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kadima's sole political goal of withdrawing from much of the west bank...,
2006-09-05 15:53:43
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finally, everybody is angry about the same thing...,
2006-09-08 17:18:14
sounds like it could be true:
over here we find
tom walker saying:
The original rationale for progressive taxation was developed in the 17th century by Pierre Boisguillebert (or Boisguilbert), who was also an early proponent of laissez-faire. The idea was that large incomes were inevitably based on monopoly rents that resulted from government protection. In some cases it may not be feasible to break the monopolies, so progressive taxation is a way of at least ameliorating the distributive effects of the monopoly. The idea that disproportionately large incomes somehow represent "more productivity" runs counter to the logic of classical political economy because, without barriers to entry, any large incomes would be very quickly whittled away by competition.
If one accepts the classical analysis of laissez-faire, monopolistic rents and competition, progressive taxation follows logically. It is understood as a tax on privilege, not on productivity. Of course if you want to reject the classical analysis of competition and laissez faire but cherry pick and use some of the terms ideologically, you could always assert -- without either evidence or logic -- that privilege begets productivity, that the recipients of large incomes are, by definition, the creators of wealth. Such an assertion would be in keeping with the prevailing conventional wisdom.
:: posted by buermann @ 2006-09-05 23:09:16 CST |
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