Dear Taxman:

On education and taxes, fascism and socialism:

First off, the reason you pay high taxes is because the rich and the super-rich in this country are subsidized, virtually free of charge, by no matter whichever political party, Republican or Democrat, gets into power.  The right-wingers in both parties blame unions, welfare recipients, minorities, immigrants, social programs -- everything but where the blame really lies.  And the blame really lies in a tax system that is rigged against the great majority of working people, and in favor of a very small handful of fabulously wealthy people who have more money than you or I or most of us could imagine in 10 lifetimes.

Second, where the money of the rich and the super-rich comes from is not from "hard work," not from "abstinence," not from "savings," not from "starting at the bottom and working their way up," as all the lying myths and superstitions about how the super-rich got rich tell you.  That's all nonsense.  The rich and the super-rich got rich -- primarily -- from inheritance.  That is, they inherited from previously owned wealth previously owned by others in their family.  Bill Gates, for instance, did not start out poor.  His father was a very wealthy real estate capitalist.  He's just one example of  this rule.  And inheritance does not equal work or production.  Work or production are human actions, human activities.  And millions and billions of humans worldwide and here in America work very hard and produce a lot, but never get rich.

Third, public education is not the primary beneficiary of taxes.  The primary beneficiary of taxes is, hidden subsidies to the owners of banks, corporations, industries -- that is, hidden subsidies to the rich and the super-rich.  Another key beneficiary of your tax dollars is, the enormous tax exemptions which big mega-churches get under the First Amendment's separation of church and state, which enable these huge televangelist-ruled mega-churches to take in billions in wealth each year and pay no taxes.  Guess who picks up the difference?  You and I do.

Fourth, when I said the tax system was rigged, I meant that.  Take the years from about 1950 to now, or from about 1950 to about 2003 or 2004.  A television news program on business on WEDU here in the Tampa Bay area which interviewed the fellow who authored the book, Perfectly Legal, interviewed him saying that in 1950, if you earned ten million dollars or more, you paid at least 30 cents of every dollar earned in taxes, and if you earned only 14 thousand per year, you paid only about 10 cents to 14 cents per each dollar earned.  But what has happened in the years since 1950 is this:  a huge transfer of wealth from the working and lower middle and poor classes to the super-rich.  Today, if you earn over ten million dollars, you pay in taxes per dollar what the person who earned in 1950 who earned about $14 thousand paid -- namely, a little more than the 1950 amount of the person who earned $14 thousand, about 15 cents to 17 cents per dollar in each dollar earned.  But today if you earn, say, the rough equivalent in today's dollar terms of the $14 thousand per year of 1950 -- say $17 or $18 thousand per year -- you pay something like 30 cents per dollar earned.  In other words, the transfer of wealth from the masses to the rich and super-rich in the period from 1950 to now means, you pay per dollar earned much less than the owners of those banks, those financial institutions, those big corporations, who got the U.S. into the terrible financial and economic crisis into which the U.S. has been put today.  They pay less per dollar earned in taxes than you do.

How did  this happen?

Well, basically, this is where we have to address this issue of socialism versus capitalism.

And this is where you have to get rid of some of the lies with which you've been indoctrinated and brainwashed by those who hate what they call "communism," "socialism," "Marxism."  You have to open your mind to some ideas nobody's ever told you about before.

First off, capitalism is a system that develops.  How does it develop?  It develops over time in a way in which labor, the human element, tends to decline in proportion to the nonhuman element of production (machinery, buildings, etc.).  Over time, as capitalism develops, tools (the nonhuman element) get a hell of a lot more complex and sophisticated.  And they, over time, tend to eliminate over time a lot of the human or labor element.

Second, but this leads to a problem for the entire capitalist system, as well as for individual capitalist enterprises.  The problem to which it leads is this:  all value -- all wealth or equity -- has its source in the human element.  Everybody who has ever studied economics knows this.  And it was not the communist, Karl Marx, who invented this notion.  This notion that all value or equity came from the human or labor element originated much earlier than Marx, with, in fact, important capitalistic economic thinkers, specifically Adam Smith in 1776, and then David Ricardo in 1817 and again in 1820.  Marx only inherited their view on that issue.

Third, but if machinery and buildings tend over time to displace the labor element, and if the labor element is the source of value or equity (of wealth, or at least wealth of concern to human beings, social wealth), then that means that, over time, as labor is lessened as a portion of the production process, the equity value or exchange value of all that is produced also is lessened.  This again goes back to the old labor theory of value -- that human effort is the source of wealth production.

