I want to reflect a little on the idea of class, and the difference between having any and being in one. The reflection, of course, is motivated by the explosion of really unclassy behavior that besmirched the comment threads following various posts here and elsewhere about who is really rich.
Like many in my generation, I first met social class distinctions growing up, in my case in New York as a red-diaper baby, in a family with the kind of unusually diverse associations the city facilitates, and that a ‘mixed marriage’ between the son of midwestern English-Scotch-Irish socialist leaders and a Polish Jewish immigrant who was the first in her family to go to college especially accretes. Accompanying my father to print shops, binderies, machine shops and other places where things were made I had some contact with blue-collar workers, but I mostly associated with the children of solidly middle-class business people and professionals; and because of summer camp friendships with well-cared-for private-school girls from quite wealthy families, mostlybut not entirely Jewish, got to dance at coming-out parties. I had some sense of the fading war between the German Jews of the first immigration wave and the mittel-europa avalanche that followed and so scared them when they came off the boats in rags, barely literate, and went into the sweatshops.
Then I went to Harvard and met (for example) perhaps the tenth Protestant of my life followed by zillions more, and more important, people from an real American upper class. At that time, Republicans were the liberals in New England politics, and the WASP aristocracy constituted a confident, stable, enduring society, even as it fairly gracefully ceded political power to the Irish and Italians – yes, and even as it was sometimes insouciantly anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. I know a lot of these families made their fortunes in the slave trade, but a lot of them were also abolitionists and one of them (for example) was Robert Gould Shaw and another was Oliver Wendell Holmes and still another was OWH Jr. and still another was Joseph Welch. While I could immediately see that many of them wouldn’t have had a chance academically in my high school (the Bronx High School of Science), I had a persistent sense that many of them had, and almost all valued as a conscious part of their social capital, something important that I had met more randomly distributed in my prior life but never quite distinguished or identified. A memorable flash of this came when I was at a party at the home of an Adams and observed that a lot of the pictures on the wall were framed political handbills and posters going back to about 1800, all attacking one or another Adams candidate for office ruthlessly and viciously. Another, of course, was the number of old Yankee names associated with this or that charitable gift of a building or setting up a foundation.
What they often had and usually respected was class in the “other sense”, as in, Donald Trump ain’t got none, or “doing that shows real class!” One diagnostic of class is being comfortable, and making others comfortable, in any company. This is harder than it looks, because getting self-confidence mixed up with arrogance or pride, or dissembling actual membership in the group you’ve fallen among, are both fatal. A real lady or gentleman adds value to any group without taking it over or getting lost in it, including groups of peers. Such a person is welcome back again, and does not have to hide out in a gated community. Julia Child had class that sat on her like a halo.
Noblesse, famously, oblige. But it’s not the only thing: richesse oblige aussi, and sagesse, and instruction. Oblige quoi, though: what are the duties of aristocracy whether of position, or wealth, or knowledge and capacity to create value? Well, the first criterion of being classy in my book is benchmarking against your own most recent other-regarding enterprise and exceeding it, and not benchmarking against other people’s positions however marked. One of the great gifts to those Yankee families was the Calvinist idea of an elect that you might or might not be in, and couldn’t attain by works, but that was particularly not a matter of being as rich as you could get: because you might not be in it, it would not be classy to swan around showing off. Boston leadership was expected to acquire a fortune large enough for security and some charity, and then take on responsibilities for the common weal. (For a fascinating discussion of why Boston and Philadelphia are the way they are, even after their local WASPs were displaced by immigrants who took on Calvinist and Quaker culture respectively, see Digby Baltzell’s Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia.)
As I recognized this, I realized I had seen it in people I admired across all socioeconomic divisions, and that I had seen plenty of people who lacked it across classes as well. It wasn’t a monopoly of those Yankee WASPs, and it didn’t immunize them against bad behavior, but respecting it and hoping to display it was a distinctive part of their norms. Some people are just classy by family upbringing, or maybe they won the genetic lottery, and others with every advantage aren’t, like Larry Summers. I think people in the latter category sort of realize this and it hurts them, but the pain often stimulates maladaptive behavior that makes it worse. In any case, I think the right social conventions in your upbringing improve the odds.
