Politics
Out of context: Reply #5895
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- TheBlueOne0
"Here’s a case in point...: in Golden Age Athens, when democracy was truly invented, there was a particular tax levied on the wealthiest citizens. The amount of the tax equaled the sum needed to outfit a trireme, an Athenian warship. Why? Because Athens’ defense and her economic power was based on her navy. The Athenians realized that the people who benefited most from living in a democracy are those who are well-off. A slave’s life was likely the same no matter where he or she lived. A free but poor farmer would also not necessarily notice a huge difference in quality of life from one political system to another. The higher on the socioeconomic scale you go, the more dependent on democracy a group is for their continued way of life. This culminates in the wealthiest landowners and merchants, who simply wouldn’t exist in anything other than a free society.
Given this, reasoned the ever-reasonable Greeks, it makes sense for those who have profited most from democracy and have the most to lose from its destruction to pay more for its upkeep and defense. Hence, a tax on the wealthiest citizens to supply Athens with the ships and sailors upon which her political and economic might depended.
Some wealthy Athenians took pride in contributing to her defense and nearly reveled in the cache that outfitting a trireme brought. Others, understandably, were less than completely enthusiastic and tried any number of legal maneuverings and challenges to get out of this tax (some things don’t change). But the central idea remained: those who profit most from living in a free society owe the most for its maintenance. Unless one argues that Solon and Pericles were somehow channeling the spirits of Marx and Engels backward through time, the canard that progressive taxation is somehow antithetical to democracy is rubbish. It’s part of what democracy is (at least a healthy one).
By the by, the Athenians were also too smart to cut taxes while at war. During the Peloponnesian War, Athens levied an extra 1% land tax to help defray the costs of the struggle against the decidedly undemocratic Spartans. It was a relatively modest tax that only affected the wealthy, but went a long way in avoiding monstrous debts that would cripple the city into the future. We leave it to the reader to draw your own analogies. "