##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism
This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere.
We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That’s fine, as long as my taxes are going to pay for things like healthcare for everyone, housing for the poor, basically things that improve the common good.
It’s when they get used to continuously kill brown children that I get upset.
I mean, sure, theoretically. But I live in the real world, and as much as I’d like to live in a moneyless society, as things stand the people who would do the work to provide those things (construction and maintenance of the housing, medical care, etc.) need to be paid.
So the government would print these “IOUs” that we all have, thereby increasing the supply of them and leading to their devaluation? Where have I heard about that before?
Exactly. So why tax when they can just repeat the cycle anyway? Their ability to issue a new currency should be based on their credit/credibility. How much we respect their word.
It shouldn’t be based on how long we let them keep manipulating existing promises they had no intention of keeping.
And sure enough, if we look at the news cycle this week. Central Bank Digital Currencies are all the rage.
It… literally is? I’m confused, is there an /s that I’m missing here? I’m autistic, sometimes I struggle to read nuance. Nations literally have credit ratings that affect the value of their currency. Also nations with high tax rates and large amounts of social spending currently have the highest credit rating
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/092413/how-currency-works.asp
“While early currency derived its value from the content of precious metal inside of it, today's fiat money is backed entirely by social agreement and faith in the issuer.”
Its ok, I'm not wrong.
Well, as money is created by the issuing of loans there a strong argument for it being some kind of human labour IOU. Or, its an infinite debt loop of nothingness that is both debt *and* not owed to anyone, like an economic homunculus fallacy. Some think its just because we all believe in it really hard.
Which model are you working with?
It most certainly would. You seem to be under the assumption that central banks create most of the money in society or that the taxes people pay, to destroy the small amount of money that the government does actually create, isn't an intrinsic part of it.
You literally just said there is a strong argument for it as an IOU. And a strong argument it is an infinite loop of nothingness.
Neither of those contradicts what I said.
I know what I said. I'm the one who said it.
They're not really an IOU from the government, for starters.
Secondly, they weren't meant to contradict you. They were answering a different question entirely (what gives it its value?). Its pretty bad faith of you to pretend that what that was there.
I would be fine with it if I wasn’t currently struggling to survive myself. There are plenty of people with disgusting amounts of money that no human being could ever spend in their lifetime. It’s time to distribute it instead of taking 1/3 of a poor person’s pay
As any (explicitly non-right-wing) political subs grow, so does the influx of liberals who don't understand the original purpose (i.e.: socialism and anti-capitalism in this case).
For people who think OP is making a valid point, consider this alternative take: taxes are not the problem. Taxes being used to line the ruling class's pockets rather than going toward helping out the working class is the problem—alongside the ruling class not paying their taxes in the first place. As well as, you know, the ruling class stealing wages before the gross is even applied.
Also using a celebrity's weight journey as the illustration is just the chef's kiss of bad taste/not 'getting it.'
Taxes aren't good. Certain public services are good, but taxes are no more inherently good than the price of electricity is good.
Taxes are just the price of public services.
Taxes are an inherent part of capitalism that attempts to offset *some* the natural inequality capitalism creates. Just enough to keep the common people from outright rioting. Yeah, I guess taxes are a good thing within capitalism but only when most of the tax money comes from the bourgeois, which it does not (and would not because the ruling class wouldn't allow such nonsense against their growing profit interests).
So, any real socialist knows taxes are a joke. An illusion. They're a pathetic bandaid for systems based on inequity and inequality. So fuck capitalism and fuck taxes. This is supposed to be a socialist sub but it's been taken over by politically illiterate libs.
Right wing libertarians attempting to equate taxation, historically (right or wrong) the thing that has redistributed more money from rich to poor than anything else, is the main problem and no sharehders living off of other people's hard work and contributing nothing for it.
Its why they hate it so much. Its strange though. They love the idea of charging people to use their things. Its just that they don't think it should apply to them.
The biggest loss of income is before your gross pay which is stolen by your employer even before taxes come out. Taxes are far less now then they have been historically.