Having good manners is an excellent strategy. This can easily go rancid, when people with no class use specific learned routines, or the lack of them, as social sorting tests, but people with really good manners have no problem learning to accept a business card with two hands in Asia or arriving at 10 for an “8 PM” dinner in Mexico; people who think etiquette is a stick to beat their lessers with, on the other hand, don’t travel well. A classy dresser contributes to a social occasion by showing respect for, and improving, the whole visual experience of the other guests without trying to draw a spotlight. A classy dresser is not an egotistical showoff, neither in a track suit at a formal dinner nor in a swimsuit on a red carpet.
When you have real class, you can accept compliments gracefully, neither deflecting nor expecting them. When you have real class, you can set good things in motion and step out of the way so your group carries it forward and doesn’t depend on you more than necessary. Real class is not whining and demanding rights but looking for duties and seeing them as a piece of good fortune. It involves a fair amount of turning the other cheek, and is much more easily displayed going to bat for the people who aren’t as rich or smart or lucky as you than by standing on your rights and privileges. Henry Lee Higginson subsidized the Boston Symphony for years (and didn’t ask to have its building named Higginson Hall): that’s class. Speaking of the symphony, another indicator of class (not dispositive, Goering scarfed up paintings all over Europe) is engagement with demanding, complicated, art. Lots of people are on museum or opera boards who have no clue, but they at least know a sane society respects artistic sophistication and they try to manifest it…sometimes even try to actually get it.
Real class is what the economic aristocracy of our country has almost entirely lost. The American rich are wallowing in a moral slough, grasping for more and more money they have no clue what to do with, and venting their frustration that climbing over each other to new heights of wretched excess brings no satisfaction by lashing out at every social institution, and at a government whose largesse is never enough for them. Andrew Carnegie may have had his miners shot at Homestead, but he came to regret it and he also said it was sinful to die rich. He walked the talk; there are Carnegie libraries, a university, concert halls, and more all across America, still creating value. (All the Vanderbilts, not so much.) But Larry Ellison has his name on nothing and for all his billions, has absolutely no class and no idea that he lacks it, and a whole class of cowboy millionaires and billionaires have the fatal idea that he is a target to emulate. No, money isn’t a way of keeping score; great schools and passing laws that make us all better off and building a subway system for New York and a high-speed rail line in California is a way of keeping score. Anyone who thinks he’s self-made, and single-handedly created all the value he’s come to possess, has no class, no more class than a Gulf sheik who thinks the accident of living on top of an oil pool makes him admirable and distinguished. Keeping track of (and taking care of) all the people without whose labor and pioneering you couldn’t have done anything, that’s how to keep score.
I am ashamed of my university when I consider that its rich alumni who wouldn’t pony up for a new art museum are expected to buy enough football stadium seats to cover a half-billion-dollar sports venue. There’s nothing wrong with sports, playing or watching, but this is a university and we do not study discus heroes of ancient Greece, or even Pheidippides’ gait: we study the Parthenon and Aeschylus and red-figured vases. Real class is building something that lasts, not a house bigger than all your neighbors’ houses put together – yes, I’m talking to you, Bill Gates – and it’s not buying a Maybach because you can (it might be learning to actually drive a race car; Paul Newman had class).
The really classy guys among my peers are the ones who make their students and their colleagues smart. They tend to be the last authors listed on their papers and they ask really good questions more than they pronounce really true truths. I wish I had more class; I certainly had ample opportunity to learn it. But I’m sure I know what it is, often I can tell when I’m getting closer to it and when I’m not, and it’s not what I’m seeing in our upper class today. High wealth and low class: it’s ugly and it’s dangerous.
Anonymous,
I don’t really have time to pursue this much further–having a book to finish and two classes to prepare–but I will admit for the record that I shouldn’t have stereotyped you as some sort of Randite by default, and I apologize for doing so. You’re clearly a different stripe of libertarian–albeit one whose views on public goods probably aren’t consistent with your stated (and fairly radical) views on taxation representing an immoral confiscation of the fruits of your choices regarding mind and body. (If one believes that, then a flat tax isn’t responsive: it would represent a majority defending tyranny over helpless individuals on the grounds that it practices tyranny over members of the majority as well.)
As for the rest: I’m not sure why a baseline of a flat-tax contribution to public goods (or a poll tax of equal absolute contribution, or any other) makes some sort of natural sense in comparison to any other baseline. This is actually the same objection I have to egalitarian social philosophers who assume that any departures from equal distribution must somehow be justified: why?
