Elsewhere (241)
Ben Sixsmith finds another Guardian writer with a spiteful confiscation fetish:
What I found most unpleasant in [Abi] Wilkinson’s article [advocating a 100% inheritance tax] is her acceptance that there could be “a small allowance for objects of sentimental value.” It brought the reality of the idea home. Imagine relatives being forced to beg to keep their family heirlooms. Your granddad’s books? Well, okay. It’s not as if they’re first editions. Your mother’s piano? Sorry, pal. Too big for this allowance. Your grandmother’s house? Forget it. We’re selling it off.
[ Added: ] Ms Wilkinson responds to her critics.Michael Aaron on the mental contortions of being “woke,” and why they spread:
How could it be possible that so many people, large cohorts of students, and indeed entire academic disciplines, are so bamboozled into believing much of postmodernist rhetoric, including that science is a symbol of the patriarchy (you’ve got to click on the link, the title is “Science: A masculine disorder?”) and that the concept of health is merely another tool of Western colonial oppression?
Lee Jussim on the bias of assuming unfair “gender bias”:
The societal push to equalise gender distributions may be deeply dysfunctional, because it can succeed only by having the perverse effect of pushing people into fields they do not prefer. Of course, on moral grounds, we want to ensure that all people have equal opportunities to enter any particular career. But if there are bona fide gender differences in preferences and interests, equal opportunities may never translate into equal outcomes.
And Shannon Spada on political asymmetries:
A recent poll conducted by Pew Research Centre produced results suggesting… that Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to say that it would “strain” their relationship to learn that a friend had voted for the other party’s candidate. Among all respondents (not just college students), 35 percent of Democrats said that a friend voting for Donald Trump would strain their friendship, while only 13 percent of Republicans said that a friend voting for Hillary Clinton would have the same effect.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
What I found most unpleasant in [Abi] Wilkinson’s article [advocating a 100% inheritance tax] is her acceptance that there could be “a small allowance for objects of sentimental value.”
“Utopian thinking”
“Utopian thinking”
Yes, it’s a rather dissonant definition. Though, I suppose some people really like the prospect of bureaucratic confiscation and other people’s family bonds and acts of kindness being violated by the state.
Scientist, author and lefty Trump-hater Richard Dawkins gets no-platformed for ‘insulting islam’. Cue Alanis Morissette.
Imagine relatives being forced to beg to keep their family heirlooms.
Socialist compassion.
Socialist compassion.
To a degree that few on the left are willing to admit, it does, I think, boil down to disposition and whether you’re inclined to envy, resentment and petty malice.
Years ago, the Other Half and I were renting a flat, converted from the two upper floors of a large-ish house. The ground floor was a separate, smaller flat, occupied by a young woman in her early twenties, just starting out in life. One day, our downstairs neighbour called round to say goodbye as she was moving out and buying a place. A relative had died and she’d inherited a chunk of cash – not a fortune, but just about enough to cover the deposit on a mortgage. Although we were still renting at the time, and although some might see us as having been leapfrogged, we weren’t resentful of her good fortune. It didn’t feel unfair or a basis for disaffection. It seems to me this is how families are supposed to work, ideally. A benefit paid forward, hopefully by each generation.
Given that six months ago Corbyn was seen as unelectable, perhaps we’re all overreacting – things could swing back again. Since the election, though, there’s a real sense amongst everyone even vaguely right of centre that the Battle of Ideas (ugh) is being lost. When it came down to it, a majority of the under forties showed that they were unable to distinguish between the traditional Labour party and the hard left fringe that has its foot across its windpipe. They showed that they are happy to decorate their Facebook profiles with mottos ‘supporting’ the victims of terror while voting for men who slobbered over an earlier terrorist campaign.
In this context, Ben Sixsmith is surely right that we should be alarmed by attempts to move Marxist ideas into the mainstream. It’s only too easy for these people to pretend that they only really want Scandinavian style democratic socialism. In practice, Sweden abolished inheritance tax and corporate tax in Scandinavia is generally lower than that in the US. But the lie is still believed and the real cynosures (by turns the USSR, East Germany, Cuba, Venezuela etc.) are ignored.
It appears to be obvious to people who bother informing themselves about politics and economics and history that the hard left is bad news (the soft left are perfectly sound on this point). Despite this, the left has been so successful in establishing the idea that it is ‘nice’ that even state confiscation of all assets on death barely causes a ripple.
A 100% inheritance tax is a great way to encourage people to live irresponsibly and die a pauper.
Also via Ben Sixsmith, a data-rich thread on immigration and crime in Germany.
