A most interesting thing has happened over the last twenty-five years or so. The story of Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor, has been transformed into a conservative anti-tax message, where, instead of the baddies being rich aristocrats and Norman landowners, the targets are now the modern “spongers”, the idle and ineffectual, the long- term unemployed, the immigrants arriving with their hands out for handouts. Tax, it is now proposed should be reduced so that “hard-working families and small businesses” can thrive, and benefits reduced in order to make the work-shy work. This is robbing the “freeloaders” to give to families in employment.
Nowhere in this re-writing of Robin Hood is there a place for the modern baron (read multi- millionaire) being taxed in proportion to his wealth or being prevented from hiding his money in offshore tax havens. It would be easy to close down the tax havens in the Caribbean islands, Jersey, Guernsey et al. The arrival of a hundred marines would do the trick. But that would be reverting to the medieval version of Robin as a champion of the poor.
The conservative narrative ignores the sheer complexity and variety of individual experiences among the poor and unemployed – absent fathers, lousy education, low IQ, domestic violence, the effect of globalisation on manual jobs, psychological problems etc. Epicureans believe that we should collectively be looking after these people, most of whom have no idea how to get out of the traps in which they find themselves. In the cruel, harsh world of conservatism they count for nothing. That is plain wrong.
For the most part, I agree. Rebuilding the developed world will require state investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, science and technology. To pay for that, the rich will have to pay more tax. Cutting their taxes may result in higher profits, but the long-term productivity of the workforce will suffer. Raising taxes on the rich can be done in a fair way, such as a land value tax or a tax on financial speculation (The Sanders Tax.) It doesn’t all have to be taxes on corporate profits, which can harm a company’s ability to expand.
But as I’ve said many times before, the rich alone will not be able to save us. Disturbing as the conservative Robin Hood narrative may be, the opposite is not necessarily true. For instance, the average taxpayer in the United States pays far less than they used to. The rich actually pay a higher proportion of taxes than in the past. If you only raise taxes on the rich, they will simply pass the costs on to their customers: the middle class. The average Dane pays far more than your average American. It’s my personal belief that your average American should be paying a roughly equal amount to your average Dane. But virtually everyone in America, Democrats and ‘socialists’ included, disagrees.
Actually, I agree with you completely about the rate of taxation of middle class Americans. After we ourselves take all deductibles into account our percentage of tax is too low. Every year we comment on this and wonder whether we should claim all the deductions we are entitled to ( I happen to believe that we ought to pay tax, not try avoid it). But this is the system. It.’s a quandary. If we voluntarily paid more tax we would be the only couple in America to do so! I don’t mind paying tax, but prefer to be in the same boat, paying the same rate, as everyone else.