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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (29364)	9/28/2006 12:05:51 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541373

Compare the national tax takings with the value of all fixed capital in the country? No, if you where going to do a comparison like that it wouldn't be to the fixed capital. Tax income is annual. Fixed capital grows over time but its a total to this point, it isn't annual income. There are other complicating factors but that's the big difference. I suppose you could try to compare corporate taxes (of all types and at all levels) to corporate profits, but the owners of public corporations also face taxes as a result of corporate profits. Taxes paid on dividends should be factored in as well IMO. Taxes on capital gains on stock would be a more complex issue. You could argue for including them, but if you do maybe you should add the capital gains to the other side of the ledger, or maybe you just shouldn't add either. I wouldn't just look at federal corporate tax rates, you would have to consider state and local taxes as well, including property taxes, and probably any sales taxes on the products the company produces, plus and license fees, probably other things as well. There would be lots of ways to set up a calculation, but by doing a calculation you aren't removing the subjectivity of the situation, your just exchanging a subjective idea of the net result for a subjective idea of how the the result should be calculated. Further complicating things is that just as traditional socialism doesn't require total ownership of all means of production, "market socialism" wouldn't necessarily require that government profit from and/or control over corporations always exceed the private profit and control. Apparently the total tax revenue from oil and its products has over time exceeded the total profit for the oil companies, and oil companies are subject to a lot of regulation. It sounds odd to call such a profitable industry a possible example of market socialism, but it isn't always this profitable, and the profits don't change the huge amount of government revenue and control. Also you have to consider the actual direct socialism as well. The government provides a lot of medical insurance (Medicare, Medicaid), and even directly provides health care (VA hospitals and other examples). It owns and controls national parks, and monuments etc (overall the feds own a large faction of the country). The majority of education is provided by the government. Certainly there are other areas to add in but I don't think your looking for an exhaustive list. Also remember we aren't really talking about the current situation but something more like what the left wing of the Democratic party would impose if it was in power. Health care (or at least health insurance) would become far more socialist (and real "old-fashioned" socialism, not "market socialism", taxes would increase, regulation would increase, etc.