Thanks so much for this post. You articulated a lot of things I have been thinking about and wondering about. I wrote to Alison Goldberg recently and elaborated on what you said (the email I wrote is below). Thanks for creating this opening for dialogue.

Alison and Chuck did their tax workshop for us on May 13 this year, the anniversary of the bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia that killed 11 black people, including 5 children. So I was thinking about how taxes fund this kind of state violence against people of color.

I should also note that taxes pay for a lot of really important and necessary things, like education, healthcare, roads, etc. And of course there is a conversation to be had about how these things are organized according to and perpetuating racial and economic inequalities.

There is also part of the conversation to be had about tax resistance (including discussions of privilege, citizenship, etc.), dual power – community-based institutions that meet people’s needs without relying on oppressive power structures and institutions.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. There’s no easy answers on any of this.

Love,
Matt

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Hi Alison,

Thanks so much for reaching out. Sorry I’ve been bad at responding. Great to see you at MMMC also! I just made a $50 donation. I’m not making major gifts right now since I gave away a large chunk of my inheritance.

I also have some concerns about this campaign to increase the amount of taxes that wealthy people pay. Much of our tax money goes to subsidizing agribusiness, oil companies, and other corrupt, harmful corporations. And more than half of our tax dollars go to fund state violence (almost a trillion dollars a year!) – nuclear weapons, militarism, policing, and incarceration, and most of this state violence is directed at people of color and poor people. Also what does it mean to want to give more money to the US government – a colonial-settler entity of dubious legitimacy? INCITE! Women of Color against violence argues that the state is one of the primary organizers of violence against women of color. Personally if I had a huge fortune, I would want to give it to grassroots community organizations, not the government. I am echoing a lot of what Tyrone Boucher said on his blog: enoughenough.org.

I do think there are good things that come from huge wealth being reduced somewhat, but I also think that larger wealth redistribution to community-based organizations, reparations for slavery and colonialism, and challenging militarism, policing and imprisonment should be part of the conversation. And I think you all are doing some really important and necessary education about the tax system and economic injustice, which is why I’m supporting you. I know I learned a lot in the workshop that you and Chuck Collins did.

I hope you are well.

Best,
Matt

I mean, these are people w/ money enough to blow on political influence, right? And they’re already listening to policies they should be influencing, right?

They’re not numerous, so their importance as from-below masses is severely constrained when it comes to having them participate in things that can only be done by from-below masses. I mean, they can do that, too, if you convince them or they believe it’s important…but they’re only so many people.

But hey, if you’re already spending some of YOUR free time on getting rich people to change 1 aspect of domestic policy (that you suspect IS possible to achieve via influential-type-folks doing what they do in our current sociopolitical system) by any means they feel good at (which will probably come out, for the most part, as being influential-type-folks). So tag on getting them to change a 2nd aspect of domestic policy (that I suspect ALSO is possible to achieve via influential-type-folks doing what they do in our current sociopolitical system).

Might work?

I know! Leah, one of my smart co-facilitators, did all this research about tax history and it totally blew my mind to learn that there was a moment so recently when mega-rich people had to pay 90% of their income in taxes! (although how wealth itself was taxed was probably a different story back then as well.) It makes me think about framing and what people are taught to think is just and fair. Messaging about fairness then must have been closer to something like that it is right for people who accumulate massive fortunes to pay huge chunks of it back to the (supposed) commons – and now Obama is being attacked for trying to raise rich people’s taxes some miniscule amount when they are already so incredibly low. (Also from doing this workshop I learned that anecdote about how Warren Buffett offered to give money to the charity of choice of any member of the Forbes rich people list who could prove that they paid a higher percentage in taxes than their secretary or assistant, and no one could.)

The fact that the tax system is now so clearly set up to encourage massively rich people to accumulate more and more wealth has all these messages embedded in it about individualism and seems to be saying that it is right that a few people hold most of the wealth and people who don’t own wealth be increasingly left behind and screwed. And it’s so overt. I mean, what other message can you glean from how taxation is structured?

also, every other comment on every post is incredibly difficult to read.

i really like to keep up with this blog, so i just wanted to give a little comment.