I suspect that Mike and I actually disagree on a pretty fundamental level regarding why the rich should pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than the middle class or poor (actually, I should say “our income,” since I think a family making $150,000 is pretty rich too, and my family’s above that). As far as I can tell, he’s more of a small-r (“civic”) republican who (it seems) thinks that personal consumption beyond a certain level is (1) distasteful and (2) leads to unhappiness; I have no sympathy towards either belief. I merely think makes sense to have people make greater proportional contributions to public goods if they can afford to pay more while still retaining a lifestyle many times more opulent than the median/ I propose judgments of what I think people can afford, compared to what others live on, only to make that assessment possible—not because I’m trying to cut down people who earn “too much.” Beyond that, I’m happy to let people (by law) spend on whatever they want; my objections to how they choose do so are probably mostly esthetic and not particularly systematic. But I should no doubt post more substantively on that when I have more time.
I’ve been told I have to rewrite my posts to more gingerly address O’Hare’s difficulties with the truth and with the basics of our tax system. So here’s a rewrite of a post from earlier today:
Foster, Henderson did provide some basic data, which O’Hare misunderstood and misinterpreted. Basically, O’Hare [isn't an expert on taxes], and so when Henderson said he paid a certain amount in federal and state taxes, excluding sales taxes, O’Hare interpreted that to be a claim about incomes taxes, and not a claim about income and payroll taxes. Basically, O’Hare made a mistake. And on the basis of that mistake, O’Hare called Henderson a [deleted][wait, can I say that O'Hare called someone a li*r? better not, to be safe]. Which is a pretty bold thing to do, if you ask me. I mean, it should be pretty obvious that O’Hare is no tax policy expert–he doesn’t know about payroll taxes!–and he obviously had to make a number of assumptions in his calculations. But O’Hare’s lack of expertise and lack of knowledge about the specifics of the Hendersons’ position didn’t stop O’Hare from making a pretty serious charge, and for using it as the basis of a really heated commentary on Henderson’s post. That strikes me as a pretty [inappropriate] thing to do. But it gets worse, because, as we now know, O’Hare, not being an expert in tax policy or in the particular facts about how much the Hendersons earn, made some pretty significant mistakes. And when he was informed about them, he didn’t retract them. Instead of retracting them, he referred his readers to someone else who was busy inventing “facts” about Henderson. The question of when O’Hare’s incautious fiction became a [deleted] is a complicated one; some might say it was a [deleted] ab initio, while others might say that it was merely a mistake then that only became a [deleted] when republished and not withdrawn. I’m happy to debate that with you, and with O’Hare too, if he’d like. But it does seem to me that at some point it crossed that line. And yet O’Hare, [inappropriate] guy that he is, hasn’t withdrawn the fiction, or apologized for it, or apologized for calling Henderson a [deleted, or apologized for cheerleading for another [deleted]’s [deleted], or for his role in setting this [inappropriate] scene in motion.
This isn’t about O’Hare’s politics. I know plenty of classy liberals. O’Hare isn’t one of them.
And another (now with my typos corrected!):
Foster, there are two people paying social security at the statutory maximum and paying medicare tax. These amounts more than bridge the gap that O’Hare couldn’t understand, if one understands, correctly, that employees bear the full burden of social security taxes, and nearly bridge the gap if one has the wrong understanding. You aren’t having much better luck with the analysis than O’Hare did, but at least you haven’t used your [deleted] as an excuse to call someone a [deleted, even though not referring to O'Hare], or, worse to lecture us about class after doing so.
Who else was a[deleted]? DeLong. His entire argument was that Henderson, whom he didn’t know anything at all about, was a down-the-line partisan Republican, and down-the-line partisan Republicans are responsible for the policies requiring us to raise taxes. The second part is obviously false, but that’s not the reason that I complained. The first part isn’t true, and DeLong had no reason to believe that it was true. It was pure invention. A [deleted].
I don’t understand how you can see these as nitpicking points.
