On Being Unable to React to Meaningless Terms
Rutger Bergman said, in a Guardian interview, that Gallup polling suggests that "since the end of the 1990s, the vast majority of people in the US have wanted the rich to pay more taxes." In other words, for a generation, have thought that tax rates on the rich should be "higher", but but nothing was done about it.
Why is that?
Perhaps because having the rich pay more in taxes is a good idea in principle, people do not have a gut understanding of what it means, why it should be done or how it should be done.
What it means?
Why do people think that the rich deserve what they have?
One answer is that they "worked for it".
But in this context, "worked" is such a sleezy word because it could mean so many different things depending on one's own experience with work. It means one thing to a person whose only experience with work has been hard manual labor, but something completely different to whose life has been spent manipulating laws and people. To a person doing hard manual labor, work can mean inescapable physical pain and exhaustion, despair and frustration because there is no stopping, the dulling of one's senses to escape the pain, and the only triumph may come when the pain stops. For the wealthy, it means playing a game of trying, with social skills, clever arguments, threats, to get other people to do your will, a process painful only in the process of having to learn these skills or development these arguments; and the reward is wealth, the fulfillment of one's schemes and dominance over other people.
The only equivalence between these two kinds of work is time. For some work, like mindless labor, the reward comes only after the time has been spend doing it, while for other more "intellectual" work, the spending of the time can be a reward in itself.
One could make the argument, then, that one should be paid less for the latter kind of work than the former.
If all work is necessary to support society, then the work that nobody wants to do should be paid more generously.
But this is complicated by how people understand the value of a particular job. The person who cleans sewers does so out of sight and generally out of mind, and if that job is never done, the result may not be perceived or understood for many years.
Humans respond only to immediate situations and consequences unless trained to do otherwise.
People do not know how the rich came to be rich or how they keep their wealth. They respond only to the trappings of wealth.
*****
Wealth comes from stealing just a little bit from many many people, so little that they don't notice.
The bank computer programmer who was taking only the fraction of pennies generated by interest, whose theft was invisible to the victims only because the fraction of a penny was not visible, was only caught when his bank balance became too large, and the bank realized that that money was theirs, not his.
*************
It is also difficult for people to understand how they benefit from the common good, as the common good is so ubiquitous that it is taken for granted.
The more that the common good can be hidden, privatized, or individualized, better it is for the rich and the worse it is for society.
Why is that?
Perhaps because having the rich pay more in taxes is a good idea in principle, people do not have a gut understanding of what it means, why it should be done or how it should be done.
What it means?
Why do people think that the rich deserve what they have?
One answer is that they "worked for it".
But in this context, "worked" is such a sleezy word because it could mean so many different things depending on one's own experience with work. It means one thing to a person whose only experience with work has been hard manual labor, but something completely different to whose life has been spent manipulating laws and people. To a person doing hard manual labor, work can mean inescapable physical pain and exhaustion, despair and frustration because there is no stopping, the dulling of one's senses to escape the pain, and the only triumph may come when the pain stops. For the wealthy, it means playing a game of trying, with social skills, clever arguments, threats, to get other people to do your will, a process painful only in the process of having to learn these skills or development these arguments; and the reward is wealth, the fulfillment of one's schemes and dominance over other people.
The only equivalence between these two kinds of work is time. For some work, like mindless labor, the reward comes only after the time has been spend doing it, while for other more "intellectual" work, the spending of the time can be a reward in itself.
One could make the argument, then, that one should be paid less for the latter kind of work than the former.
If all work is necessary to support society, then the work that nobody wants to do should be paid more generously.
But this is complicated by how people understand the value of a particular job. The person who cleans sewers does so out of sight and generally out of mind, and if that job is never done, the result may not be perceived or understood for many years.
Humans respond only to immediate situations and consequences unless trained to do otherwise.
People do not know how the rich came to be rich or how they keep their wealth. They respond only to the trappings of wealth.
*****
Wealth comes from stealing just a little bit from many many people, so little that they don't notice.
The bank computer programmer who was taking only the fraction of pennies generated by interest, whose theft was invisible to the victims only because the fraction of a penny was not visible, was only caught when his bank balance became too large, and the bank realized that that money was theirs, not his.
*************
It is also difficult for people to understand how they benefit from the common good, as the common good is so ubiquitous that it is taken for granted.
The more that the common good can be hidden, privatized, or individualized, better it is for the rich and the worse it is for society.
posted by Godel at 8:05 AM
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