Conservatives have apparently lost their senses and when confronted with the phrases “spreading” or “redistribution” hear Socialism or Marxism. This would be fine if they went on to acknowledge that we have therefore lived under Socialism/Marxism for a long, long time.
In fact, Aristotle divided the Law into 2 bodies: 1) retributive (criminal), and 2) distributive (economic/civil). That is the model that continues today.
The law is inherently distributive.
The law decides, for example, the operation of contract law and must distribute justice among two contract makers when one of them breaches.
The government is inherently distributive:
For example: we all pay for education and yet not everyone has school aged children. Redistribution of Wealth!
For example: Alabama receives much more money from the federal coffers per capita than it sends to the federal government through income taxes.
Redistribution of Wealth!
We pay farmers not to farm, we incentivize buying a home (interest deduction), we incentivize getting married (just the hetero’s though), we incentivize having children, we incentivize saving for retirement – THIS IS REDISTRIBUTION. But it redistributes “up”, so no one cares. The renter pays higher taxes so the home owner can take his deduction. The consumer pays more for milk and veggies, so the farmer can avoid the swings of the market. The childless subsidize parents.
In reality, this is not socialism, but government. Unless every taxpayer expects a dollar for dollar return on their taxes, redistribution is a fact of civilized life. In the words of that great Justice and American romantic, Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."
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3 comments:
C'mon man! How dare you group all this under "lost their senses." although thats a really nice way of being rude, I hear you calling conservatives idiots. It is agreed that when anyone hears "spreading" and "redistribution" do hear, at least the idea of Socialism. The problem is to what extent.
People do care. Does everyone who works harder to send their child to private school want to pay taxes for public shooling. Does the person renting who cant afford a home loan, want to help other home owners?
At what point do YOU start to worry about socialism? I hear Obama has now changed tax cuts for everyone under 250k to 200k. Who decides? Everyone, i hope, wants "civilization", but i doubt everyone wants to punish those who achieve, just to redistribute and make everyone equaly as miserable.
A tax/spending policy that provides incentives for things that "the people" deem positive infrastructure building, like education, is inarguably a good thing. I also help pay for roads that I will never use. My point is that all government "spreads wealth" and pretending that it doesn't is a lie or ignorance. If one honestly disagrees with spending/taxing priorities, then that's an honest argument. But to demonize all spending/taxing as "socialism," is intellectually dishonest.
Taxes are a "punishment" on everyone, and our graduated tax structure is designed to "punish"/ burden everyone equally/fairly. In this country we do not tax income, we tax disposable income, i.e. that income over what it presumably costs to live. Therefore, those with more disposable income pay more than those without or with less.
Who decides? Short answer: we do. That's called democracy.
What conservatives should really be concerned about is defining down socialism so much that it removes any fear of the word. In other words, the boy who cried socialism will not be heard when protesting actual socialist projects (like oh, I don't know, nationalizing banks). So when we start nationalizing airlines, hospitals, and energy companies, the socialism cry will fall upon tired ears.
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