And another:
Michael, Alas, I haven’t written a book, but, then again, I also haven’t made such a [deleted] mistake. Perhaps you should run your future tax posts by me, or your tax law prof friend, before making accusations or further embarrassing yourself. In some sense you are now getting closer to the right answer, albeit a few days late. Your suggestion that the other payroll taxes should increase their income but not their taxes isn’t helpful, but as amateurish mistakes go, I’ve seen much worse, and from you. You might instead say that, at the numbers given, they really paid something like $118K in federal and state taxes, excluding sales taxes. And you’re still making the same mistake you’ve made all along, arguing that only the Obama plan includes an AMT fix, when the AMT has been fixed every year. There’s no reason, except for a bug in the TPC software, for you to be committed to crediting the Obama plan with a decrease in their taxes. In any case, you offer all of this up as a defense, not an apology, which I find incomprehensible. We’re supposed to think that your new estimate is somehow equivalent to the old, despite being framed in entirely different terms and being off by nearly $100K. And I can’t help but read your refusal to change any of your conclusions as a refusal to withdraw your charge that Henderson was [deleted]. In that sense, you are moving further from the right answer. Forget class, let’s talk about simple decency. You owe Henderson an apology, and yet you refuse. What kind of man are you?
[...] Oddly, Michael O’Hare suggests that there seems to be lack of class in our upper class: [...]
Thomas:
I know what is in Henderson’s CV, because it’s posted online at his UC web page. Henderson is “most assuredly” a full professor of law with tenure, and has been on the faculty for six years. He is about 40 years old (BSE ’93). Either I don’t know what you mean by “very very junior”, or you are just making stuff up. Chicago does not report salaries, but they compete with Michigan and Michigan law full professor median salary is $242K. Ass’t Prof median $167K, so it’s impossible he earns less than that.
http://www.saltlaw.org/userfiles/SALT%20salary%20survey%202010%20–%20final.pdf
We have both also been neglecting the fact that a faculty salary is for nine months, and a prof is allowed to sell two or three months either to funded research (I think rare for law profs) or in private practice. We are also allowed forty days of consulting a year; not sure about law profs. Law school teaching loads and publication expectations are light: he has scads of leisure time he could easily sell if he wished and the skills to sell it for a lot.
His wife is ten years into practice, has an MPH as well as an MD, is director of the pediatric oncology center, and has a private practice in Evanston. I don’t know how much she makes and I’m tired of this. Henderson’s picture of his family’s financial situation now makes no sense to me at all, but I’m completely certain that “not that much more than $250,000″ is as near to a flat lie as makes no difference, and payroll taxes (thank you for noticing) are not in the ballpark for changing my judgment.
Michael,
Two brief points:
1. Your comments re class remind me, just a little, of the opening lines of Chapter 8 of Owen Wister’s The Virginian: “There can be no doubt of this–All America is divided into two classes, the quality and the equality. The latter will always recognize the former when mistaken for it. Both will be with us until our women bear nothing but kings.”
2. Quibbling over whether or not the Hendersons’ combined incomes qualify them as rich seems just a little silly to someone whose two-professional-incomes marriage (admittedly, neither my wife nor I teach the Law at University of Chicago) gets by on a little south of 100,000 per year. Maybe the problem is with the term “rich.” Should we take it off of the table and simply call folks like the Hendersons “well-off”? That way, I could feel a little more sympathy for them since we think of ourselves as being “moderately well off.” I know that their money woes are much like ours, just with larger numbers involved.
3 And one more: Your initial essay, which has sparked so long a comment thread, has some powerful stuff in it. Thanks!
Eli — In the context of the middle class vs. the “rich” (because isn’t that what we are truly comparing when we are discussing tax burden?) I do think that income level the result is usually the product of choice. If you are defining rich solely as those earning more than $250K, then most of the middle class and the rich come from very similar backgrounds. They often attended the same schools and grew up in the same neighborhoods. So what led to the divergence in their income? Sure, if you ask anyone, they will likely say, I would like to be rich. But if you ask them, at age 16, would you like to study hard or just get by, they will prefer to just get by. If you ask them at age 19, would your rather major in business or a more intellectually stimulating major, they will prefer the intellectually stimulating major, even if it lacks significant business prospects. If you ask them at age 24, would you rather save your extra money to invest or spend it at the bars, they will spend it at the bars. And if you ask them at any age, would your rather take a risk on starting your own business or take an existing position in this corporation/university, they will take the position that minimizes risk, despite its limited upside. In each of those decisions, the person valued something else over money (or potential earning power later). I think if you are honest with yourself, and think about a majority of the people you went to high school with, most never applied themselves to earning money. AND THAT IS FINE! There is more to life than earning money. But don’t pretend that they got that way by accident. And don’t demand that those who made the choice to earn money now pay a greater percentage of their income because they valued money over ease, comfort and free time.
