The Democratic Party: Maximilien Robespierre, Willie Sutton, and modern politics
This morning, I'm going to pick up on some of my recent comments on trends in the Democratic Party. In a recent post, I argued that the rise of Sanders, and the struggle within the Democratic Party to redefine liberalism were the result of the essential completion of the New Deal/Great Society project when the ACA passed. The dominant direction being taken by liberalism at the moment is one that takes a fundamentally different view of wealth, and of taxation than the view that past iterations of liberalism held. I'm not going to write about the debate, because I'm not doing that garbage anymore, but you'll get threads of that. Instead, I've had some bigger ideas that have been brewing for a while.
"Immigrant." Is that a normatively loaded word? Let's put it this way. Can it be said, by one particular side, without normative loading? Can it be said, by one particular side, without being attached to negative descriptors? Does that, in itself, make the term an epithet, for one side of the political spectrum? I'd argue so. If there is a political group that can't even say the word without attaching it to crime, or something else negative, that group hates immigrants.
"Billionaire." Or even, "millionaire." Apply the same principle.
This one comes from a low-level functionary, but the line was still telling: "every billionaire is a policy failure." That was one of Ocasio-Cortez's advisors.
OK, let's have a little history.
Willie Sutton was a bank robber, and a man of simple wisdom. When asked by he robbed banks, his famous response was: that's where the money is.
Maximilien Robespierre, on the other hand, was the most famous leader of the Jacobins, who imposed a "Reign of Terror" on France after Louis XVI was deposed. The Reign of Terror was motivated, not by greed, but malice.
Both Willie Sutton and Maximilien Robespierre went after institutional wealth, but for very different purposes. Sutton didn't hate banks, or rich people, or anything like that. He just wanted the money. If he thought he had another way to get that much money, he would have taken it. Of course, plenty of people find other ways to make money, but that was Willie Sutton.
The Jacobins were different. They weren't just out playing Robin Hood. Yes, I could have used Robin Hood, I suppose, but Sutton gives me the quote. Anyway, the Jacobins didn't just want to elevate living standards for the poor. They wanted blood. They were motivated by animus. There's a big difference between Willie Sutton and Maximilien Robespierre.
You're also a lot more likely to get killed by Robespierre.
So we do need to be serious about taxation. Liberals like to talk big about how much they hate guns, but here's how taxation works. The government says, to someone, "gimme your money."
What if they refuse?
The government says, "or else."
Or else, what?
Or else, they throw you in jail.
What if you refuse?
Then people show up at your house, or place of business, or wherever, with guns. And they say, come with me.
And if you refuse?
Eventually, they will shoot you.
If you advocate taxation, you are advocating the confiscation of someone's property at gunpoint. Have fun telling yourself otherwise if you are skittish about guns, but that's what taxation is, stripped of all pretense. You gun-lover, you! Why do you love guns so much? Get over your gun fixation! What are you compensating for?!
Kumbaya, my lord! Kumbaya!
Also, that meat you ate came from an animal. It was probably mistreated, your clothes were probably made in a sweatshop where people live in slave conditions so that you can underpay, same with the device on which you are reading this, and you are a willfully blind hypocrite if you try to tell yourself otherwise to sleep at night.
So, hey! How'd [insert team name here] do in the big sportsball game? (Americans...)
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Taxation. Confiscation at gunpoint. What's the difference between that and theft? Your ideology. That's it. Your ideology. That's the only difference.
There is a big moral issue with taxation. So, there better be something good coming from that moral wrong being committed!
This is the moral underpinning of the New Deal/Great Society conception of government and taxation, anyway. Stuff like Social Security, Medicare and the other elements of the safety net... that stuff costs money. All the other cool stuff the government does? It costs money. There are benefits. And there's a little thing called "the collective action problem." All of that means that there is a benefit to balance the wrong being committed through confiscation at gunpoint.
