- Joined
- Jul 12, 2010
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- Independent
One of the arguments I've seen from a few posters as to why the rich shouldn't pay more taxes is because they claim the poor benefit the most from the government. I disagree and here is why. The rich use the highway system to ship their goods, they use public airwaves to advertise their goods, they use the courts far more than the poor, if they ship goods by air they have to rely on government air traffic controllers, and I'm sure it costs a lot of money to keep shipping lanes clear and open., especially from troubled parts of the world. The government also gives the energy industry large subsidies.
However, you could ignore everything I listed above and the fact would remain the the rich depend on the government for their very existence as a social class. The system that allowed them to make their money, capitalism, could not exist without a government.
The government enforces contracts and protects private property. These two things are necessary for capitalism to exist and neither one of them benefits the poor. If you remove the government from the equation then capitalism will collapse. So if the government decides to tax the rich at 90%, then they should pay without complaining, because every penny they own was made possibly by state violence in favor against the poor. To clarify I should point out that protection of private property does not benefit the poor, because they have own no private property. In this case private property refers to the means of production.
In a state where every industry and commodity is nationalized and controlled by the government and when the right to property is disregarded, I ask you, who then becomes the rich? You think there's no rich people in Cuba?