And to clarify my helping people comment — I am talking about situations where things that are out of someone’s control prevent them from the path that they otherwise might like. People who would like to study, apply themselves and earn money (or pursue some other goal: art, scholarly pursuits, etc.) Sometime the uncontrollable comes up. The sickness of a family member. Being born into crippling poverty. Things like that. I recognize that the individual cannot control everything. (Some of us libertarians are actually realists.) And I am very much in favor helping people acquire the means to overcome those situations so that they can pursuit what ever they value. I believe in providing them things like education, financial support for a time while they pursue their training, etc. But I think we need to distinguish between those taxpayers for whom life has interfered with their choice, and those whose income is the natural outgrowth of their choices. I tend to know many more of the latter.
eli
“Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one in the world interested in how the determinism/free will debate drives liberal/conservative politics.”
I’d be happy to discuss it with you. I too believe this is at the core. Is this the best forum?
Andrew — my preference for the flat tax is based on a recognition of two of your points: (i) that government has to have some money; and (ii) that those that make more money can afford to pay more, in an absolute sense. My problem with the progressive tax is that is assumes that those that make more can afford to pay more should pay a greater percentage of their earnings. I don’t think that the two necessarily follow or that the conclusion morally justified. Most importantly though, I don’t like the notion of a majority of people imposing their will (and a greater burden) on the majority. Its not the way government should ever be run, in my opinion. If we believe that government is doing necessary tasks, we should all share in the burden equally (at least in percentage with what we make). I think it would help all of us to think more critically about what government should and should not be doing. Its very easy to demand benefits when you believe that someone else is picking up the majority of the bill. If you are sharing equally in the burden, I am much more likely to take the argument in favor of the benefit seriously.
Paul Orwin, I understand you quite well. You are wrong. My guess is that your studies of microbiology probably did not delve into a discussion of the role of anonymous participation in political discourse. Its not something that typically comes up in a study of soil bacterial physiology, genetics, and ecology. To be clear though, posting anonymously or under an identified name have nothing to do with class. Class is how you conduct yourself in your speech. I stand by my critic of Prof. O’Hare as classless. I also stand by my assumption that he (and those who agree with him) would likely find my wording classless as well. Again, I did not see another way to phrase it. But, that judgment on my class should be made on the content of my comment — not on the name (or lack of a name) associated with it.
You should also work on your reading comprehension. I pretty clearly stated that I have a small child and am working. Not in my dorm room listening to Rush. And for the record, I am your age. So, you should probably find something else to rely on to make yourself feel superior to me.
I endorse Anonymous’s 6:58a comment. I would add a small thing. It is probably rare that someone goes from being born at the absolute bottom of the earnings scale and rises to the absolute top of the earnings scale and vice versa. Not that being at the top is important. It is more often something that is accomplished in two, three or more generations of rising. My position is that choices influence the direction of travel. My choices influence the starting position of my children. My choices also influence the mental, cultural, and habit skills that my children are outfitted with. Just as an abandoned crack baby’s parentage influences his/her starting point and toolbox. So, there is determinism and there is choice. We should preach choice to every conscious mind because choice is what every conscious mind must practice to move (in any direction they choose). At the same time, it would be good to augment the tool box of those who can benefit from it.
I am still mad that you let people take posts down. Was this person just a poster, or is he a contributor? Did he swear or something? What’s the deal?
NCG — to the extent that you are relying on my comment yesterday, I was wrong. I refreshed my browser and my comment did not appear. I incorrectly concluded that Prof. O’Hare had taken my comment down. It later loaded the page and the comment was back. I believe it was a browser issues and not Prof. O’Hare deleting criticism. I apologize to Prof. O’Hare for assuming that he removed my comment.
Andrew — I am reposting my comment from earlier because a number a typos likely made it unclear. My preference for the flat tax is based on a recognition of two of your points: (i) that government has to have some money; and (ii) that those that make more money can afford to pay more, in an absolute sense. My problem with the progressive tax is that is assumes that those that make more and can afford to pay more should pay a greater percentage of their earnings. I don’t think that the two necessarily follow or that the conclusion morally justified. Most importantly though, I don’t like the notion of a majority of people imposing their will (and a greater burden) on the minority. Its not the way government should ever be run, in my opinion. If we believe that government is doing necessary tasks, we should all share in the burden equally (at least in percentage with what we make). I think it would help all of us to think more critically about what government should and should not be doing. Its very easy to demand benefits when you believe that someone else is picking up the majority of the bill. If you are sharing equally in the burden, I am much more likely to take your argument in favor of providing the benefit seriously.