A writing teacher, working in a bookstore, laments the soul-crushing injustice of having to sell copies of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy to his “liberal, well-educated and well-meaning” customers, who presumably lack the ideological immunity to such right-wing propaganda. He plaintively asks, “Are there meaningful ways to resist the continued sales of disastrous books?” The amoral capitalistic model, you see, grants far too much leeway to individuals to make such purchasing decisions themselves, without the guidance of political chaperones.
“The societal push to equalise gender distributions… can succeed only by having the perverse effect of pushing people into fields they do not prefer.” I am contemplating with pleasure signing up a particularly vocal Doctor of English Lit of my acquaintance for Electrical Engineering courses.
Touching on similar themes to the Michael Aaron piece on students and postmodernist rhetoric, Andrew Klavan interviews Heather Mac Donald.
a small allowance for objects of sentimental value.
How kind.
The far left is increasingly insisting that its adherents vow belief in things that are manifestly untrue. It’s a test of faith, where you show you are willing to deny reality for the sake of your ideology.
Some of the items on their list:
– One out of four college women will get raped.
– Women make 79% of what men make for equal work.
– Gender is solely a social construct, with no basis in biology.
Apart from this, the left revels in contradictions: “Speech is violence” is a popular one. The more nonsensical it is, the more profound it is deemed to be.
This full-frontal attack on logic and evidence is reminiscent of the novel 1984, where subjugation is not just physical but psychological. The obvious parallels to this dystopia, however, do not seem to bother the far left at all.
The more nonsensical it is, the more profound it is deemed to be.
I blame modern liberal arts education. The students who are most rewarded are those whose logic achieves the deepest orbit around reality without becoming completely untethered.
Any thread of connection will do—and that’s what passes for profundity.
Hence you get papers arguing that a powerful Beethoven motif represents the violent rape of a woman, with the thrusting of the act found in the forceful cadence of the notes.
Normal people would avert their eyes from anyone making this argument because of the obvious projection of serious emotional issues. Liberals, on the other hand, nod and say, “Yes, that’s it! You’re a genius!”
Thank you for the link David.
Some issues with Diversity Training
The Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian government has just published the results of a randomised control trial involving 21,000 employees of the Australian Public Service to see if the introduction of ‘blind recruiting’ would help promote gender equality and diversity. The employees were asked to shortlist candidates for a managerial position, with half of them being given their names and other identity markers and the other half not. If these public servants were suffering from unconscious bias, you would expect the ‘blindfolded’ group to be more likely to shortlist female and minority candidates and less likely to shortlist white men. In fact, the reverse happened.
“Utopian thinking”
Two words. Laffer Curve.
Two words. Laffer Curve.
Even setting aside the numerous economic practicalities (which, incidentally, one Barack Obama has happy to dismiss as irrelevant), it’s interesting how scant Ms Wilkinson’s interest is in establishing whether what she wants, i.e., total confiscation by the state, is in fact morally just. She seems remarkably untroubled by a basic moral question, i.e., to how much of a person’s earnings – which is to say, their work and freedom – is the state, or a socialist, morally entitled?
Thank you for the link David.
Happy to.
A 100% inheritance tax is a great way to encourage people to live irresponsibly and die a pauper.
As other’s have noted, most of tax policy is designed to affect human behavior. Still, those who support sin taxes as a means of encouraging people to be more virtuous can’t/won’t make the connection that taxing human production has an adverse impact on the amount of what’s being produced.
“A 100% inheritance tax is a great way to encourage people to live irresponsibly and die a pauper.”
I see the Guardian must be great admirers/followers of the philosophy and lifestyle of the “great” Jean-Jacques Rousseau..
In the way back, when I was studying tax law, marginal estate tax rates in the U.S. were at stratospheric levels. Still, the rich were able to preserve their wealth for their descendants. Yes, it cost money for lawyers and accountants to mumble the magic incantations, but the cost of compliance was still a lot less than the tax. And, surprise! Estate tax receipts were less than the cost of administering the tax itself. That last fact tells you everything you need to know about estate/inheritance tax policy: it’s solely about envy and punishing the families of people who were successful in life. It’s called class warfare.
And naturally Ms Wilkinson is now quite pleased with herself.
And naturally Ms Wilkinson is now quite pleased with herself.
So she doesn’t understand economics *and* she doesn’t know the difference between ‘debating’ and ‘being laughed at’.
Double win.
A 100% inheritance tax is a great way to encourage people to live irresponsibly and die a pauper.
That, or just giving away stuff before you cash in your marshmallows, or making your heirs co-owners, or selling heirs items for a token amount.
The law would be unworkable short of making the state owner of all property, which would probably be fine with this lot who, I have no doubt, are driven by the fact that they are just upset because they are not in line to inherit anything.
She is not making an argument for inheritance tax, which most of us accept should exist…
What do you mean us, kimosabe ?