Conservatives, of course, don't see these specific benefits. They oppose a safety net, not just because they don't want to fund it, but because they don't want it to exist. They see a benefit to the military, and stuff like that. Whether or not there is a tax rate that Norquist-conservatives would actually accept rather than trying to cut, even given fixed costs for what they want to create, is another matter, but part of the ideological distinction is the question of whether or not any given policy has a benefit that outweighs the moral cost of taxation.
If you accept that confiscation at gunpoint is morally wrong, though, and you approach the problem in a rational, utilitarian manner, then you want to minimize the damage while maximizing the good you do. For New Deal/Great Society liberals, the answer has been to follow the Willie Sutton principle. Where's the money? Rich people have it. Tax them. The other benefit of doing it that way is the core principle from microeconomics of diminishing marginal returns. Taking any given amount of money from rich people does less harm to their utility than taking the same amount of money from poor people, even if the poor people had it. So, if you are trying to maximize the good you do while minimizing the harm, while recognizing the harm, you tax the rich to fund all of that New Deal/Great Society government stuff.
And like Willie Sutton, you don't have to hate rich people to do it. Show someone within this ideology a way to create those programs, and fund them, without confiscating rich peoples' money at gunpoint, and by the Pareto efficiency standard, you take that option. Like Willie Sutton, present another way to get the money, and hey! Everyone wins. But, that's where the money is. So, Willie Sutton robbed banks, and New Deal/Great Society liberals demanded that the government confiscate assets from rich people at gunpoint, gun nuts that they are.
Needle! Needle! (It's good for you. Here. Have a virtual lollipop.)
Anyway, that's Willie Sutton. Robespierre? For Robespierre, it isn't about raising up the poor, or creating a better standard of living. It's about the blood. (Ick. Blood... needles... bad choice of imagery here. Sorry.)
So remember my description of taxation. What happens when people stop thinking of the confiscation at gunpoint as a moral wrong? The result is a growing faction taking over modern liberalism. With the New Deal/Great Society project having reached a logical endpoint on major goals-- enforcement excepted, particularly with respect to civil rights-- part of what is happening with the rise of the Sanders faction is the rise of a faction that doesn't see taxation as a necessary evil to support the safety net as conceived within the framework of the New Deal/Great Society, but as an intrinsic good, and a goal in and of itself. The taxation becomes the point.
This is the major transition in modern liberalism-- the transition from thinking about taxation as a necessary evil to support government projects that have benefits to outweigh the costs of taxation to thinking about taxation as an intrinsic good because it punishes the rich.
"Class warfare." For decades, this was the phrase that Republicans used, falsely, to impugn every Democratic candidate who advocated any safety net program. When taxation becomes the point, it's no longer a false charge.
I return to my linguistic point from the start of this point. For the Sanders faction of the Democratic Party, and the rising new left, can any descriptor of wealth ever be spoken without it turning into an epithet? If not, then it is the same linguistic indicator of animosity that you see among the nativist faction of the Republican Party regarding words like, "immigrant."
One of the most common defenses of Sanders and his ilk right now is that he isn't truly a "socialist," despite his self-application of the term, he "just" wants to turn America into Denmark, and so forth. There's still a lot to unpack in that, but just as one needed to listen to Donald Trump's rhetoric, one needs to listen to the rhetoric of Sanders and the new left. It is not violent, nor indicative of movement towards a Reign of Terror in the Robespierre tradition. It is, however, motivated by class-based animosity, and a view of taxation that sees the use of confiscation at gunpoint as a moral good.
Pay attention to this.
I don't know why I keep going back to those Octavia Butler Earthseed books, since I found them so much less impressive than her most famous works, but I find myself thinking of "the paints." The main character-- Lauren Olamina-- grows up in a walled community. It is by no means rich, but any community that isn't walled off just lives in a post-apocalyptic hellscape of crime. So, Lauren's impoverished beginnings must be put in that perspective. The people living outside of walled communities see those walls, and think of those inside the walls as having privilege. Perspective.
Then, there are "the paints." They are a bunch of spoiled, rich kids who take a really scary drug, which makes them overly excited by fire. They paint themselves up, and then go around burning down walled communities, and letting the even more impoverished people from outside scavenge what they can amid the wreckage, thinking, in some deluded way, that they are doing a psychotic Robin Hood thing. Gee... why would a post on Robespierre make me think of this? Can't imagine...
