Gene Wolfe's Politics

brunians at brunians.org · 31 Mar 2009, 19:16 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org)
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:16:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: (urth) Gene Wolfe's Politics
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>>> Who do estate taxes get passed on to?

>> As far as I know, estates are only left by natural persons, that is,
>> they are not paid by businesses.

> But how do they not work on the rich people who own the businesses?

(A) Whose money is it? My point of view is that it belongs to the rich
people and as their property should be disposed of in the manner in which
they choose. There are other points of view (see below).

(B) Define 'work'. Certainly it does work as a means of limiting social
mobility, but is that the purpose of taxation? To my mind taxation is
armed robbery, only justifiable for the absolutely necessary functions of
government, which are:

 [1] the military and everything pertaining thereunto,
 [2] building and maintaining infrastructure (taxation to support a rail
system would be perfectly legitimate from my point of view) and
 [3] big science, big enough that no private concern would want to do
(space programs and superconducting supercolliders and so on).

"All money belongs to the Federal Government, Jay. People - people who own
small businesses particularly - speak of making money. Quite often they
use those exact words. But if you'll think about it, you'll see that they
are not true. All money is made by government, and so all money belongs to
Government, which allows citizens like you and me to have some, sometimes,
so we can buy the things we need. But Government keeps title to all of it
and by the very nature of things can't lose title to any of it."

-- Captain Hayfa Washington, Fifth Airborne Brigade, Federal Revenue and
Security Services (from "Viewpoint" by Gene Wolfe).

.

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