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Political philosophy (inheritance tax)
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Two of the main principles or streams in political philosophy is liberalism
and communiterianism. The first is based on the rights and freedoms of the
individual and the second on the welfare of the community. One begins with
the individual who makes up the Community the other with the Community, the
collective of individuals and each individual comes after _ I know that you
all know this, but please hang on there and I will get to the point of
taxing inheritance.
You see Karl Marx thought that we do not have to worry very much about the
individual, he/she will work and produce more than he/she needs to survive
without the incentive in accumulating wealth. Well, history proved him
wrong. Human nature is not like that.
Community as a universal or general idea can not do very much by itself. It
needs the individual human incentive for it to thrive. Here, perhaps, the
aphorism "the sum of the parts is bigger or more important than the whole"
is appropriate.
Now how does the above fit in with Alice's argument?
Alice will forgive me in paraphrasing her argument, but it is something like
this:
An individual accumulates wealth and at death leaves it to the children, and
in turn the children leave it to their children and so on.
This practice will eventually lead to wealth being concentrated to a few
members of the community and the community as whole will miss out.
Or the children do not deserve the inheritance since they haven't worked for
it.
Therefore we should tax the inheritance and pass the tax money to other
members of the community so the Community as a whole will benefit.
But if Marx was wrong in thinking people by nature will produce more than
they need without any reward, then there will be no wealth to tax and
therefore the Community will be a whole lot worst off, than if some members,
at least, are wealthy and their children get to spend the inheritance.
Cheers
Peter M.
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