Class-based animosity is so easily misplaced and so easily misled. No, I am not saying that there is an imminent Reign of Terror. However, class-based animosity has a pretty bad track record, all around.
"Immigrant." Is that a normatively loaded word? Let's put it this way. Can it be said, by one particular side, without normative loading? Can it be said, by one particular side, without being attached to negative descriptors? Does that, in itself, make the term an epithet, for one side of the political spectrum? I'd argue so. If there is a political group that can't even say the word without attaching it to crime, or something else negative, that group hates immigrants.
"Billionaire." Or even, "millionaire." Apply the same principle.
This one comes from a low-level functionary, but the line was still telling: "every billionaire is a policy failure." That was one of Ocasio-Cortez's advisors.
OK, let's have a little history.
Willie Sutton was a bank robber, and a man of simple wisdom. When asked by he robbed banks, his famous response was: that's where the money is.
Maximilien Robespierre, on the other hand, was the most famous leader of the Jacobins, who imposed a "Reign of Terror" on France after Louis XVI was deposed. The Reign of Terror was motivated, not by greed, but malice.
Both Willie Sutton and Maximilien Robespierre went after institutional wealth, but for very different purposes. Sutton didn't hate banks, or rich people, or anything like that. He just wanted the money. If he thought he had another way to get that much money, he would have taken it. Of course, plenty of people find other ways to make money, but that was Willie Sutton.
The Jacobins were different. They weren't just out playing Robin Hood. Yes, I could have used Robin Hood, I suppose, but Sutton gives me the quote. Anyway, the Jacobins didn't just want to elevate living standards for the poor. They wanted blood. They were motivated by animus. There's a big difference between Willie Sutton and Maximilien Robespierre.
You're also a lot more likely to get killed by Robespierre.
So we do need to be serious about taxation. Liberals like to talk big about how much they hate guns, but here's how taxation works. The government says, to someone, "gimme your money."
What if they refuse?
The government says, "or else."
Or else, what?
Or else, they throw you in jail.
What if you refuse?
Then people show up at your house, or place of business, or wherever, with guns. And they say, come with me.
And if you refuse?
Eventually, they will shoot you.
If you advocate taxation, you are advocating the confiscation of someone's property at gunpoint. Have fun telling yourself otherwise if you are skittish about guns, but that's what taxation is, stripped of all pretense. You gun-lover, you! Why do you love guns so much? Get over your gun fixation! What are you compensating for?!
Kumbaya, my lord! Kumbaya!
Also, that meat you ate came from an animal. It was probably mistreated, your clothes were probably made in a sweatshop where people live in slave conditions so that you can underpay, same with the device on which you are reading this, and you are a willfully blind hypocrite if you try to tell yourself otherwise to sleep at night.
So, hey! How'd [insert team name here] do in the big sportsball game? (Americans...)
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Taxation. Confiscation at gunpoint. What's the difference between that and theft? Your ideology. That's it. Your ideology. That's the only difference.
There is a big moral issue with taxation. So, there better be something good coming from that moral wrong being committed!
This is the moral underpinning of the New Deal/Great Society conception of government and taxation, anyway. Stuff like Social Security, Medicare and the other elements of the safety net... that stuff costs money. All the other cool stuff the government does? It costs money. There are benefits. And there's a little thing called "the collective action problem." All of that means that there is a benefit to balance the wrong being committed through confiscation at gunpoint.
Conservatives, of course, don't see these specific benefits. They oppose a safety net, not just because they don't want to fund it, but because they don't want it to exist. They see a benefit to the military, and stuff like that. Whether or not there is a tax rate that Norquist-conservatives would actually accept rather than trying to cut, even given fixed costs for what they want to create, is another matter, but part of the ideological distinction is the question of whether or not any given policy has a benefit that outweighs the moral cost of taxation.