Michael, I’ll demonstrate something for you, go ahead and take notes: you’re right that Henderson isn’t “very junior” as I’d described him. Goodness, admissions of error are so difficult. In any case, I think it’s also fair to say that a law professor who just got tenure isn’t “senior”.
I’m not sure about the range of possibilities for UofC law professors–I know much less about the pay scale than you obviously do, given your position on the faculty of a different school in a different field thousands of miles away. (I’m not sure why you are relying on a survey involving a different school rather than a direct assertion of your knowledge for all of this, but research–even research done days after a rash and unfounded accusation of [deleted]–is a good idea.) Based on the survey data I do think it’s likely that Henderson makes at least $170K. Despite your apparently intimate knowledge of the pay scale at Chicago Law you apparently aren’t as fully attuned to the culture of scholarship there. What do professors at Chicago law do with their summers? The same thing they do with their weekends. They write articles. I believe Henderson had 7 articles authored or co-authored and published in 2009, most of them well placed. His list of publications shows another one this year and two more forthcoming. That’s the sort of record required for tenure at Chicago, and is also what is expected of those with tenure.
You say you don’t care what Dr Henderson makes, and that’s fine (though I have a hard time understanding what you mean, since what she makes is an essential part of this story, which you do care about). You have in correspondence with me offered a conjecture on that point as well, one that seems entirely uninformed by the sort of research you undertook for Henderson’s salary. But I had a minute, so I looked at salaries at UIC’s medical school, and it seems that an assistant professor of medicine in pediatric oncology might have a salary as low as $135K. This is at a medical school in the same city, but obviously there are differences that would lead us to believe that Dr Henderson makes somewhat more than that. (You refer to Dr Henderson’s “private practice” in Evanston, but from what I can tell that is simply an UofC hospital program that has office hours in Evanston 4 hours one day a week. I highly doubt that Dr Henderson spends even that much time there, but this is entirely uninformed speculation, and I’m not as skilled at that as you. (I believe you’ve written a book.))
By my math, we should expect that the Hendersons’ combined income is at least $305K. (At least $170K plus at least $135K.) Of course, it’s entirely possible that it’s much more than that. I know some oncologists make hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so do some law professors at Chicago. A combined income between $1 million and $1.5 million isn’t out of the range of possibility, given generic job descriptions. What’s likely? Something much closer to the low end of that range than the high.
We do know a bit more about their situation, because Henderson told us. But the little bit of additional data that we do have about their personal situation you misinterpreted, whether in good faith or not, because you didn’t account for payroll taxes.
Without more, I don’t see why we have any reason to doubt Henderson’s description of his own situation, which he obviously knows better than anyone else does. Even if we were to doubt it, I’m not sure how doubts, however strongly felt, can allow one to conclude that he’s [deleted--I do hope people know what charge you made, because I'm not sure I can repeat it under the house rules].
But you did conclude that, and you offered up some made-up numbers, and then all of a sudden we had DeLong and everyone else supposing that the Hendersons made something like $450K. All because the income seemed low to you, based on your deep familiarity with the professional pay scales involved, and because you couldn’t figure out how to make a tax calculator work! (And you also drew erroneous conclusions on the basis of that same calculator, but we can put that aside for now.)
As the saying at the top of the page goes, you are entitled to your own opinion of Henderson, but not to your own facts. You can call him whiny, spoiled, rich, self-important, insensitive, tin-eared, etc. But to call him a [deleted], you need facts. And you don’t have them. So you made them up.
And when your mistakes were pointed out to you, you shifted your story and didn’t correct the record. And you insisted that a mere change in facts wouldn’t cause you to change any of your conclusions. [Deleted expression of what I think the appropriate reaction to this sort of misbehavior should be.]
“Its very easy to demand benefits when you believe that someone else is picking up the majority of the bill. If you are sharing equally in the burden, I am much more likely to take your argument in favor of providing the benefit seriously.”
The data say that the practical effect of all taxation in the US is more or less flat. Some argue it bends downward at the upper extremes. Care to comment on how your theory meets reality? What would change, exactly?
