Piketty argues that the social democratic policies that dominated this age were the result of the reduction in capital relative to income caused by the wars and the introduction of
progressive income taxes. The threat created by the Bolshevik revolution, third-world liberation movements and, above all, the history of the labour movement in the West, are ignored.
"But we now pay a
progressive income tax on our entire income, just like a person who makes money from speculation for example ...
Americans need to be made aware of the fact that the concept of a federal
progressive income tax is based upon unconstitutional principles foreign to our early republican form of a limited central government with strong protections on states' rights and individual liberties.
However, a more grandiose vision of the
progressive income tax that promotes social justice by leaving a more equal distribution of after-tax income appears to motivate some defenders.
Restoring a
progressive income tax system to finance an adequate level of public outlay after decades of public neglect is an option not on Graetz's radar.
The typical Austrian brother would oppose, for instance, the
progressive income tax to achieve income redistribution because it is detrimental to individual freedom and property rights.
He would scrap Social Security, the entire welfare system and the
progressive income tax schedule.
Liberals prefer the
progressive income tax as a revenue source because the higher up the income scale people go, the higher tax rate they pay.
Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal--a
progressive income tax, public works, social security, cheap electricity--makes him wildly popular with the poor.
The law that provides for our
progressive income tax system assumes that some people ought to pay proportionately more for government services accessible to all.
One possible
progressive income tax regime would exempt from taxation income required to maintain a poverty-level standard of living.
'I think it's very important that those of us who believe in a
progressive income tax system say so clearly.