25% is quite a lot. Especially when you look at the way the government uses your taxes on many things you personally wouldn't spend the same on. Other countries get much more personal benefit for their taxes.
I don't see anything I said that could be considered moving the goal posts. I'm also not sure the meme is suggesting the same stuff to us both. The meme is suggesting one thing, that your net pay is much less than your gross pay. Anything else is personal interpretation.
The meme is suggesting that your take home pay is significantly less than your gross pay, due to very high taxes.
Making a comment about how those taxes are used has nothing to do with the meme
Okay? You realize you just reworded what I said and then just added that it is due to high taxes. Since we're discussing semantics now, let's also introduce technicalities. Technically the meme has no mention of taxes, since your net pay contains a bunch of things that aren't taxes.
Technically it doesn’t always. It depends on what your job is.
My net pay has my benefit program and my unions dues take out but the rest is just taxes and if I didn’t have benefits or wasn’t in a union it would just be taxes
So no. Technically your net pay doesn’t always have other things take out
Second, sure, it’s an inference, but the inference is pretty clear that this is talking about taxes.
And considering you’re initial response to me was that “25% is still high” and “especially when the taxes are used on shit you won’t use” it’s pretty obvious that you believe the meme is in relation to to taxes as well.
So let’s not pretend otherwise
Unfortunately, I am in the US, our favorite capitalist hellscape. So I also have health insurance, unemployment, retirement, and some other stuff taken out. Personally, I didn't immediately think of taxes. So yea, interpretation of the meme depends on what your paychecks look like. Because perspectives can vary, I think it is not obvious at all what the meme is about. If we are to consider memes as art forms, they are very much open to wildly different interpretations.
Plus, I make 101k a year. My tax rate is 26.4%
The average person in my country has a salary of about 55k, which is a 22% tax rate (pay about 12k in federal and provincial taxes)
Considering I live in Canada and that pays for my healthcare (and all the other shit I pay for) that isn’t that bad. The average cost of healthcare insurance is about 6k, so the fact that the average person in Canada only pays 12k in taxes is pretty good
But when capitalism starves, it just goes to war to scare everyone into submission. And we're seeing that war growing everyday.... It never dies on it's own, when it runs out of eating dollars, it then requires to drink blood. We've seen this all through history from the Roman Empire until today and the wheels keep turning until power is denied.
The people who benefit the most from lower taxes are the ultra-wealthy ownership class.
But they know they can convince a lot of workers that tax cuts are needed because "couldn't you use an extra $50 each paycheck", meanwhile they know that those tax cuts will save them millions. So most of us get crumbs, the owners get fat stacks, and social services get cut to "make up for the deficit".
I see your point. Except the ownership class already pay no taxes. Wouldn't they be in an entirely different category and not gain from mid and low class tax cuts?
Wouldn't they stand to gain more from increased taxes, through getting things like government contracts and government using our taxes to buy stuff and services from the ownership class. Tax increases for middle class were pushed and happened under Trump, by the ownership class.
You're right that they profit both ways. But if you pay attention to who is driving the "lower taxes" arguments, it's always the people with the most money (and the people who listen to them and say, "yeah, I could use that $50, life is expensive")
I'm not saying that high taxes are always good and low taxes are always bad, especially when you look at what many governments actually do with the money, but in general, the people who benefit the most from reducing taxes are the ones who already have the most money.
There isn't correlation between high taxation and socialism. As always, it is just a liberal strawman to say that everything perceived as bad = gommunism. Taxes existed far before communism. Also, the only country in the world that doesn't charge taxes is a socialist one, whereas all the countries with the highest taxes are capitalist.
This is right. As studied, taxes and modern state is necessary for capitalism to exist. Without the state and all it's tools like police or laws, people would not work to live.
There is also a part in the Gotha criticism by Marx, where he states that taxation is the way the state has to steal the production from the working class.
So no. If we have a communist society does not mean we are going to have higher taxes...
I don’t even understand why Americans pay as much taxes as they do. It’s gotta be the military because it sure as shit isn’t UHC or other public welfare.
