unpolluted environment, food that isn't poisoned with chemicals and additives - these would be things worth paying taxes for, and you would not hear a lot of complaining about taxes from the mass of the population if we had these things in good working order. Of course you also need a decent job with decent pay to pay the taxes. The rich want none of this, because of course if the government sucks and does nothing of value for you, you will see no value in paying taxes, and accept the strangulation of government as a good thing. You will not ask anything from the government, because the government is bad and can only do bad things. It's a neat trick. They can "privatize" all of their institutions of oppression by stealing any tax money there is and taking it for themselves, a handy shortcut to increase the bottom line... and then of course we "can't afford" any social betterment programs, which of course are also Socialism (!) or Holy Shit... not that! ... Yes, Communism! Then, by god, all freedom is lost! By giving us shitty government that no one can feel very good about supporting, their argument that government is bad is proven right, and the circle shall remain unbroken.
I came to the comments section on this post specifically to push back against the idea that "[n]ormal people don’t like paying taxes". The word "like" is too simple here. Yes, most people probably would prefer to pay lower taxes *all else being equal*, but you don't have to be a genius to understand that all else would *not* be equal.
I lived in notoriously high-tax Sweden for a couple of years during the 1990s. People I worked with there did complain a bit about how high their taxes were, but only a bit - to an American, remarkably little. They generally understood that their taxes bought them many things Americans have to pay for themselves or go without: health care, child care, education, old-age pensions, etc. These middle-class Swedes - and Sweden is the most solidly middle-class society I've ever seen - understood the "welfare state" as *theirs*, not just a "safety net" for the "less fortunate". It was all very Unamerican, in the best way.
If the state is well managed, providing services of good quality that clearly benefit most of the public, and - importantly - if sociopaths are prevented from promulgating disinformation about those services*, then it isn't implausible that most people will accept paying taxes as a fair exchange, particularly if efforts are made to help them comprehend that things like health care and education are public goods from which everyone benefits, not just private benefits**.
*E.g., assertions that services are "entitlements" being exploited by "welfare queens" and "young bucks" (code for "uppity" young Black men, as Ronald Reagan doubtless knew and intended with malice when he used the expression).
**Even ostensibly liberal Americans frequently make the mistake of talking about health care and education as if they were just private benefits. For example, Barack Obama declared that "higher education is the single best investment that you can make in yourselves and your future", which may be correct as far as it goes, but it leaves out that education is foremost a public good, something we the people fund because it benefits all of us to live in a society where most people are well educated, to whatever level suits their talents and interests.
As someone who used to work in public relations, I often wonder who is advising these guys. There’s clearly a pivot starting here, he’s selling the big yacht, growing a little beard to look more avuncular, trying to pretend he cares about people. I don’t think he is planning to run for public office but he’s trying to shift public perception of himself and I wonder to what end.
I suspect Bezos, among others, is "a little concerned" about the proposed tax on billionaires in California, even as tame as it is. Why, the next thing you know, people might begin to question whether there should even *be* billionaires! And that would be simply intolerable.
(Martin Scorcese's film "The Irishman" is definitely not a comedy, but it has some funny moments, such as when Frank Sheeran, the titular Irishman and mafia soldier, says he's learned that when people in his "business" say they're "a little concerned", they're *very* concerned. I suspect it's much the same with people like Bezos.)
J.B., like his plutocratic peers, bet on the "Thanks to The Donald, we can get away with anything" horse. He's one of the first to realize that might not have been his best option (or, likely, whomever he hired to track things realized it) and he's trying to pivot like a weathervane. Problem is, he just can't imagine world in which he's compelled to be less rich…
Deidre, we do need P R insiders like you to contribute to these comments. P R is such a mercenary and reticent industry that with the ads receives much of the “money in politics” to sell us candidates- a loathsome , manipulative industry; but our true educational system. I can recall the disturbing news from early in Reagan’s tenure reporting that budgets for P R and ads had surpassed the combined budgets of all American education.
So Bezos thinks the people who work for him shouldn’t pay income taxes? He wants to give them a raise at the government’s expense instead of his? Can’t say I’m surprised.
Here’s how much of a greedy prick Bezos is: starts putting commercials in the Prime Video content included with Prime membership. Offers the old commercial-free version for an additional monthly fee. After a bunch of people sign up for commercial-free, starts adding titles that are “Only Available With Ads.”