I note that “anonymous” dropped the slavery theme pretty quick once its essential stupidity was demonstrated.
Russell — the comment is based on perception. If you need a study to suggest that the practical taxation is more or less flat, it means that its not inherently obvious. Most people at the lower income levels think they are paying a lower percentage. Therefore, they are more likely to demand more services because someone else is picking up the bill. If it “looks” like everyone is paying equal proportion, people think about it more.
I haven’t dropped the “slavery” theme at all. (And you are right, slavery voluntarily entered into is not slavery. To argue that it can be is an insult to the millions of actual slaves in our history.) Frankly, I did not respond to your point because it was so idiotic I didn’t even know where to begin. Of course you would not have to donate time to the government if you were making more money and being charged at the higher tax rate. I also was not talking about the unemployed, but the middle class. That is the debate over taxation. The unemployed aren’t paying taxes anyway. But more obvious than that, I was being facetious. The government is not going to send someone to my house to address my temporal poverty. I realize that. But my point stands, people that make more money often accept trade-offs that other middle class people don’t want to make. Unless we start taxing the benefits that those less demanding jobs receive, the structure will be bias against income. That eventually will do two things: (i) encourage people not to take the high salary jobs because the trade offs are not worth it (I know tons of people that have quit jobs in my industry for more personal time, despite the high salary); and (ii) further increase the salaries in those high paying jobs because the companies will be fighting for employees. My guess is you are one of the people that derides the income gap in the country. But your policies are one of the factors that helps create it.
Anon: You’re arguing policy. He’s arguing proper behavior. It has nothing to do with taxes or rights. You’ve every right to act like a jackass, you just shouldn’t.
[...] Class « The Reality-Based Community [...]
[...] Posted: 09/24/2010 by Matthew Eilar in Things I Hate Tags: art, class, music 0 Michael O’Hare at The Reality Based Community wrote a really interesting and provocative post on the wealthy in our society, basically saying [...]
Hey, Anonymous, actually, you are paying a protection racket. Not only that, but it’s both moral for you to do so, and even in your best interest.
Go read some history if you don’t believe me. Lotsa rich people who abused their lessers ended up with their heads on pikes.
[...] No class. [...]
[...] Class « The Reality-Based Community [...]
[...] Class « The Reality-Based Community [...]
[...] Class « The Reality-Based Community [...]
[...] Class « The Reality-Based Community [...]
[...] Class « The Reality-Based Community [...]
Michael O’Hare has correctly diagnosed the central malady of our culture: greed. As the adage says, “them that has, keeps.” The Tea Party is emblematic of the unfocused, incoherent rage which is building because of wage stagnation, the out-sourcing of American jobs, the hollowing out of the middle-class and the vast transfer of wealth which the Republicans and “centrist” Democrats caused to go to the top income group. According to Eward N. Wolff at New York University (2010), by 2007 in the U.S. , the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.
The result of this vast transfer of wealth, in addition to the human misery created, is that governments at all levels are impoverished and unable to address the human misery. So long as it remains unaddressed, the fear of a rightwing demagogues rising to political power (ala the Weimer Republic) and/ or the emergence of a Clockword Orange culture in which Hobbes war of everyman against everyman – in which the life of man becomes “poore, nasty, brsiith and short -” become a reality.
Paul L. Nevins
Boston, MA
Author of The Politics of Selfishness: How John Locke’s Legacy Is Paralyzing America. Greenwood Press, Praeger Books, ABC-CLIO Publishers. Release date: September 2, 2010. Now available for ordering on line from http://www.amazon.com, http://www.barnesandnoble.com and http://www.greenwood.com. For more information about the book and author visit http://www.politicsofselfishness.com.
I started reading the article because I thought I might find some nugget of an observation that might enrich my life and daily thought processes. But it was quickly apparent from your verbose style and grammatical wanderings that you might not have much to offer this reader in the way of truely thought provoking brain stimulation. One of the hallmarks of class is possessing the ability to expound deeply on a subject but choosing not to do so when just a few words will do the trick. The distillation of an idea down to its essence is an indicator of a well-educated mind. Methinks the author of the article needs some more educating not just on writing but on his subject, “class.”
I think Oracle’s treatment of Sun’s open-source projects could be put forth as a manifestation of Larry Ellison’s lack of class.