Alfredholzheu’s Blog

Mar 17, 2012 at 3:55 PM

"Progressive taxation is not in the rational self-interests of the 1%, but it is in the best interests of society as a whole–a concept that Rand did not accept. One can make a good argument that taxation is in the interests of the 1%, as members of the greater society."

(me)The world is not static, the playing field will never be level, the makeup of the 1% is always in flux, just like a star sports figure.  Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, etc were not in the 1% just 20 years ago, in fact their professions hardly existed.  They did not rip off their fellow humans to get to be part of the 1%, they worked hard, worked smart and got lucky.  Why should they now be singled out as a "government resource to exploited", and this story is repeated thousands of times for every business in existence.  It is in our rational interest to resist the allure of jealousy and require progressive taxation, that just kills the golden goose. 

"In the Randian world view, however, there is no such thing as "the public," there were only individual people, with individual rights. That may be fine if you’re a billionaire and don’t give a hoot about other people. It’s not so great if you’re a little guy, which is why collectivism–ordinary people’s collective prerogatives–is the antidote to the privileges of the 1%."

(me)No, "the public" is the individual, each one making  decisions that, will with a "greedy"  (and that word can mean many things, there is an altruistic aspect to greed, read the "Selfish Gene") motivation make life better for all of us.  It is what drives us forward, hopefully soon enough to escape the wrath of a very impersonal universe.

"It’s not in the rational self-interests of the 1% to support collectivism, but it is in the selfish interests of the rest of us. It’s also far more in keeping with the view of the Founders, who included forward-thinking progressives like Thomas Paine. He advocated a guaranteed national income."

(me)Who is the "rest of us" of which you speak, are we some how divorced from rational society, some how bereft of the gifts that the 1% some how magically received?  What static fantasy could you possible propose that would make collectivism work.  As Margaret Thatcher so famously said, "I would much prefer to bring them down as soon as possible. I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalize everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalization, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people."