Why Americans Don't Want to Soak the Rich - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...ont-want-to-soak-the-rich.html
redistribution rich inequality fairness justice psychology research
shared by Javier E on 22 Apr 15
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How you make sense of this seeming paradox of rising inequality and flat or declining support for redistribution depends on your ideological assumptions.
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If you’re conservative, a compelling answer might be this: Americans are seeking less redistribution because they have come to their senses. They realized the very high tax rates and generous social spending that prevailed in the middle decades of the 20th century came at a high economic cost, and that low taxes on the rich encouraged greater investment and entrepreneurship, spurring faster economic growth that ultimately made everybody better off
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If you’re a liberal, the answer might be more like this: Americans have been hoodwinked by conservative politicians and media outlets, and have come to view redistribution as a dirty word because they don’t recognize the ways it benefits them. This barrage of misinformation has led them to view any redistributive efforts as welfare that goes to somebody else, particularly to someone with a different color skin.
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New research offers a bit more evidence on what may be occurring. It doesn’t disprove either the conventional liberal or conservative argument. But it does show some of the ways that Americans’ attitudes toward redistribution are more complex than either would suggest.
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respondents favored less redistribution if they believed that the person had already grown accustomed to a higher income. The psychology seems to be something like this: Rich people who have been rich for a while have gotten used to their money, so it would be unfair to tax them heavily. But people who have just gotten rich have not become accustomed to higher levels of after-tax income, so it wouldn’t be as harmful to raise their taxes in the interest of greater equality.
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The shift away from a belief in redistribution has been stronger among older Americans than any other age group.
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The fact that American seniors already receive government-provided health care may make them view any talk of greater redistribution as taking away what they already have, the researchers suggest.
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Our views on proper tax levels and redistribution may be shaped by seemingly extraneous factors, like whether we believe the rich are already used to being rich, and whether we are already getting government benefits.
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In other words, the question isn’t, Why don’t Americans want to soak the rich more? It may be, Who exactly is being counted as rich and who is perceived to be benefiting from the soaking?