Tax Payers

[precarian]

Can anyone provide me with a critique of the imbecilic "noble tax payer" rhetoric, so beloved by the modern right-wing?

Speaking to people on a daily basis, most of the working class seem to have imbibed this tabloid-inspired "tax payers fury." It completely obfuscates the nature of capitalist wage slavery and it does immense harm to our cause when leftists indulge this idiocy - eg. by arguing why paying taxes is necessary and "moral" instead of critiquing the very premise of "tax paying" within the capitalist system as a whole.

Indeed, the "tax payer" appears to be the subject of rightist ideology in the same way that "proletarian" is the focus of socialism - it is a sort of "substitute proletariat" for the consumerist age, a form of collective solidarity between selfish individualists!

So aye, I'd love to hear about journal articles, books, essays, newspaper articles and, of course, the opinions of fellow revlefters - anything dealing with this phenomenon!

Cheers!

[BIXX]

Regarding my opinion on taxes: if they actually help people, then I support them. However, our society does not do that.

Of course a post revolution society would not have a need or even a drive to have taxes.

I also wouldn't liken the tax payers to the proletariat.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Most workers are tax-payers. Some tax-payers are workers.

And actually, if you happen to be a worker and a tax-payer, then that does alter your mindset towards lower tax options - low fuel prices, lower alcohol duties etc.

[thewire]

there's no way to get around paying taxes as all "traditional/modern" forms of american employment requires you to fill w2s and most taxes are factored into the equation before currency/capital has even been exchanged. And of course there is sales tax which is virtually impossible to get around as well.

[BIXX]

there's no way to get around paying taxes as all "traditional/modern" forms of american employment requires you to fill w2s and most taxes are factored into the equation before currency/capital has even been exchanged. And of course there is sales tax which is virtually impossible to get around as well.

1. Work in a place with sales tax.
2. Buy shit in a place with income tax.
3.?????????
4. Profit.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Can anyone provide me with a critique of the imbecilic "noble tax payer" rhetoric, so beloved by the modern right-wing?

Speaking to people on a daily basis, most of the working class seem to have imbibed this tabloid-inspired "tax payers fury." It completely obfuscates the nature of capitalist wage slavery and it does immense harm to our cause when leftists indulge this idiocy - eg. by arguing why paying taxes is necessary and "moral" instead of critiquing the very premise of "tax paying" within the capitalist system as a whole.

Indeed, the "tax payer" appears to be the subject of rightist ideology in the same way that "proletarian" is the focus of socialism - it is a sort of "substitute proletariat" for the consumerist age, a form of collective solidarity between selfish individualists!

So aye, I'd love to hear about journal articles, books, essays, newspaper articles and, of course, the opinions of fellow revlefters - anything dealing with this phenomenon!

Cheers!

I haven't read it and I can't remember the name of it now, but there was a book that came out a few years ago about the Calfornia "Tax Revolt" and how it helped create a new right-wing populism that gave a social base to ruling class attempts to roll back Keynsian reforms and civil-rights era gains by poor blacks.

"American Babylon" which is about Oakland in the post-war era also talks about this in the context of Northern California - and, I've actually read that one and remember the name :grin:. So that would be a good place to look for a history - as well as a general history of the contradictions of the post-war Keyensian era "great society".

But my attempt at a very brief answer is that

1) Anti-tax is an abstract concept and we always have to look at what tax, on whom, and for what. So right now WE should be organizing against all the attempts to raise regressive taxes: both regular taxes, but also new fees on public services like transportation or education which are de-facto taxes on workers. This is a class issue and an attempt to push more of the burdon of daily social-reporduction (i.e. getting by) from business and onto the working class. And these regressive taxes are generally SUPPORTED by the "Anti-Tax" liberals and conservatives on the pretext that direct users of services should pay for it... which is rediculous as if business doesn't need people to get to their jobs.

2) Why anti-tax sentiment has been sucessful I think is due in part to the conditions of neo-liberalism. This is an argument I got from the history in "American Babylon" -- as the post-war upward mobility in the US ended and union workers were no longer passivly able to get steady increases in wages and benifits, the middle class answer was to win workers who had achieved some mobility (a home and somewhat stable job) to an anti-tax position. If you can't rely on unions to help you keep up with daily costs, then a tax-break for some (like homeowners) can be seen in an immediate but narrow way to maintain. So real estate developers and middle class coalitions with their own interests in keeping taxes off of them, were able to win some workers to seeing this as their best chance of holding onto the mobility they gained. In addition these arguments were won using coded "colorblind" racism: people who are "irresponcible" (i.e. the poor) should not be getting money in the form of services and programs from "responcible" hardworking (white) americans. This is still the argument today: "Why should MY tax money go to a public healthcare system to help out someone who smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day? Why should I pay money to a public education system when (black) kids just want to be thugs and not learn?"

[Comrade #138672]

Why is it OK for capitalists to exploit workers, while, at the same time, it is wrong for the government to "exploit" tax payers? Why do the tax payers care about their pennies when they have millions to gain by heavily taxing the actual exploiters?

[StringsofG]

After I work my bunz off, and get done paying taxes, here what I get........
NOTHING, the entire tax system is flawed. Society does not need giant armies and nuclear weapons. We need a universal education system, a universal healthcare system, etc... Do our tax dollars get us any of this, NO. They go into the pockets of the wealthy....

If we simply toppled the private property owners and cut out those bloodsuckers, taxation would become completely useless.

[drunken-radicalism]

I wrestle with similar questions too. Most of the people in my home town are right wing types. Idk try suggesting that they, as working people, should decide where the fruits of there labor, be it taxes or what ever, go to.
try something along the lines of "well since the government's full of shit, than we should determine how we use our own money. After all I dont want to go send my friends and neighbors off to die for oil. Every dollar spent on war is a dollar never spent on education." or something like that.
The biggest challenge of any revolutionary is to put big ideas into terms regular people will understand. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but i reckon that rhetoric like that might open you up to more class struggle politics in your community.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Well, since the richest pay most in tax (in absolute terms, not always in relative terms) then "taxpayer" tends to mean them.

Also implicit in the idea of "taxpayer" is an appeal to "wealth creators" (as they are called in the US) who make all the money that is to be taxed: business. But since big business exploits tax havens and uses accounting to avoid paying tax, then so a disproportionate tax burden falls on small business. "Taxpayer" is then a way of appealing to small business owners - those people perhaps struggling to stay in the middle class - so that they stay on-side in the capitalist game and don't get influenced by left-wing, worker-sympathetic ideas.

And finally, there is an obvious bias in terms of the things taxpayer organisations and interest groups decide to get angry about. When a politician decides to redecorate his office, or when the local council buys new road signs or refurbishes a public building to comply with health-and-safety legislation, or when the police hire a new equality and diversity officer to their staff, then this is a great moral offence to the taxpayer. But spending hundreds of billions on the military, or providing huge subsidizes to big business to encourage it to get involved in the provision of public services, then all that is fine. The former is just "waste" or gluttony, while criticising the latter is being "political" and to be avoided (but this supposed objectivity is not neutral at all.....)