Anything I might stand to inherit has already been taxed multiple times, why the hell should the government get a prize because someone died ? You leave your daughter the violin player your Stradivarius, but she can’t afford to pay the tax on the appraised value, so she has to sell it, and gets taxed on that – but hey, now the government has the moola to give some GS-15 a bonus.
Of course they never think of any counteractions that people might take. I may decide not to accumulate wealth or more likely I would accumulate wealth that is easier to transport or move. Jewellery would be a good bet 18k gold and some diamonds would be easy to move to another country.
Of course they never think of any counteractions that people might take.
As if people were inert, docile. Like livestock.
Of course they never think of any counteractions that people might take.
Like hanging politicians from lampposts.
Like hanging politicians from lampposts.
A tad harsh, I know. But let’s not rule it out.
And naturally Ms Wilkinson is now quite pleased with herself.
Is there any question that she would quite gleefully rip Grandma’s heirlooms out of the hands of the grandkids just for spite? Nothing like slapping a patina of morality on one’s own avarice and sadism.
To a degree that few on the left are willing to admit, it does, I think, boil down to disposition and whether you’re inclined to envy, resentment and petty malice.
Brings to mind Comrade Kaprugina in Dr. Zhivago lecturing the good doctor: “There was living space for 30 families…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq__Z-Z_Ofs
I maintain the belief that one of the chief and persistent failings of the third world is lack of ownership and the inability therein to foster responsibility. Few individual properties exist, and in a vicious cycle few individual properties are generated and little wealth. Why bother, if one can’t hold onto it? Further, he who owns and preserves nothing will continue to gain nothing, and his children will have nothing. The aphorism that we only see as far as we do because we stand on the shoulders of giants applies here, as does John Adams:
Progress (of the real and not highly fictional kind) is impossible without the ability to foster gains on behalf of posterity. Modern Leftism attacks both the idea of posterity (at least, outside the state) and the ability to foster gains with any specific aim. The lack of ability to truly possess goods and property in much of the third world is organic, the punitive taxation in the first world artificial, but in both cases promises stagnation and downfall.
The accumulation of wealth is unjustly arrogated to the love of money in all cases, when it represents the fundamental means by which society can improve its pocket and typically the genuine love and wish to preserve one’s own family. It is bastardry in several meanings to attempt to destroy that, and has as its only possible realistic result a tragedy of the commons in every scope of life.
In a word, it is evil.
There is nothing that modern welfare states have done more successfully than this – to eliminate generational wealth and responsibility, which has enormous and far-reaching effects.
I recall one B. H. Obama who stated – quite blatantly – that taxation of the nominally wealthy which did not bring in greater receipts should still be administered “for fairness”.
Truly a puzzle why some seemed to believe he had communist leanings.
Obama who stated – quite blatantly – that taxation of the nominally wealthy which did not bring in greater receipts should still be administered “for fairness”.
Leftist psychology is rooted in, and utterly dependent on, vanity and spitefulness. Neither of which is in short supply.
Some months earlier:
“Your grandpa remembered you in his will, Abi!”
“Oh, great! What did he leave me??”
“A note saying that since you were such a committed Commie tartlet he wouldn’t sully you with any money. Just his best wishes.”
And with that, the germ of an idea for an manifesto formed.
a small allowance for objects of sentimental value.
Other people’s belongings seem overly fascinating to Ms Wilkinson, who believes that the expropriation of private property, and the violation of last wishes, and the punishment of success and family attachment, should be embraced as the norm. Presumably, like so many of her Guardianista peers, Ms Wilkinson would regard objections to her rapacious socialism as constituting greed. While her own fever dream of confiscating other people’s possessions, and the earnings and savings of a lifetime, somehow constitutes selflessness. Though it’s curious how such claims of selflessness and piety entail, not personal sacrifice, but forcibly taking what isn’t yours and then applauding yourself.
The accumulation of wealth is unjustly arrogated to the love of money in all cases,
I would argue that the underlying factor as to why that is, is the pervasive misconception that the amount of wealth in the world is constant and thus if someone else is accumulating wealth, there is that much less wealth for others. If you are one of the others this general idea, perpetuated through the media and much of academia, certainly gets your attention. I have argued this time and time again and I will bring it up here once more, if conservatism/libertarianism/classical liberalism are serious, if they have any hope of turning this crap around, there needs to be a concerted effort, on a broad front, to educate the masses against this nonsense.
A silver lining to the envy tax might be that it would probably result in the return of some buried treasure and pirate maps as an alternate inheritance.
“How kind.”
