Forum Post: Marx's words on raising taxes
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 22, 2011, 7:41 p.m. EST by darrenlobo
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"In our present social order, where entrepreneurs and workers stand opposed, the bourgeoisie generally compensates itself for higher taxation by reducing wages or raising prices."
Even Marx was against raising taxes. Why are so many in the occupy movement for it?
I cant speak for everybody, but I am for raising taxes(or just paying taxes) on corporations. Corporations have so many tax breaks and loopholes that they do not pay their fair share & some pay NO taxes(like GE). GE made billions of dollars and paid NO taxes...Due to loopholes and tax breaks. Imagine the revenue if corporations making millionS to billionS of dollars paid the % of taxes that those in the 99% pay. Just like congress shot down Obamas plan to tax corporate jets... but raised tuition on college students...Really? Is that fair? So yes I am for raising taxes on the Elite wealthy...the 1%
Taxation is theft. Using force to part people from their money is a definition of stealing. It doesn't matter who it's being done to it's wrong.
Remember that taxes pay for war too. You don't want your money going to that now, do you? See:
Martin Luther King and the Empowerment of the War Machine: A Libertarian’s View http://theinternationallibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/01/martin-luther-king-day-lockheed-martin.html
The operative phrase here being:
"In our present social order..."
Well that was a long time ago, and since Marx saw Capitalism as a precursor to socialism, he would probably be in favor of raising taxes on the rich in 2012.
lower taxes, lower government spending.
The people don't see that higher taxes today just end up in the already well compensated hands of the public bureaucracy. It never gets much further.
He didn't oppose taxing the rich.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
... When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.
But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.
But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
Planks numbers 2, 5, 6, & 10 have been openly implemented here in the US. The rest partially &/or indirectly implemented. What has it gotten us? Everything OWS is protesting. Consider the points I made in:
Martin Luther King and the Empowerment of the War Machine: A Libertarian’s View http://theinternationallibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/01/martin-luther-king-day-lockheed-martin.html
2- Being undone. Count in payroll tax, state and local sales taxes and it has been undone. 5- The Fed is privately owned and immune from democratic oversight. 6- Mostly privately owned. 10- There is a difference between "education", "baby sitting" and "training" as in training for a role in the military/ prison complex. There is child labor. In fact quite a few Mexican, Chinese and Central American children are here without parents, working in fields and factories in the USA. And much of our imported items are made with child labor in exported jobs.
Boy am I overjoyed to know that there's no more income tax! I'll stop filing returns & I'm sure no one will come to lock me up, right? Please, get real.
You may not like the way these things are working out but don't deny the truth about how they're failing. The left's agenda in the form of progressivism has been implemented & it has failed. That's why OWS is protesting.
the progresive nature of the tax is being undone, or has in fact already been undone.
Not really:
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
And payroll taxes, and taxes built into prices, and sales taxes, and real estate taxes...
Sounds like an argument for less taxes to me. Regardless, we were discussing the income tax, don't try to change the subject.
YOU are discussing INCOME TAX ONLY in order to make a point. My point is that lower income people often pay out a higher proportion of their gross incomes in taxes than do many rich people. "Broadening the base" of course pretends that the only taxes people pay are income taxes, and somehow for Republicans, "broadening the base" is not to be confused with "raising taxes." CLASS WAR is what that is.
That may apply to the middle class more than the poor. I would point out that the poor's tax burden is often offset by the welfare they get. For example, a poor working person's taxes are offset by the food stamps they get.
Because we are stupid. That's how we got here. Why the 99% feels the need to listen or protest against the 1% is beyond me. Listen people, "we are free" and we don't even no it. That is our problem. Too many of us or ignorant and arrogant. We don't squat but we always have something say.
http://focus.osixs.org/WeAreFree.aspx
Because people who support Marxism have this Utopian vision of peace love and harmony and pressing wildflowers, that is not in any way realistic. its a cult more than anything. Pure delusion.
Because we see the growing injustice. Because we refuse to be tricked. Because the rich keep getting richer at our expense.
The ugly truth. America's wealth is STILL being concentrated. When the rich get too rich, the poor get poorer. These latest figures prove it. AGAIN.
According to the Social Security Administration, 50 percent of U.S. workers made less than $26,364 in 2010. In addition, those making less than $200,000, or 99 percent of Americans, saw their earnings fall by $4.5 billion collectively. The sobering numbers were a far cry from what was going on for the richest one percent of Americans.
The incomes of the top one percent of the wage scale in the U.S. rose in 2010; and their collective wage earnings jumped by $120 billion. In addition, those earning at least $1 million a year in wages, which is roughly 93,000 Americans, reported payroll income jumped 22 percent from 2009. Overall, the economy has shed 5.2 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession in 2007. It’s the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930’s.
That's why.
How are more taxes going to fix any of the problems you cite?
The same way they did from the mid '40's to the mid '70's. Household income rose across quintiles with a 17% spread from the bottom quintile to the top quintile. The advantage went to the bottom quintile. The top quintile had the slowest growth of all. In 1929, the richest 1% held 44% of all private wealth in America. By 1976, they held less than 20%.
In other words, those higher tax rates (primarily on the rich) were part of a vital and successful partial redistribution of wealth.
Unfortunately, the tables have been reversed in the last 35 years. Now, the richest 1% hold over 40% of all financial wealth in America. Similar equations hold true across the developed world. Here we are all over again. On the verge of the worst global depression in history.
You're cherry picking your facts to make your case. The reality is that after WW II taxes & govt spending were cut leading (finally) to the end of the Depression. There were also the Kennedy tax cuts of '63 in there too. Later in the century it was Clinton's tax cuts of '97 that help boost the economy. It seems that history shows the opposite of what you claim.
Bullshit. Tax rates have always fluctuated from year to year. But they were drastically lowered for the rich in 1928 and drastically raised during the Great Depression. Sure they were lowered after the war along with spending. What the hell would you expect? Do you have any fucking idea how expensive wars are? On what fucking planet would you expect government spending to remain stable AFTER a war that we won? On what fucking planet?
Of course spending was cut after WWII. So were taxes in general. But they remained much higher than in 1928 (primarily on the rich) and much higher in 1963 (primarily on the rich) than they are today. MUCH HIGHER. They stayed high (primarily on the rich even with fluctuations) for over 30 years AFTER the war. As a direct result the gradual and VITAL partial redistribution of wealth in America continued almost uninterrupted until 1976. At which time, it was interrupted by the ongoing and worsening oil crisis. This changed the entire model.
Then, Reagan came along. The rest is well known. 25 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth and a simultaneously shrinking middle class. Sort of like the 'roaring '20's'. Here we are all over again. Record low tax rates and near record high concentration of wealth in America.
The history shows exactly what I claim.
CLOSE THOSE CORPORATE LOOPHOLES!
RAISE THOSE GOD DAMN TAXES ON THE RICH!
On what planet are taxes at record lows?
"The overall tax burden on Americans is measured as a share of gross domestic product (GDP). Since World War II, tax receipts have averaged around 18 percent of GDP. Receipts have fallen due to the recession, but as the economy recovers, they will rise above the average level by the end of the decade." http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/current-tax-receipts
On this planet. When I made the comment about record low tax rates, I was referring to current rates. Not post war averages.
Tax rates are at record lows. As a direct result, tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, is around 15 percent. That is record low territory.
No. The average will not rise. Not without higher rates and/or fewer loopholes.
Rase those taxes on filthy rich pigs. Close those corporate loopholes.
Rather than look at nominal tax rates tax revenues give a better picture of the tax burden. From the more realistic POV taxes are as high as ever.