It’s a double-tap: fuck your Prime members by making them watch commercials, then fuck the people who pay to avoid the commercials. Because when you’re a greedy prick, there’s no such thing as enough.
Wait, isn't Jeff Bezos already a billionaire? What does he need with more money? Sounds like he has some kind of fucked up mental illness. Institutionalization is a drastic measure but when someone is that delusional and obsessively hoarding I think it's actually merciful to hold them against their will until they get better.
I expect that in the increasingly unlikely event human civilization survives long enough, people like Bezos will eventually be recognized as insane. Their boundless narcissism is a form of psychosis. If they can't be cured, they'll at least be prevented from having power over other people.
Disappointing that Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen and Katie Porter are advocating middle class tax cuts but not higher taxes on the wealthy. A wealth tax and higher income taxes for the top earners seem like an obvious platform for Democrats.
Except for all the Democratic politicos and their donors who are, um, top earners.
That's the problem, of course. The Democratic party - not the voters, but the party apparatus - is dominated by people who are at best a little less beholden to moneyed interests than Republicans are.
Consider, for example, Cory Booker, not because he's egregious but because he's typical. With a little bit of research, I haven't been able to find an estimate of his net worth that I consider reliable, but the lower end of the estimates I've found is three million dollars. His senate salary is $174,000 per year, with generous benefits and ample expense allowances. Etc. By oligarch standards, of course, that's pitiful; Jeff Bezos, for example, takes (not earns) $174,000 every few minutes. However, it's far more than most Americans have or earn.
Moreover, the problem isn't just or even mainly individual politicians like Cory Booker but the primacy of money in political contests. If, say, Booker came out in favor of a wealth tax, he'd be hit with multi-million dollar media campaigns vilifying him, and New Jersey voters en masse aren't sensible enough to dismiss such nonsense as nonsense. (Keep in mind, New Jersey not long ago elected and re-elected Chris Christie. It's a "blue state" but hardly a bastion of political intelligence.) Ultimately, the USA is a poor excuse for a democracy, not least in the "money is speech" bullshit endorsed by its corrupt and antidemocratic supreme court. Functionally, the USA is and always has been, with variation over time, as much a plutocracy as a democracy.
I suspect you need to add one more option to the Capital playbook in addition to starving government of funding. And that is the efforts to convince the low income populace that government IS the problem and all taxes are being "wasted" especially by the old homily of "tax and spend" liberals. This is something the GOP has been very successful at doing (aided by some actual wasteful programs). I live in the South and the distrust of government is real and embedded while there is not much recognition that bureaucratic organizations (including corporations) are inherently inefficient. Better that a government the people can influence has the controls, than the capitalists and their monopolies for all government's warts. As we quickly lose voting power and get run out of dodge by A.I. you have to wonder who is paying attention.
What i dont understand is whats the point of having all the money? If one or a few people are the only ones with it it becomes useless. Other people would find something else to trade with each other out of necessity. Whether gift economy or just grassroots other money. Then wiuld their money not be useless? Sorry i am missing something here. And what's the point for them to live around so much suffering they could easily prevent. And i hear the goal is bunkers but being stuck in a bunker with only a few peopke would suck so much. Everyone hated sel isolation in covid but at least they could still go outside to the park. Also if it is to own everything ownership is a social construct. Everyone could just say no they don't
Back in the 60s, we libs mocked lefties’ claims about the two parties both being nigh indistinguishable corporate parties. I still think that back then the claim was hugely hyperbolic, an exaggeration.
But then came the DLC, led by Slick Willy, in the late 1980s and they made it so and here we are with the culmination of four decades of a thoroughly corrupted state.