If you accept that confiscation at gunpoint is morally wrong, though, and you approach the problem in a rational, utilitarian manner, then you want to minimize the damage while maximizing the good you do. For New Deal/Great Society liberals, the answer has been to follow the Willie Sutton principle. Where's the money? Rich people have it. Tax them. The other benefit of doing it that way is the core principle from microeconomics of diminishing marginal returns. Taking any given amount of money from rich people does less harm to their utility than taking the same amount of money from poor people, even if the poor people had it. So, if you are trying to maximize the good you do while minimizing the harm, while recognizing the harm, you tax the rich to fund all of that New Deal/Great Society government stuff.
And like Willie Sutton, you don't have to hate rich people to do it. Show someone within this ideology a way to create those programs, and fund them, without confiscating rich peoples' money at gunpoint, and by the Pareto efficiency standard, you take that option. Like Willie Sutton, present another way to get the money, and hey! Everyone wins. But, that's where the money is. So, Willie Sutton robbed banks, and New Deal/Great Society liberals demanded that the government confiscate assets from rich people at gunpoint, gun nuts that they are.
Needle! Needle! (It's good for you. Here. Have a virtual lollipop.)
Anyway, that's Willie Sutton. Robespierre? For Robespierre, it isn't about raising up the poor, or creating a better standard of living. It's about the blood. (Ick. Blood... needles... bad choice of imagery here. Sorry.)
So remember my description of taxation. What happens when people stop thinking of the confiscation at gunpoint as a moral wrong? The result is a growing faction taking over modern liberalism. With the New Deal/Great Society project having reached a logical endpoint on major goals-- enforcement excepted, particularly with respect to civil rights-- part of what is happening with the rise of the Sanders faction is the rise of a faction that doesn't see taxation as a necessary evil to support the safety net as conceived within the framework of the New Deal/Great Society, but as an intrinsic good, and a goal in and of itself. The taxation becomes the point.
This is the major transition in modern liberalism-- the transition from thinking about taxation as a necessary evil to support government projects that have benefits to outweigh the costs of taxation to thinking about taxation as an intrinsic good because it punishes the rich.
"Class warfare." For decades, this was the phrase that Republicans used, falsely, to impugn every Democratic candidate who advocated any safety net program. When taxation becomes the point, it's no longer a false charge.
I return to my linguistic point from the start of this point. For the Sanders faction of the Democratic Party, and the rising new left, can any descriptor of wealth ever be spoken without it turning into an epithet? If not, then it is the same linguistic indicator of animosity that you see among the nativist faction of the Republican Party regarding words like, "immigrant."
One of the most common defenses of Sanders and his ilk right now is that he isn't truly a "socialist," despite his self-application of the term, he "just" wants to turn America into Denmark, and so forth. There's still a lot to unpack in that, but just as one needed to listen to Donald Trump's rhetoric, one needs to listen to the rhetoric of Sanders and the new left. It is not violent, nor indicative of movement towards a Reign of Terror in the Robespierre tradition. It is, however, motivated by class-based animosity, and a view of taxation that sees the use of confiscation at gunpoint as a moral good.
Pay attention to this.
I don't know why I keep going back to those Octavia Butler Earthseed books, since I found them so much less impressive than her most famous works, but I find myself thinking of "the paints." The main character-- Lauren Olamina-- grows up in a walled community. It is by no means rich, but any community that isn't walled off just lives in a post-apocalyptic hellscape of crime. So, Lauren's impoverished beginnings must be put in that perspective. The people living outside of walled communities see those walls, and think of those inside the walls as having privilege. Perspective.
Then, there are "the paints." They are a bunch of spoiled, rich kids who take a really scary drug, which makes them overly excited by fire. They paint themselves up, and then go around burning down walled communities, and letting the even more impoverished people from outside scavenge what they can amid the wreckage, thinking, in some deluded way, that they are doing a psychotic Robin Hood thing. Gee... why would a post on Robespierre make me think of this? Can't imagine...
Class-based animosity is so easily misplaced and so easily misled. No, I am not saying that there is an imminent Reign of Terror. However, class-based animosity has a pretty bad track record, all around.
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