Thank you for your comments, Michael.  They are much appreciated.

There would seem to be a great deal of anecdotal evidence that liberal
intellectuals have---as you have suggested---jettisoned the working class,
seemingly content to utter plaintive expressions of sympathy for economic
victims, but quickly losing interest in any discussions of how to achieve the
ends that they claim are desirable.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that at least some of this lassitude can be
attributed to the fact that most members of the Intellectual Left are
themselves, members of the Affluent Society.  As such, they may ultimately
feel somewhat conflicted about the prospect of submitting to “confiscatory
taxation” in order to help the downtrodden.  In other words, they may have
doubts about whether any sacrifices that they might be required to make
are really worth it.  I would blame this internal conflict for the torpor I see.

I think a lot of liberals who feel conflicted in this way are going to be surprised
when they finally read the content of the Taxwisdom web page and discover
that their concerns about potential sacrifices are unfounded.  The news for
liberals is actually very good.  As the <www.taxwisdom.org> web site points
out, wealthy citizens do not actually have to make any REAL sacrifices in order
to eliminate unemployment.

With respect to your other comments, you said that you did not see the need
for a socialist polity to rely on income taxes, but then you spoke of a salary cap.
Wouldn’t that be equivalent to a tax on income?  We may want to start with viable
public programs that employ workers and solve problems, but will we not have to
collect the money from somebody,somewhere, in order to finance them?




On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 08:30 , Michael Dawson <MDawson@pdx.edu> sent:

>My take?  Read John Kenneth Galbraith's diagnosis of contemporary
>liberalism, in his _Culture of Contentment_.  Liberals have jettisoned the
>working class, which is the constituency for progressive taxation.  Quite
>simple.
>
>A socialist polity, in my opinion, would not run itself only or even mainly
>on income taxes.  It would operate largely via self-financing public
>industry, which should be targeted to outcompete the most odious private
>ones.  Beyond that, of course, there would have to be a salary cap for
>everybody.  For starters, everything above $1 million per year should be
>taken by the public, IMHO.
>
>Your main problem here is not logic; it's barriers to political
>movement-building.  You will not create socialism by explaining tax justice.
>We need to start with viable public programs that employ workers and solve
>problems.

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