"The Moral Argument for Soaking the Rich"

[2046]

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/78459/moral-argument-soaking-the-rich/

Of course this article is a denial of man's mind, as well as the laws of economics.

[Black Wolf]

It's more than just a denial of economics this author has, but a denial of reality.

He anthropomorphizes "society", saying that the wealthy "owe" society, because generations before that wealthy person has created certain medicines and technologies that the wealthy people of today may benefit from, so as a result, they have an obligation to.. some other people who have no relevance to the things they benefit from.

[ZSorenson]

As more of a rant than anything else (I have a few friends of this bent), I want to say that when you try to argue with these people they always shift the argument.

They'll argue: "The historical data show that we can enact X (welfare, minimum wages, banking regulations, monetary policy, 90% income tax) and the economy does pretty well." Or whatever. But you point out cases where it hasn't done well, and they say: "Well that's because of blah..." And you say, no it's not necessarily, and they say: "There's an academic consensus, stop with the revisionism."

At the end of the day, these people are operating with a conscious-state standard of ethics. The good is what feels good, and any and all other considerations are irrelevant. This standard of ethics successfully explains basically the entire Left. It's worse than just a crude hedonism - it's a metaphysical standard. Reality itself is filtered through this understanding, with base dialectic materialism as an example.

It's awful, but they take it so seriously. It's like a state of permanent pre-adolescence.

[OCSL]

This guy should have proofread this article before printing it. His biggest points are lacking basic common sense.

Then again, nobody is suggesting the rich to give up all the extra money they make. All anybody is asking is that the rich pay more in taxes--in effect, that they reinvest in society by a little more than they do now.

What is that even suggesting? At what point have the rich payed enough. Is 80% (unsure on number) of taxes from top 5% not enough?

The other, albeit related, flaw in the conservative argument is that it fails to acknowledge the debt wealthy people owe to society.

I think he means that society fails to acknowledge the debt they owe to wealth people.

I've never heard of this site "The New Republic". Anyone know what its intended audience is (conservative, liberal, etc.)?

Edited October 20, 2010 by OCSL

[2046]

I've never heard of this site "The New Republic". Anyone know what its intended audience is (conservative, liberal, etc.)?

It's a very old left-fascist publication that has been calling for planning and dictatorship since 1914. They claim (I don't know if it's true) to be the ones responsible for hijacking the word "liberal" from the individualists.