The "Class Warfare" Canard

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I'm sick of hearing conservatives call it "class warfare" when people want to take wealth from the rich and give it to the poor. They almost never call it class warfare when you take money from the poor and give it to the rich. Rich people wanting wealth from poor people is class warfare. Poor people wanting wealth from the rich is not class warfare because a society needs to take care of its needy.

I do find it curious that people who work their asses off have to struggle like hell just to make ends meet......but those on top just continue getting richer. That is one thing I don't get I could see if those on the bottom wanted to you know storm all the rich people with guns and weapons and take every last dollor of theirs by force...how the conservatives react. But being of the opinion that those rich need to participate and actually pay their taxes and not behave like pigs feeding off everyone else is hardly anything to refer to as class warfare.

This is why I have to laugh when people claim all those rich people earned it through honest hard work...I mean if that is the case where is my dads wealth he should have earned through all that hard work he's done? what about everyone elses parents who worked their asses off to feed their family and still needed assistance in the form of food stamps maybe...where is their wealth? What about my friend who was in the military...now that is a hard job, yet hes having to talk to a lawyer go through a bunch of paper work and all kinds of crap just to get basic medical coverage.......I just don't see how people can be so oblivious to the reality smacking them in the face...it is right there look around and then tell me how honest and hard working that rich 1% is.

This society is sick, and people wonder why I don't want to participate in it? and to anyone who will tell me 'well you have to give in just a little' to make enough to live on...I don't care anymore.

I know, we can start with George Soros!

No george is number 14
we have Bill and Warren Larry the Koch brothers that bank roll the libertarian movement
a crap load of Waltons, Mikey Bloomberg, the Google dudes before you get to the richest Joo ins america
. . .
Sheldon Adelson of Vegas only then do you get to George.

It is not class warfare as much as the relationship between the individual and the state should be a balance of give and take. With low wages with hard labor, I see it as a form of subsidized slavery. People are not paid enough in most cases to reflect the amount of work they do.

I call that class warfare.

People seem to forget that stripping the rich (once you agree what constitutes 'rich') does not stimulate the economy- only the retail sector and that alone won't stimulate the economy. You would have a short-lived demand for houses, but that would cause a bubble and burst quickly. The lower classes would suddenly have more money than they would know how to manage and it would be nearly impossible to regulate remittances on that scale, so the money would all disappear from the economy and people's pockets alike in short order and nobody would have anything to show for it.

exactly.

When a UK politician says this, they may be invoking the 'class war' group that was responsible for some 'bash the rich' events in the 80s.

note: the henley regatta is a sort of aristocratic festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IZ3KOgr ... r_embedded

Higher Taxes on the Rich/Wealthy is not Class Warfare.


The logic of Taxing the Rich, and Why Dems are Afraid to Use It

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Taxing the super-rich is not about class envy, as conservatives charge. It’s about the nation having enough money to pay for national defense and homeland security, good schools and a crumbling infrastructure, the upcoming costs of boomers’ Social Security (the current surplus has masked the true extent of the current budget deficit, but it won’t for much longer), and, hopefully, affordable national health insurance. Not to mention the trillion dollars or so it will take to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is now starting to hit the middle class.

If the rich and super-rich don’t pay their fair share of this tab, the middle class will get socked with the bill. But the middle class can’t possibly pay it. America’s middle class is under intense financial pressure. Median wages and benefits, adjusted for inflation, have been going nowhere for thirty years; health costs are soaring (employers are quickly shifting co-payments, deductibles, and premiums to their employees), fuel costs are out of sight, the prices of the houses occupied by the middle-class are in the doldrums.

What’s fair? I’d say a 50 percent marginal tax rate on the very rich (earning over $500,000 a year). Plus an annual wealth tax of one half of one percent on net worth of people holding more than $5 million in total assets. Can’t be done, you say? Well, the highest marginal tax rate under Republican Dwight Eisenhower was 91 percent. It dropped under JFK to the 70 percent range. You say the rich will leave the country rather than face a marginal tax of 50 percent? Let them, and take away their citizenship.

http://robertreich.org/post/257309173

What I think of as class warfare is when emotions like envy and jealousy are invoked in an effort to demonize the upper classes rather than an actual argument. Simply arguing for taxing the wealthy isn't class warfare, relying on emotional arguments or invoking the old "well they can afford it" argument is.

I think it's quite presumptuous to assume that envy or jealously factor in at all. I think a significant portion of people who feel that having the rich pay their fair share is a necessary budget balancing tool. Not everyone desires wealth. Plenty of folks are perfectly happy with a modest living. There are also plenty of wealthy people who want to see tax hikes at the top too (or at least an expiration of the Bush tax cuts).

When we look at who in this country has taken the largest hit from the financial meltdown and slumping economy, it's generally low and middle income Americans. CEO's give themselves substantial raises while cutting their workforce. Who's really suffering and why is it fair to make those who are pay more?

Ironically, most of the actual jealousy and envy I see comes from the Tea Party. They lament how people supposedly work the system to get a free ride while the real, hardworking Americans pay for their fancy food stamps and Medicaid - all while ignoring their own government checks and free rides. I often hear comments like, "I wish I could just sit on my a** all day and let the government coddle me." Although, those people often sing a different tune when they get laid off and find themselves trying to survive on unemployment for 6 months or more.

I would argue that there is not anything specifically emotional about claiming the wealthy can afford it...if the facts point to them being able to afford it then it would be a factual argument not an emotional one.

Yeah people act like welfare is some great way to live....as far as I know it sucks, its not really something anyone would choose if they could do otherwise.

Exactly. It's not that the argument itself is class warfare, but it becomes class warfare when people bring resentment to the table.

I side with Warren Buffet on this one.

It is class warfare. And the rich are winning.

And the logical argument that the rich probably can 'afford it'...does not have to involve resentment, jealousy or any of those other traits us in the lower class are supposedly enslaved by.