NN: First, the emperics. Since the richest 1% already pay $300 billion per year right now, just doubling the income tax they pay yields an additional $300 billion per year . . .
[mbs] Relevant here would be some evidence that any other country has effected such tax burdens on their rich. I know of none.
NN: Now, there is the core issue Max and I are arguing over-- whether the 1993 bill achieved any such appropriation beyond economic growth. The numbers show that the effective tax rate paid by the very wealthiest tax payers grew significantly, in the case of those making $1 million per year or more, going from 26.8% of income to 31.7% of income - an 18% increase in taxation rates. . . .
[mbs] What happened to your 33% increase!!!!???? We're down to 18%!
NN: Even the just-sortof-rich from $200-$500,000 per year had a 9% increase in effective tax rates, more than Max's argument of only a 5% or so increase.
[mbs] Your 33% number is in free fall.
NN: And note from the tables below, the $1 million plus folks pay more taxes than the marginally rich, so the 18% increase in effective tax rates for that group was very significant. And these numbers only go up to 1996, so the total dollar amounts continued to grow.
[mbs] Here and below we're back to commingling the effects of rate changes and economic/distributional factors.
NN: . . . Max's argument for taxing the workign class to pay for a welfare state seems like a rather massive retreat from socialism, even from traditional social democracy. Sure there are some goods that are better bought collectively, but charging everyone through taxes for the health care, schools and retirement does not seem like much of an advancement.
[mbs] my argument's point of departure is what has seemed to work, not some imaginary ideal. I don't claim to be a socialist, or much of one, so I can't be retreating from it.
NN: Worse, the welfare states of Europe and folks in the US enjoy the standard of living we do to even attempt such self-payment only because of massive expropriate of the labor of third world workers producing consumer goods as sub-level wages.
[mbs] Nathan Newman, meet Louis Proyect. Here's another brouhaha I don't care to rehash. Interested parties could consult PEN-L for arguments about this.
NN: The goal of any real socialist or even social democratic moevment has to aim for expropriation of the income (at minimum) of the first world wealthy to pay not only for a welfare state here but for redistribution globally.
[mbs] in light of the difficulties of expropriation even for purely domestic purposes, this seems an even more ephemeral, if noble, goal. More likely is that a different international regime of growth-enhancing policies (Keynesian; tech transfer; etc., not 'neo- liberalism) would help the developing world.
NN: . . . But tax-the-rich politics are key, since "tax revolts" among the working class has been a key tool of conservatives in splitting working class movements. Keeping taxes low on working class folks while soaking the rich is key to a broad range of socialist goals. - Nathan Newman
[mbs] Tax the rich politics doesn't seem to work very well. Tax everyone fairly to pay for things we need is a better bet, in my book.
mbs