Ee, thank e’e, sir, for allowin’ me to keep me old gran’s fav’rite chair. I don’t care what them neoliberal ingrates say; ye be a right gent, an’ no mistakin’. I mean, ye had every right to take it all. Every right. But no, after fillin’ out all them forms in triplicate, an’ that court hearin’ a year ago – the judge was awful unnerstandin’ – ye kindly allowed me to ‘ire a van an’ go to the ‘Ome Office warehouse to take it ‘ome. An’ don’t worry ’bout ‘er weddin’ ring. ‘S only gold. I’d prob’ly lose it anyhow. A proper gent.
I’ve been saying it for years: neo-feudalism. And they can’t even see it. They think they’re being “fair” and “democratic”.
“In fact, the reverse happened.”
A bit like this.
I love the way Buzzfeed desperately tries to spin it, though: “Jeremy Corbyn was the politician who received the highest amount of abusive messages on Twitter during the campaign.”, “The spike in abuse in the two days following the two terrorist attacks was far more pronounced for prominent left-leaning or liberal politicians than it was for right-wing politicians”, etc.
None of which alters the fact that, overall, male Conservative and UKIP MPs receive more abuse on Twitter than anyone else, with Labour women (and, hilariously, after all their the-other-side-is-just-as-bad protestations, SNP MPs of both sexes) down among the wines and spirits. Or that the only reason the spikes were more marked for the Left was that the general background level of abuse directed at them is much lower. The spikes only brought them up to the same level as the Tories. Siddiq Khan’s feed hit 16% both times, while Jeremy Hunt hit 17% after Manchester and 16% in the wake of the London attacks. The background “noise” for the Left, on the other hand, runs at around 4%, compared with something more like 7% for the Conservatives.
Face it, guys: the poor-wymmin-of-the-Left-targetted-by-nasty-right-wing-thugs-on-Twitter thing is utter bunk.
100% inheritance tax
All your money are belong to us.
Ms. Wilkinson, in her infinite genius only considered a 100% death tax from the death side, completely ignoring the quite obvious fact that for there to be anything to tax after death requires accumulating it during life.
Sure, implement confiscatory inheritance taxes. I, probably along with all the most productive members of society will then quit working the day they figure our savings will get us through.
Abi, you really, really don’t want that.
Th[e] commitment to D&I [Diversity and Inclusion] is all too often treated as a self-evident truth that none should be allowed to question in public discourse. But this new consensus for D&I, if left unchallenged, has an unintended consequence: unthinking intellectual rigidity, a malaise that all successful institutions must guard against.
Richard Epstein in The Diversity Fundamentalists.
[ Deletes duplicate comment. Resumes wiping bar, whistling absently. ]
In the 60’s and 70’s East Berlin, if the owner of a small business, and there were still a few, died, his family were given the first refusal to buy that business back from the State. Just think, and worry, if Corbyn ever became Prime Minister.
… there needs to be a concerted effort, on a broad front, to educate the masses against this nonsense.
Blaze the trail, bro. Here in the Guild of Evil™ Lodge Hall, most of us sing in the same choir. You must preach the word among the unwashed. But you must remember this:
Blaze the trail, bro. Here in the Guild of Evil™ Lodge Hall, most of us sing in the same choir.
Yeah, I been blazing the trail, given what limited resources that I have. The problem is it gets kinda lonely out here. I only preach to the choir here because…well, it needs to be a concerted effort. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.
If others who know better are not doing so, people like me are more likely to be ignored as “that guy”. If just some of the money wasted on “think” tanks and position papers and other BS only read by egg heads, wonks, and other elitist wastes of oxygen were redirected to more of an education of the masses to explain the basics of economics, it would be money much better spent in my not so humble opinion. The only economist most people can name is Karl Marx. Such is the world outside the bubble and no amount of logic or right-thinking inside the bubble is going to change that. Teach people the fundamentals and they will make better decisions for themselves. I never hear people on conservative blogs discuss this. I have brought it up on several occasions on other blogs only to be snidely dismissed as patting myself on the back or other nasty retorts. There’s some real nasty conservatism out there when you get in the weeds. Definitely not here, I must say.
Ah…and meant to add…
You can lead a nitwit to education, but you cannot make him learn.
But no one is trying to educate them. It’s mostly derisive, dismissive attitudes like this. The thing I learn from talking to a lot of “smart” people and a few “dumb” ones is how much they have in common in not getting outside their bubbles.
If you implement a 100% inheritance tax, people will simply transfer their assets to their children in their lifetimes. So the next step would be to ban lifetime gifts as well. At which point the institution of private property has all but been abolished.
Killer marmot
Two other idiocies to add to your list:
Race is solely a social construct, with no basis in biology.
And:
Diversity is our strength/makes us stronger.
Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.
I sometimes slum on the comics page, where many who covet congregate. All I try to do is leave a short thought. They lack the patience to have their covetousness challenged more than that. They think it’s a virtue, rather than a sin.