From: sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman)
Subject: Re: To the Clinton supporters
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 05:17:13 GMT

In article <BxEGLy.Ku2@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <BxBB8I.53n@news.cso.uiuc.edu> irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Brent Irvine) writes:
>>>>>How can we even talk about healing a nation, when we divide it by our 
>>>>>words?
>
>>>>When your words are "Your money or your life?" we are irrevocable at odds.
>>>>If it's a choice between "healing" and robbery vs. division and justice,
>>>>I'll chooce the division.  You are trying to use emotion to paper over
>>>>the difference between justice and theft.  That doesn't cut it.
>
>>>I agree, Brian.  Clinton has incredible audacity to speak of "healing"
>>>the nation while he plunders one group of people ("the rich") to 
>>>influence the voting of another ("the poor").
>
>>>This bald-faced promotion of class conflict, combined with shrill 
>>>rhetoric about "healing", is the epitome of hypocrisy.
>
>>Actually, one could say the same thing about the Republican Administrations
>>by switching the words "the rich" and "the poor."  The rest sounds just
>>like what criticism of the Reps did.
>
>On the contrary, buying the votes of the rich doesn't get you much in an
>election, since there are not very many rich people.  Furthermore, there is 
>a BIG difference between allowing people to keep the money THEY earned and 
>forcing people to cough up money for transfer to others who DIDN'T EARN it.
>It's the difference between me spending MY dollan and me spending YOUR dollar.
>Get it?

  Please define this concept of 'EARN' in a fashion that is independent of
the social-politcal-economic system within which it is assigned, measured,
transferred, and protected and then we can discuss what is an appropriate
type of governmental levying and allocation of such 'earnings' in the
abstract and absolute way in which you seem to want to frame the issue.
>
>>IMNSHO, the "trickle-down" theory allowed the upper few percent to gain
>>about 60% of the income growth throughout the 80's.  
>
>Indeed, they were alolowed to MAKE that money.  They didn't steal it.
>Would like to see the government forbit people from making money?  Do you think
>that anything other than poverty could result from the government outlawing 
>economic productivity among the most able segment of the population?

  On the contrary, many were able to accumulate wealth, that lead to 
further wealth and growth of that wealth, under a system that favored
and supported that activity. A different system might not have. Neither
their efforts nor their 'goodness' are/were sufficient to achieve it
themselves. Some of those methods are fair, some are foul, some are
weghted in their favor and to the detriment of others. Presuming the
activities and accounting are legal, the accumulation of the wealth
was also, but is not the same as fair, just, or self-generated.

>
>>By that reasoning,
>>it it justifiable to tax them more (tax where the least pain and most
>>gain as a society) than those without $$$.  
>
>What "reasoning"?  It is THEIR MONEY.  THEY EARNED IT.  You seem to think
>that the government took money away from poor people and deposited it into
>the accounts of rich people.  If anything, the rich have been paying 
>much more than everyone else for a long long time, and it is about time
>that everyone pay them back for this injustice.  I don't advocate that myself,
>but it is much more consistent with your stated principle than increasing
>the taxes on them.

  There you go again with this absolutist concept of 'earning' that is
independent of the system within which it is collected and measured. One
could also make arguments that they are more dependent upon the system
than the 'poor' and therefore owe it more. After all, how much of a
society does one require to sucessfully sustain ones poverty ?

>
>>[For a scary example where this did not happen was France, pre-Revolution,
>>where the nobles owned 95% of the wealth, yet paid no taxes, while the
>>peasantry and commoners taxes *started* at 60%.  You need to tax where the
>>money is, plain and simple]
>
>And in the US the money is in the middle class.  The situation in France 
>was much different in several respects, not the least of which was a legal
>system that didn't allow commoners the freedom to produce wealth freely
>and trade freely.  Focusing in on the the fact that there was a big difference
>in wealth between the rich and poor gets you nowhere.  The important question
>is WHY was this the case.  Look at it this way, for hundreds of years before 
>the revolution, the King owned 100% of the wealth (which he shared sparingly
>with his vassals).  Why didn't they rise up and revolt 100 years earlier?

  Because the social structure and its underpinnings and institutions,
including the church, did not favor the questioning of authority and
the equality of human beings that was necessary for a revolution of the
mind that was necessary before a revolution of the body-politic was
possible.



-- 
Jeff Sicherman
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