Fourth:  there's real wealth, and there's fake wealth.  Fake wealth is "funny money."  It's basically speculative wealth, fictitious wealth, wealth that has not "happened" yet.  Basically, all capitalism is like a big casino.  It's a bet.  It's a bet that if we just invest here, and here, and here, then profit will come back sooner or later to us.

Fifth:  but that bet doesn't always work out that way.  The reason it doesn't always work out that way has a lot to do with, for instance, the fact human beings tend over time to be displaced by the non-human element.  It's not the only reason, but part of the problem with capitalism is, humans get displaced by machines.  And that leads to fewer humans having money -- dollars, other currencies -- to buy stuff with.  And if we don't have money to buy stuff with, stuff doesn't get bought.  And if stuff doesn't get bought, companies that produced it either go under or cut back, and then, there's recessions and depressions.

Sixth:  that, however, has a lot to do with the fact capitalism is based on betting, like casinos.  The entire system is based on speculation, ultimately.  It's ultimately all based on betting.  Saying it is based on betting is another way of saying it is non-planned or un-planned production.  That is, each individual capitalist enterprise competes with other capitalist enterprises and bets and bets and bets, and eventually bets up or antes up too much till the entire thing collapses.  It's like people around a poker table anteing up and betting up and up and up till there's a huge pot on the table, but eventually what happens is, only one person goes away with all the winnings.  That's basically how capitalism works.  The bigger capitalists gobble up the smaller, until the entire economic system is centralized in a few hands, and then, that's still not enough, and they ante up, and then there's more of the same.  It never ends.

Seventh:  But it's all unplanned.  That is, the planning is only done within each enterprise.  Beyond each enterprise, however, there's no planning, and so, there is no way of knowing what the market will bear.  Capitalists bet and bet and bet, and then, suddenly, it all collapses, because the market has become super-saturated with an overproduction of goods and services.  The entire system throughout the history of the entire system is punctuated by these "booms" and "busts."  Capitalism is a boom-bust cycle.  And no communist and no socialist invented that.  Capitalism itself invented that situation itself over time.

Eighth:  But to get around this, the big capitalists need a big government to follow them, oversee them, regulate them, insure the competition doesn't get too bloody and too unstable, lest it bring the entire system down in a heap.  The government's centralization, and the rise in taxes that went with it, followed the rise in the centralization of capital into fewer and fewer and fewer hands of richer and richer and richer people.  It did not start out with big government.  Rather, the economic system centralized first, and then, government centralization followed.  That's the history of capitalism and the capitalist governments in all capitalist countries, especially here in America, the most capitalist country on earth.

Ninth:  That is why your taxes have gone up, and why taxes go up and have progressively gone up from the time of the founding of the Internal Revenue Service and the income tax system in, as I recall, either 1914 or 1916 in this country.  With centralization of the economic system came government centralization to follow it, because the government is the executive committee regulating the common affairs of the most powerful capitalist owners -- the owners of the biggest corporations and biggest banks.  When Marx, the communist, used the phrase, ruling class, or bourgeoisie, it was this class, the owners of the biggest banks and corporations, to whom he was referring.  And when he referred to the executive committee of the ruling class, he meant the governments of capitalist countries, and especially their main central political elements.

Tenth:  the government is not neutral.  At its core is the institution called, the state.  What is the state?  The state is the armed men plus prisons that defends the existing set-up in which capital (the capitalist owners of the big corporations and big banks) exploit (extract profit from) another class, labor, or the working class.  The state is basically the cops, security guards, and prisons.  And it is not neutral.  It gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger as capitalism gets more and more and more centralized into fewer and fewer and fewer hands over historical time.  And most of your tax dollars go to support the cops, federal cops, state cops, local cops, the prisons, and also the military -- army, navy, air force, national guard -- who are also there to defend the capitalist ruling class's class rule over the working class and over other classes from whom the capitalist ruling class extract profits -- suck profits, in other words.

And, of course, one of the people the big rich extract profits from -- either directly, through your laboring for them and producing by your labor a portion of your labor for which you do not get paid, which is the source of their profits, or indirectly through subsidies to the ruling class in the form of your taxes and through other kinds of subsidies to them -- is you.  Another person from whom they extract or suck profits is me.  The majority of us are people from whom the ruling bourgeois capitalist owning class extract profits.  We are, in our majority, people who own, really, nothing but our ability to work, our labor power.  That is, when you come right down to it, all you and I and the majority of us have to sell on the capitalistic market to the capitalist employers.  That ability to work or labor power we sell.  Sometimes the bosses are buying.  But in other times, as now, in recessions and depressions, they're not buying.  And so, we in our majority are screwed.

