[lbo-talk] Progressive taxation vs flat tax

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Thu Aug 5 10:22:51 PDT 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "andie nachgeborenen" <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>


> And I think most people can see it's not an issue about hard work. Most
working poor or just working class people work very
> hard, and the lawyers and doctors and businessmen and professors wouldn't
want to do what Wal-Mart workers or even
> unionized auto workers do. You don't have to deny that the professional
classes work hard and that hard work and effort
> deserves reword. It's just that hard work and effort can't explain the
difference between you or me and the staff that cleans up
> the place for a tenth the salary, because they work just as hard as we do
for a lot less money.

There's also the argument that the opportunities afforded by a social arrangement like our own are worth much more to the talented and/or lucky and/or hard-working, thus they ought to pay more for them.

Here's a reductio: if taxing the rich more is penalizing them for achievement, than even a flat tax would be punitive for the wealthy, since it would require greater absolute contributions from them.

If anyone is interested in a truly rigorous argument for something like Rawlsian contractualism (which obviously in our world would require progressive taxation), I suggest Allan Gibbard's "Natural Property Rights."

-- Luke



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