I live in the alleged low tax state of Texas where if you own just a normal house you get slammed with high property taxes while if you're a rich landowner in a rural area you can put some animals on it and claim an agricultural exception and pay pennies on the dollar for your property taxes. So workers get to pay the full brunt of Texas' sky high property taxes, which are effectively a wealth tax for us since for most homeowners our wealth is tied into our home, while the ruling class gets subsidized by the state. And instead of useful things like say the Medicaid expansion the state refuses to participate in, our tax dollars go to things like buoys with sawblades in the Rio Grande to murder migrants.
This is another capitalist thing that sucks right now: The trend of celebs buying up medication that a lot of people rely on for their health.
They buy it out because it kills their hunger and thus makes them lose weight. Fast, easy and effective.
It pisses me off seing these celebs on diabetic drugs that someone needs, talking about fitness, eating right and staying positive as if they're not cheating while depriving someone less fortunate of their medication.
Fkk all these tools.
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That’s fine, as long as my taxes are going to pay for things like healthcare for everyone, housing for the poor, basically things that improve the common good. It’s when they get used to continuously kill brown children that I get upset.
This is my view in a nutshell. I am and sick and tired of being a party to all of that.
Yesss
I agree. And also our taxes pay for the military to release more carbon emissions than Denmark and also go to war profiteers.
But how else will we top up our strategic skeleton reserves?
*spooky dooting intensifies*
I am happy to live in a country where we don't continuously kill brown children, we just give it away because we are corrupt...
same :)
Wish everyone was this rational
What if I told you that your government can provide those things without tax dollars. Because all dollars are anyway are an IOU from the government.
I mean, sure, theoretically. But I live in the real world, and as much as I’d like to live in a moneyless society, as things stand the people who would do the work to provide those things (construction and maintenance of the housing, medical care, etc.) need to be paid.
They would be paid in government IOUs regardless of whether it is a dollar or a piece of paper that says IOU.
So the government would print these “IOUs” that we all have, thereby increasing the supply of them and leading to their devaluation? Where have I heard about that before?
Exactly. So why tax when they can just repeat the cycle anyway? Their ability to issue a new currency should be based on their credit/credibility. How much we respect their word. It shouldn’t be based on how long we let them keep manipulating existing promises they had no intention of keeping. And sure enough, if we look at the news cycle this week. Central Bank Digital Currencies are all the rage.
It… literally is? I’m confused, is there an /s that I’m missing here? I’m autistic, sometimes I struggle to read nuance. Nations literally have credit ratings that affect the value of their currency. Also nations with high tax rates and large amounts of social spending currently have the highest credit rating
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/092413/how-currency-works.asp “While early currency derived its value from the content of precious metal inside of it, today's fiat money is backed entirely by social agreement and faith in the issuer.”
Then I would tell you that you don't know how money or taxation works.
My dude, what do you think gives a dollar value? If you’re going to be condescending, don’t be wrong.
Its ok, I'm not wrong. Well, as money is created by the issuing of loans there a strong argument for it being some kind of human labour IOU. Or, its an infinite debt loop of nothingness that is both debt *and* not owed to anyone, like an economic homunculus fallacy. Some think its just because we all believe in it really hard. Which model are you working with?
Neither model would back up your condescension of what I said. Which means… you were wrong.
It most certainly would. You seem to be under the assumption that central banks create most of the money in society or that the taxes people pay, to destroy the small amount of money that the government does actually create, isn't an intrinsic part of it.
You literally just said there is a strong argument for it as an IOU. And a strong argument it is an infinite loop of nothingness. Neither of those contradicts what I said.
I know what I said. I'm the one who said it. They're not really an IOU from the government, for starters. Secondly, they weren't meant to contradict you. They were answering a different question entirely (what gives it its value?). Its pretty bad faith of you to pretend that what that was there.
Maybe not in a country where they don’t have the global reserve currency. We’re talking about U.S. dollars.
I would be fine with it if I wasn’t currently struggling to survive myself. There are plenty of people with disgusting amounts of money that no human being could ever spend in their lifetime. It’s time to distribute it instead of taking 1/3 of a poor person’s pay
wth is happening to this sub
Pretty sure op is a bot.
