Sorry, I think you've got what I was trying to say backward (and that may be because I explained it wrong). The society is investing in YOU, and taxes are your way of paying the society back on it's investment. Of course there is an argument that it's the other way around, but let's be honest, even at the highest tax levels you keep the lions share of the wealth you create, society does get a fairly healthy return on that investment, but that's no different from any reasonably structured investment situation in an actual financial market. You make more money on stocks and companies that do well.

As for the fact that the less wealthy probably get more (proportionally) from the services from what they pay than the wealthy, I simply see that as society taking the profits from it's more successful investments (those that became wealthy), and reinvesting it in those that haven't yet, in the hopes that more of them will also pay off. You make money be investing it in stocks that are low and will grow a lot. In my mind society benefits the same way.

Now! This is not to say that there aren't arguments to be made that the wealthy are paying too much of the burden or that taxes are too high, or poorly designed or any number of other things. I'll even grant you that you may think that the services the community provides are too much, or that you don't think they're necessary, or even counter-productive. But none of these things are an issue of the inherent morality of taxes, that's simply a matter of how policy is implemented.

I guess the point is that you couldn't possibly have gained the wealth you did without the society around you. So I think taxes are a reasonably fair way for society to get back some of the investment it made in you by providing resources, and more generally by providing a society in which you could actually create your wealth. The society (in the case of democratic societies at least, some of this might be a bit less fair in other forms of society) of which you are a part! then decides how it want's to use the money it got back from the investment it made in you.

This is more than a little bit of a tangent, but since we've been discussing objectivism and the idea of altruism has popped up a few times, I thought this article on some new research into the origins of altruism showing up in my rss feeds today was at least quasi-relevant. Certainly at least interesting.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/altruism/

I'm not sure it really has much bearing on the direction this thread has taken, and maybe if we want to really discuss it we should start a new thread, but I thought everyone would probably at least enjoy reading it.

@Dexter

I say that because for most of your rights, property is required to exercise them.

The right to keep and bear arms is pretty obvious. The right to free speech is pretty pointless without a medium on which to transmit that speech. The right to own food is required for your right to life. You can see where I’m going. For most, if not all, rights, without property rights, they would be next to worthless.

“I said that was a reason that the coxswain (government) was there - to police abuses such as that and keep everyone on the same page.”

Well I guess that’s the difference between you and me. I’m not naive enough to think that would work. :-P


@ Oct
“even at the highest tax levels you keep the lions share of the wealth you create,”

Highest tax bracket in America is something like 53% I believe…

“I guess the point is that you couldn't possibly have gained the wealth you did without the society around you.”

It wasn’t the factory workers that made the light bulb Edison invented that mattered. Anyone can work in a factory, buy a product, etc. That is easy. But people who can actually create new things – that is a gift, and a very rare one. You assume all people are created equal. They are not, and, in my opinion, it is delusional to think so. Some are smarter than others, some are prettier than others, some just have really bad luck. The society didn’t invent the light bulb, Edison did. And this is how society benefits from it – they get to use the light bulb. Ultimately, the best way for society to get more on its “investment” is to invest in the best and brightest – and that usually means those with the most money. So while I certainly don’t think we should give them more money, we should _definitely_ take away less.

You make a lot of assumptions about what I do and don't believe.

I never said I assumed everyone is equal in talent, or that we don't need individual geniuses to keep advancing things. I absolutely agree that some people are smarter and more talented than others, those people can, and do, still easily outperform everyone in our society, and often become far more wealthy than others.

No, society didn't invent the lightbulb, Edison did, and Edison, rightly, benefited enormously from that invention.
But he still don't do it alone. Without the education or opportunities provided by society he would not likely have ever been able to create new inventions, or to commercialize them. Inventing the light bulb is great, but it would likely have never happened without a stable society around Edison so he could spend his time working on such things, nor would he have ever been able to do much with it without such a society and without the infrastructure that it provided.

Besides, I believe we can best encourage that sort of innovation with our patent system, (which I believe is in dire need of reform) not with the tax system.

I'd also point out that inventors are not the only, or even probably most of, the people in our society who create wealth. Regardless of how or why you do it, you can't possibly create wealth without using some of the resources of the wider society and without that society being there in the first place.

I agree that the best way for society to get more is by "investing" in it's best and brightest, but I'm not convinced that the best way to do that is to simply let those that are already wealthy carry the burden of creating wealth for the whole society.

