> In a country that believes in itself as a place where anybody who
>works hard enough can make it, though, there's a certain wariness of
>taxes that might discourage hard work.
A very odd belief this, I've come across it many times. Perhaps we need to focus a bit more attention to questioning this inane idea that anyone can become wealthy entirely through hard work.
Its just a matter of simple applied mathematics. You just have to ask the question how much can you actually save in an entire lifetime of working hard at the average wage?
I think the average wage here is about 50k in round figures. So in 20 years hard labour you can barely gross one million. Two million is about the most you could possibly earn in an entire lifetime of hard work.
How many lifetimes would you need to live to become a millionaire by hard work alone? Several I think, but since you only get one lifetime of your own, logically those who "make it" by hard work alone are either immortal, or dipping into someone else's hard work.
The rich, in other words, get rich precisely through "income re-distribution". Its happening all around you every day. Income is re-distributed from those who work hard to the wealthy, otherwise there would be no wealthy. You can't want to get rich and be against income re-distribution at the same time.
So don't let anyone get away with telling you that you can get rich through your own hard work, its a fairy tale. You can only get rich by exploiting someone else's hard work. They won't like it, but the logic is implacable. A bit cruel I suppose, to shatter the illusion, like telling little kids there is no Santa Claus, but they'll find out eventually.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas