Thomas Piketty Quotes
What I argue for is a progressive tax, a global tax, based on the taxation of private property.
Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2014, p. 515.
The founder was Charles E. Coughlin, 1891-1979, a demagogic Catholic Priest who drafted the principles and invited others to join him. Hundreds of thousands did in this organization which began in idealism, and ended in scandal and hate mongering, so much so that Father Coughlin was ordered off the radio and out of politics by the Catholic Church. The National Union in 1936 had morphed into the Union Party which ran Presidential candidates in the 1936 election. At the time, a progressive income tax was an anathema to most people, however it became the norm in later years and although the idea did not originate with the Union, was one of the few lasting contributions of the Union.
The tax rates on income from working is much higher than on income generated from money which is invested. The reason for this is that the government wants economic growth and lowering the tax rate on investment profits will produce more investment which theoretically creates more jobs and strengthens the economy. However, most workers have no choice about whether they have to work. Lowering their tax rate will not induce them to work more. This not only produces a patently unfair burden on the worker compared to people who have capital to invest—usually among the wealthiest Americans. Another problem is that there are many forms of investment that does not produce any benefit for the United States. Many people invest in overseas banks, non American companies. These we tax at a low rate and all the benefits of the investment go to the foreign country.
Even on Medieval days in Europe, the wealthy barons paid lower tax rates that their lowest peasants. Relief from taxes was one of the privileges of the very rich. The practice has been made more cosmetic, but the result seems to have been the same into the 21st century.
Thomas Piketty is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (French: École des hautes études en sciences sociales: EHESS), Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.