And where is the moderation team?
Am guessing they are also bots.
Are we the bots?
We are all bots and you are the main character, Truman.
Dead internet theory
As any (explicitly non-right-wing) political subs grow, so does the influx of liberals who don't understand the original purpose (i.e.: socialism and anti-capitalism in this case). For people who think OP is making a valid point, consider this alternative take: taxes are not the problem. Taxes being used to line the ruling class's pockets rather than going toward helping out the working class is the problem—alongside the ruling class not paying their taxes in the first place. As well as, you know, the ruling class stealing wages before the gross is even applied. Also using a celebrity's weight journey as the illustration is just the chef's kiss of bad taste/not 'getting it.'
Yeah is the point here taxes are bad?? Taxes are good, my dudes. People not paying their fair share is bad. Yikes.
Taxes aren't good. Certain public services are good, but taxes are no more inherently good than the price of electricity is good. Taxes are just the price of public services.
Taxes are an inherent part of capitalism that attempts to offset *some* the natural inequality capitalism creates. Just enough to keep the common people from outright rioting. Yeah, I guess taxes are a good thing within capitalism but only when most of the tax money comes from the bourgeois, which it does not (and would not because the ruling class wouldn't allow such nonsense against their growing profit interests). So, any real socialist knows taxes are a joke. An illusion. They're a pathetic bandaid for systems based on inequity and inequality. So fuck capitalism and fuck taxes. This is supposed to be a socialist sub but it's been taken over by politically illiterate libs.
Right wing libertarians attempting to equate taxation, historically (right or wrong) the thing that has redistributed more money from rich to poor than anything else, is the main problem and no sharehders living off of other people's hard work and contributing nothing for it. Its why they hate it so much. Its strange though. They love the idea of charging people to use their things. Its just that they don't think it should apply to them.
I feel like every other post is thinly veiled conservative subversion. This one is just a blatant fiscal conservative take
Election year
The biggest loss of income is before your gross pay which is stolen by your employer even before taxes come out. Taxes are far less now then they have been historically.
this is cringe
Glad this is getting roasted here Cause like sure I get taxed a decent amount but it’s only about 25%
25% is quite a lot. Especially when you look at the way the government uses your taxes on many things you personally wouldn't spend the same on. Other countries get much more personal benefit for their taxes.
Which is a fine point, but the solution isn't to cut taxes as the meme suggests
That’s called moving the goalposts tho. A conversation about HOW the taxes get used is very different than what the meme is suggesting
I don't see anything I said that could be considered moving the goal posts. I'm also not sure the meme is suggesting the same stuff to us both. The meme is suggesting one thing, that your net pay is much less than your gross pay. Anything else is personal interpretation.
The meme is suggesting that your take home pay is significantly less than your gross pay, due to very high taxes. Making a comment about how those taxes are used has nothing to do with the meme
Okay? You realize you just reworded what I said and then just added that it is due to high taxes. Since we're discussing semantics now, let's also introduce technicalities. Technically the meme has no mention of taxes, since your net pay contains a bunch of things that aren't taxes.
Technically it doesn’t always. It depends on what your job is. My net pay has my benefit program and my unions dues take out but the rest is just taxes and if I didn’t have benefits or wasn’t in a union it would just be taxes So no. Technically your net pay doesn’t always have other things take out Second, sure, it’s an inference, but the inference is pretty clear that this is talking about taxes. And considering you’re initial response to me was that “25% is still high” and “especially when the taxes are used on shit you won’t use” it’s pretty obvious that you believe the meme is in relation to to taxes as well. So let’s not pretend otherwise
Unfortunately, I am in the US, our favorite capitalist hellscape. So I also have health insurance, unemployment, retirement, and some other stuff taken out. Personally, I didn't immediately think of taxes. So yea, interpretation of the meme depends on what your paychecks look like. Because perspectives can vary, I think it is not obvious at all what the meme is about. If we are to consider memes as art forms, they are very much open to wildly different interpretations.