People don't mind paying taxes when they are getting something in return. Paying for unlimited bombs to be dropped on Iran, or to bail out banks, police militarization, implementing mass surveillance, building concentration camps, and variously and lavishly subsidizing the activities of huge corporations is not exactly what people want to see. They don't want to pay for that, other than maybe 2 in 10 who are actual fascist idiots. Getting to see a doctor and receive treatment, having decent infrastructure and education, having an unpolluted environment, food that isn't poisoned with chemicals and additives - these would be things worth paying taxes for, and you would not hear a lot of complaining about taxes from the mass of the population if we had these things in good working order. Of course you also need a decent job with decent pay to pay the taxes. The rich want none of this, because of course if the government sucks and does nothing of value for you, you will see no value in paying taxes, and accept the strangulation of government as a good thing. You will not ask anything from the government, because the government is bad and can only do bad things. It's a neat trick. They can "privatize" all of their institutions of oppression by stealing any tax money there is and taking it for themselves, a handy shortcut to increase the bottom line... and then of course we "can't afford" any social betterment programs, which of course are also Socialism (!) or Holy Shit... not that! ... Yes, Communism! Then, by god, all freedom is lost! By giving us shitty government that no one can feel very good about supporting, their argument that government is bad is proven right, and the circle shall remain unbroken.
I came to the comments section on this post specifically to push back against the idea that "[n]ormal people don’t like paying taxes". The word "like" is too simple here. Yes, most people probably would prefer to pay lower taxes *all else being equal*, but you don't have to be a genius to understand that all else would *not* be equal.
I lived in notoriously high-tax Sweden for a couple of years during the 1990s. People I worked with there did complain a bit about how high their taxes were, but only a bit - to an American, remarkably little. They generally understood that their taxes bought them many things Americans have to pay for themselves or go without: health care, child care, education, old-age pensions, etc. These middle-class Swedes - and Sweden is the most solidly middle-class society I've ever seen - understood the "welfare state" as *theirs*, not just a "safety net" for the "less fortunate". It was all very Unamerican, in the best way.
If the state is well managed, providing services of good quality that clearly benefit most of the public, and - importantly - if sociopaths are prevented from promulgating disinformation about those services*, then it isn't implausible that most people will accept paying taxes as a fair exchange, particularly if efforts are made to help them comprehend that things like health care and education are public goods from which everyone benefits, not just private benefits**.
*E.g., assertions that services are "entitlements" being exploited by "welfare queens" and "young bucks" (code for "uppity" young Black men, as Ronald Reagan doubtless knew and intended with malice when he used the expression).
**Even ostensibly liberal Americans frequently make the mistake of talking about health care and education as if they were just private benefits. For example, Barack Obama declared that "higher education is the single best investment that you can make in yourselves and your future", which may be correct as far as it goes, but it leaves out that education is foremost a public good, something we the people fund because it benefits all of us to live in a society where most people are well educated, to whatever level suits their talents and interests.
As someone who used to work in public relations, I often wonder who is advising these guys. There’s clearly a pivot starting here, he’s selling the big yacht, growing a little beard to look more avuncular, trying to pretend he cares about people. I don’t think he is planning to run for public office but he’s trying to shift public perception of himself and I wonder to what end.
I like to think it’s because they know the pitchforks are coming
I suspect Bezos, among others, is "a little concerned" about the proposed tax on billionaires in California, even as tame as it is. Why, the next thing you know, people might begin to question whether there should even *be* billionaires! And that would be simply intolerable.
(Martin Scorcese's film "The Irishman" is definitely not a comedy, but it has some funny moments, such as when Frank Sheeran, the titular Irishman and mafia soldier, says he's learned that when people in his "business" say they're "a little concerned", they're *very* concerned. I suspect it's much the same with people like Bezos.)
I think you might be right. Bezos and Musk are trying to frame their space ambitions as a form of philanthropy but the public isn’t buying it.
J.B., like his plutocratic peers, bet on the "Thanks to The Donald, we can get away with anything" horse. He's one of the first to realize that might not have been his best option (or, likely, whomever he hired to track things realized it) and he's trying to pivot like a weathervane. Problem is, he just can't imagine world in which he's compelled to be less rich…
Deidre, we do need P R insiders like you to contribute to these comments. P R is such a mercenary and reticent industry that with the ads receives much of the “money in politics” to sell us candidates- a loathsome , manipulative industry; but our true educational system. I can recall the disturbing news from early in Reagan’s tenure reporting that budgets for P R and ads had surpassed the combined budgets of all American education.
So Bezos thinks the people who work for him shouldn’t pay income taxes? He wants to give them a raise at the government’s expense instead of his? Can’t say I’m surprised.
