The 1%
Channel: The Philosophical Angle
Date: 13/01/2012

The term of "The 1%" has appeared in the media as used by President Obama and the Democratic Party.  We, here, at the Philosophical Angle feel its is incumbent upon us to define and explore the meaning of the 1%.  It appears that the 1% means the top 1% wage earners in the United States.  As reported in the media, this 1% pays approximately 70% of the revenue coming into the US Treasury coffers via the I.R.S.   

Well, the Philosophical Angle would like to understand what is the makeup of this 1%.   How is it that this 1% of wage earners got to be where they are today, and why did the 1% become the 1%; and why are the rest of us the 99%? 

Well, if somebody is in the top 1%, it means that they have created a lot of income for themselves putting themselves into the highest IRS percentage bracket of the U.S. progressive income tax system.

And what it means is that this 1% is the group of the highest active producers of wealth in the nation.  It means that a person within the highest 1% is producing more and thus receiving more in compensation from the company or productive entity in which the 1%-er works.  

A 1%-er is responsible for producing the goods and services which are valuable to the buyers of the company's products.  People desire that production; therefore, they come to buy the company's products or services.  They buy the product in order to better their lives, to raise their standard of living.

A one percent-er, such as a company president, has agreed with the company to produce things, and it is his responsibility to perform these obligations, and of course, the higher up you go in a company, the wider range of responsibilities you incur in order to generate the product and/or services of the company.  

Now, what is it that enables us to produce any good and/or service?

The content of all production is that we make a sacrifice of our risk, time, effort, and knowledge & information that goes into making any product or service to receive a reward.  And the sacrifice and the reward both have a value.

A president, or any executive, or anybody with responsibility to produce a good or service, always tries to reduce the risk in making the item or service, reduce the time involved to make the item or service, and to reduce the effort to make the item or service ... naturally.  

He does this by increasing the knowledge of the company that is operative on the risk, the time, and the effort by reducing the quantities of these variables enabling the company to produce its products more efficiently.

We have established that this 1% is responsible for the company's obligations to produce a good or service that people desire, and thus, buy.  These buyers recognize that the company's goods and/or services will bring them up, away from from misery and enhance their quality of living which is good.

Now, you ask: what if we take away from the net compensation that the 1% receive which is their reward.  And, you ask this because the U.S. political scene is presently debating whether we may raise the taxes of the 1% through the confiscatory devise of the government called the IRS.

Well, if we take away too much from the 1%, their compensation (that is, their reward) will become of less value than the corresponding and commensurate value of their responsibilities and obligations that the company places on the executives, the company president, or other, of the 1%.  Should this value of the compensation (their reward) fall too far, we can expect that there will eventually occur a problem in the fulfillment of the corresponding responsibilities by the 1% for the benefit of the company which is to the benefit of the buyers of the goods and services of the company which raise the buyers' standard of living; that is your (or our audience's) standard of living.

Hence, the startling conclusion here is that should we impose an impedance on the fulfillment of the responsibilities and obligations of the 1% which exceeds their fair share, then our consumers and the economy as a whole will be harmed.  Thus, we should be careful to not over tax the 1% as they facilitate the advancement of the U.S. economy and our standard of living.