What enables the capitalists to be in the position of buyers of our labor power?

Well, they own the means of production.

We don't.

They do.

If the means of production were cooperatively and collectively owned, rather than privately owned, then production could be planned ahead, so there would be no more boom-bust cycles, no more depressions and no more recessions, and so the proper amount of labor could be put with the proper amount of tasks.

That is what a socialist economy is about.  It's ending the non-planned or unplanned nature of capitalism and replacing it with socialist planning.

Does that mean Stalinism or totalitarianism?

No.

In fact, in countries like America, where we would not be starting out from scratch with little (as, for instance, the Russians started out from scratch in 1917, with little), we would have immeasurably more advantages, and we would have so much wealth and technology to start out with that it would not take long for a socialist economy in this country to turn this country into an industrial and manufacturing and production powerhouse once again, with highly technically skilled and highly paid jobs at very high wages and no taxes at all, because, you see, a socialist economy would be based on production, not on these funny-money financial instruments that produce nothing, but on real production of real goods and real services.

The problem capitalism is now in is, funny money -- speculation -- has gotten so out of hand that it has destroyed the system.  There's no production to speak of left.  We have the skills, the machinery, the science, to turn all that around.  But they are all in the hands of a handful of wealthy people.

If we all took that wealth which we produced out of the hands of that tiny minority of parasites and took it over and cooperatively owned and ran it and democratically administered it through our own elected councils of elected delegates of working people, we could turn this country into a heaven on earth, and not long thereafter, most of the rest of the planet would, I'm sure, follow us as the great example for working people everywhere to follow.

And we wouldn't even need taxes.  We would expropriate all these banks, corporations, industries, put them under a socialist plan, administer that through elected councils of working people, use computers and the fabulous technology we have to enable and facilitate that administration in a really efficient way, plan everything ahead, and make things marvelous.

We could eliminate all taxes on consumption, all taxes on booze, cigarettes, beer, food, clothing, shelter, make housing for everybody, make full employment by shortening the work week at no loss in pay while raising the minimum wage to something like a livable standard of, say, $75 dollar per hour for everyone, and really pour money into public education for everyone bar none.

Why?  Because production would be the basis of everything, as it ought to be.  Right now, production in this country is down to about 12 percent of the American economy.  But with a socialist economy, we could turn that round in a series of 5-year socialist plans over a period of 5 or 10 or 15 years.  We have the objective capacity.  What stands in the way is, capitalism.

Anyway, you're being robbed not because we're "too socialist," but because we have no socialism in this country.

Indeed, this country today is closer in a capitalist sense to a kind of corporate fascism than it's ever been.  And there are some people, like Mayor of Moronia, or some others, who want to turn the economic corporate fascism into a more political, racist, Hitler-like, totalitarian type of fascism with slave labor camps, death camps, that sort of thing.

That's, in any case, my "take" on things.

If you feel like getting back to me on this, do so, and we'll talk further.

Best,

Allan

I totally agree! 

No one can be effective when they have such low morale. 

And you are right.  In high school, I went on (twice a year) what we called "tag day".  I was in the marching band and we would pile in the cars of parents, be taken to a neighborhood, and go door to door asking for donations.  In uniform - on very hot days.  A few times it was to replace the old uniforms for the band.  I was in color guard.  We went out and begged for money for our band mates to have nice new uniforms (which were very expensive and very nice to last many years), meanwhile, the color guard (parents that is) BOUGHT OUR OWN uniforms every year.  And if you were in winter guard, you bought a new uniform for that too.  I always wondered if the football players bought there own uniforms and equipment like we did.  Or if they did fund raisers to pay for any trips like us.  I doubt it.

And then I hear from people who are teachers or work in schools that they don't even have PAPER to make copies for handouts unless they purchase it out of their own pocket. 

AND I did have some classes in portable rooms during middle school.  AND I had a teacher in high school who roamed from room to room, where ever there was a classroom and no class for the residing teacher, that period.  Floating teachers with no actual room of their own, pushing a cart with their teaching materials to their next space. 

Then there is all the finger pointing.  Parents blaming teachers for things that are out of their control.  Teachers blaming parents when grandma buys kids expensive clothes or whatever and mom and dad can't afford the school supplies.  School supplies?  How about pencil and paper and maybe a binder to put them in.  But teachers have to pass out this huge list every year because the school doesn't have money to provide glue, colored pencils or whatever.  Shameful!

I just hope I get out of this state before my son starts school here!

Kay