I think "reinvesting" the returns from the investments made in those who become wealthy, into everyone in things like education, and healthcare is the best way to assure that we get more people who are able to realize their full potential.

If a genius is born to a working class family, isn't it a better idea to make sure that that person gets a quality education to nurture their genius? And that that person gets the opportunities they need to fully realize that genius? And since there's no way to really tell where the next genius is going to come from, it seems to me the best way to be sure that that happens is to make sure that there are quality services available for everyone to take advantage of.

@rlumley Now, as to your last sentence "So while I certainly don’t think we should give them more money, we should _definitely_ take away less."

As I said, I'm not necessarily debating levels of taxation, the discussion was on whether or not taxes were in and of themselves moral or immoral, not what levels are a good or bad idea.

Also, I don't know if you suffer from the same misconception that many do or not, I cant' tell enough from your response, but many people severely misunderstand the graduated tax system we have, so I thought I'd try to break it down for people, as until not that long ago I also didn't understand how it works correctly either.

You mention that the highest tax bracket is 53%. I have no idea if that's true or not, I'll have to do some more research. But that doesn't mean that people don't still take home most of the money they make.

Here's how it works (I'll use a very simplified versino with easy to numbers here).

Let's say that we have a tax code that doesn't take anything below $100. So you make $100 this year and don't pay any taxes.

Now let's say the next tax bracket is 50% for anything over $100 (absurd I know but it's easy to work with for this example).

That doesn't mean that if you make $101 you will have $50.5 taken from you. It means that you will pay $0.50 in taxes. That is you only pay that percentage on what you make above within that tax bracket.

I'd also point out that our tax system is so messed up that Warren Buffet pays a smaller percentage of taxes than his secretary does, because of the way salaries and capital gains are taxed. The richest in our society are certainly still keeping the lions share of their earnings!

Again, I'm not here to debate the level of taxation, or what is or is not a good idea, as I said, that's a policy debate about what is or is not a good idea, not a debate on the morality or immorality of taxes themselves.

DrOct could also mention loopholes...

Much is made in conservative circles about the nominal tax rates for the highest bracket... but effective tax rate for that highest bracket in this country is much much lower. For example, Ireland has been held up as a media darling for a few years now as an economic success story that proved supply-side theory (the so-called "Celtic Tiger") - since they taxed at a lower nominal rate than the U.S. and gave significant breaks to business and had a robustly growing economy. However (and you can see this one coming), both their effective average effective tax rate (for the average wage earner) and their effective tax rate for the highest bracket are HIGHER than in the U.S... AND they bring in more taxes on a per GDP basis than the US... and they re-invest that revenue in a MORE socialized manner than we in the U.S. do. (e.g. free universal health coverage, free public education at all levels - including through college)... So - is a lower nominal tax rate the answer in the U.S.? I doubt it. Might be reasonable if coupled with the elimination of tax loopholes (which, of course, it is almost exclusively the rich that benefit from).

@ Oct.

I wasn't saying that you assumed it, or, rather I didn't mean to. I meant to say that your argument must assume that to be an effective argument.

Also, yeah, I know there are major loopholes in the system. I was saying that more as an FYI thing.

But I don't think my argument has to assume that at all. Why is that a necessary assumption for it to make sense?

Also... why do you always just put the "Oct" part in when you reply to me?

(I"m not offended in any way that you do that, I'm just kind of baffled as to why)

@ Oct Cause I just kinda type whatever I feel like... :-P

You're argument doesn't HAVE to assume that, but it makes it a heck of a lot stronger if it does. I'll put it that way. =D

I can't believe this thread is still going. Does anyone know the record for longest thread on these boards?

There was one about gay marriage that ran over 600 replies.

I don't see how it makes more sense if you assume everyone is equal. In fact I'd argue that as an investment model it could be argued that it makes LESS sense if you assume everyone has equal ability.

What it does, assume is that giving as many people as possible a reasonable level of opportunity is the best way to assure that more people reach their full potential, whatever their background, and whatever level that potential might be, for some, or even most that level won't be incredibly high, though of course people will be able to contribute to society and to their own betterment. But for a few that will mean being able to do really truly exceptional things. It seems to be in everybody's best interest to assure that as many people as possible (including or perhaps especially those that will be able to really excel) have the opportunity to reach that level if they are able.