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Originally Posted by Tarl Cabot
You appear to have it backwards, unless you are claiming that the top decile of our economy is the recipient of over 90% of tax receipts.
I for one do not believe that the top decile of taxpayers uses 90% of the roads, water, electricity, government-funded medical care, public schools, public transportation, clean air, military and fire protection, police, food stamps, or housing assistance, to name a few.
Nope. $8 less. The other nine are still eating, and as I demonstrated, if anything, they "eat" more than the "greedy rich guy."
Sounds like he's behaving like the first four men, except that they provided nothing.
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I can't control how you believe, but I can demonstrate that your belief on this matter is incorrect.
The top percentile, owners of capital, directly and indirectly benefit from all the things you listed more than anyone else in this society. You have a distorted view of distribution of labor and how capital works if you are going to claim that workers driving on the freeways "use" and benefit the road system more than the owners of the means of production.
One example will make this clear: when a trucker drives on the freeway, the person making profit from what is being transported is benefitting from the use of the roadway, not the trucker. Sure, he makes his wage, but only commensurate with his labor (a Marxist would argue that wages aren't even commensurate with his labor, but I'm not being an apologist for communism or Marxism in this response).
Basically, all of those services you listed are essential for our economy to run. "Use" of those services benefits the people who reap the rewards of the economic system in place. We simply need to follow the money to determine who benefits the most. A discussion over justness is suitable, but not necessary to understand that the people who reap the greatest rewards of our society and own the material resources that garner them those benefits are responsible for its upkeep. Contrary to popular belief about our citizens' individuality, the truth of the matter is the upkeep of citizens and our society's infrastructure should be understood as part of the overhead capitalists need to pay to continue reaping their benefits. The most savvy capitalists understand this--which is why one finds such incredible amounts of money infused into social services by the wealthiest individuals.
In fact, I haven't spoken to anyone who disputes that what the social services enacted after the depression saved capitalism. The system was imploding. If you want to look at the historical record, for example, communism/socialism/wobblies/unions were an extremely powerful force during that era.