Here’s how much of a greedy prick Bezos is: starts putting commercials in the Prime Video content included with Prime membership. Offers the old commercial-free version for an additional monthly fee. After a bunch of people sign up for commercial-free, starts adding titles that are “Only Available With Ads.”
It’s a double-tap: fuck your Prime members by making them watch commercials, then fuck the people who pay to avoid the commercials. Because when you’re a greedy prick, there’s no such thing as enough.
Wait, isn't Jeff Bezos already a billionaire? What does he need with more money? Sounds like he has some kind of fucked up mental illness. Institutionalization is a drastic measure but when someone is that delusional and obsessively hoarding I think it's actually merciful to hold them against their will until they get better.
I expect that in the increasingly unlikely event human civilization survives long enough, people like Bezos will eventually be recognized as insane. Their boundless narcissism is a form of psychosis. If they can't be cured, they'll at least be prevented from having power over other people.
Disappointing that Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen and Katie Porter are advocating middle class tax cuts but not higher taxes on the wealthy. A wealth tax and higher income taxes for the top earners seem like an obvious platform for Democrats.
Except for all the Democratic politicos and their donors who are, um, top earners.
That's the problem, of course. The Democratic party - not the voters, but the party apparatus - is dominated by people who are at best a little less beholden to moneyed interests than Republicans are.
Consider, for example, Cory Booker, not because he's egregious but because he's typical. With a little bit of research, I haven't been able to find an estimate of his net worth that I consider reliable, but the lower end of the estimates I've found is three million dollars. His senate salary is $174,000 per year, with generous benefits and ample expense allowances. Etc. By oligarch standards, of course, that's pitiful; Jeff Bezos, for example, takes (not earns) $174,000 every few minutes. However, it's far more than most Americans have or earn.
Moreover, the problem isn't just or even mainly individual politicians like Cory Booker but the primacy of money in political contests. If, say, Booker came out in favor of a wealth tax, he'd be hit with multi-million dollar media campaigns vilifying him, and New Jersey voters en masse aren't sensible enough to dismiss such nonsense as nonsense. (Keep in mind, New Jersey not long ago elected and re-elected Chris Christie. It's a "blue state" but hardly a bastion of political intelligence.) Ultimately, the USA is a poor excuse for a democracy, not least in the "money is speech" bullshit endorsed by its corrupt and antidemocratic supreme court. Functionally, the USA is and always has been, with variation over time, as much a plutocracy as a democracy.
I suspect you need to add one more option to the Capital playbook in addition to starving government of funding. And that is the efforts to convince the low income populace that government IS the problem and all taxes are being "wasted" especially by the old homily of "tax and spend" liberals. This is something the GOP has been very successful at doing (aided by some actual wasteful programs). I live in the South and the distrust of government is real and embedded while there is not much recognition that bureaucratic organizations (including corporations) are inherently inefficient. Better that a government the people can influence has the controls, than the capitalists and their monopolies for all government's warts. As we quickly lose voting power and get run out of dodge by A.I. you have to wonder who is paying attention.
What i dont understand is whats the point of having all the money? If one or a few people are the only ones with it it becomes useless. Other people would find something else to trade with each other out of necessity. Whether gift economy or just grassroots other money. Then wiuld their money not be useless? Sorry i am missing something here. And what's the point for them to live around so much suffering they could easily prevent. And i hear the goal is bunkers but being stuck in a bunker with only a few peopke would suck so much. Everyone hated sel isolation in covid but at least they could still go outside to the park. Also if it is to own everything ownership is a social construct. Everyone could just say no they don't
No amount of money will ever be enough for the wealth addicts.
Back in the 60s, we libs mocked lefties’ claims about the two parties both being nigh indistinguishable corporate parties. I still think that back then the claim was hugely hyperbolic, an exaggeration.
But then came the DLC, led by Slick Willy, in the late 1980s and they made it so and here we are with the culmination of four decades of a thoroughly corrupted state.
Readers of this post should check out the work of political scientist Samuel Bagg. He’s focused on state capture and how to temper it. I’ve written a bit about the state capture part [https://bobkeener.substack.com/p/what-is-state-capture-and-why-do?r=g24y&utm_medium=ios ] and the solution part [https://bobkeener.substack.com/p/whos-got-the-power?r=g24y&utm_medium=ios ].