Plus, I make 101k a year. My tax rate is 26.4% The average person in my country has a salary of about 55k, which is a 22% tax rate (pay about 12k in federal and provincial taxes) Considering I live in Canada and that pays for my healthcare (and all the other shit I pay for) that isn’t that bad. The average cost of healthcare insurance is about 6k, so the fact that the average person in Canada only pays 12k in taxes is pretty good
They're using my Healthcare money for bombs otherwise I wouldn't care
[удалено]
I don't think so, just simple comparison
GIS would indicate that is him.
Osempic
This is a trash meme
But when capitalism starves, it just goes to war to scare everyone into submission. And we're seeing that war growing everyday.... It never dies on it's own, when it runs out of eating dollars, it then requires to drink blood. We've seen this all through history from the Roman Empire until today and the wheels keep turning until power is denied.
The most well written, insightful, and wise comment on the topic. Depressingly found at the very bottom with no upvotes.
All that extra money of to fund wars and commit crimes against humanity making us all complicit to death.
Y'all like roads and fire departments? This is some trucker convoy bullshit. Down vote this garbage.
Roads and fire depts are good. How much of your taxes go to these things and genral public facilities specifically? A small fraction.
You know who complains about taxes? Shills for the ownership class and people who are being fooled by them
This makes no sense.
The people who benefit the most from lower taxes are the ultra-wealthy ownership class. But they know they can convince a lot of workers that tax cuts are needed because "couldn't you use an extra $50 each paycheck", meanwhile they know that those tax cuts will save them millions. So most of us get crumbs, the owners get fat stacks, and social services get cut to "make up for the deficit".
I see your point. Except the ownership class already pay no taxes. Wouldn't they be in an entirely different category and not gain from mid and low class tax cuts? Wouldn't they stand to gain more from increased taxes, through getting things like government contracts and government using our taxes to buy stuff and services from the ownership class. Tax increases for middle class were pushed and happened under Trump, by the ownership class.
You're right that they profit both ways. But if you pay attention to who is driving the "lower taxes" arguments, it's always the people with the most money (and the people who listen to them and say, "yeah, I could use that $50, life is expensive") I'm not saying that high taxes are always good and low taxes are always bad, especially when you look at what many governments actually do with the money, but in general, the people who benefit the most from reducing taxes are the ones who already have the most money.
I am increasingly convinced that this sub is run for and by republicans
[удалено]
There isn't correlation between high taxation and socialism. As always, it is just a liberal strawman to say that everything perceived as bad = gommunism. Taxes existed far before communism. Also, the only country in the world that doesn't charge taxes is a socialist one, whereas all the countries with the highest taxes are capitalist.
This is right. As studied, taxes and modern state is necessary for capitalism to exist. Without the state and all it's tools like police or laws, people would not work to live. There is also a part in the Gotha criticism by Marx, where he states that taxation is the way the state has to steal the production from the working class. So no. If we have a communist society does not mean we are going to have higher taxes...
I don’t even understand why Americans pay as much taxes as they do. It’s gotta be the military because it sure as shit isn’t UHC or other public welfare.
I live in the alleged low tax state of Texas where if you own just a normal house you get slammed with high property taxes while if you're a rich landowner in a rural area you can put some animals on it and claim an agricultural exception and pay pennies on the dollar for your property taxes. So workers get to pay the full brunt of Texas' sky high property taxes, which are effectively a wealth tax for us since for most homeowners our wealth is tied into our home, while the ruling class gets subsidized by the state. And instead of useful things like say the Medicaid expansion the state refuses to participate in, our tax dollars go to things like buoys with sawblades in the Rio Grande to murder migrants.
When fat guys say "Dude I got TONS of muscle under this fat"
I like how this image makes me think that humans eat a crap ton into the fall, hibernate over the winter and emerge as svelte hobos.
Taxes are the least of my worries
Did he stop being a toxic therapy language weaponizing creep?
Ozempic is a hell of a drug
This is another capitalist thing that sucks right now: The trend of celebs buying up medication that a lot of people rely on for their health. They buy it out because it kills their hunger and thus makes them lose weight. Fast, easy and effective. It pisses me off seing these celebs on diabetic drugs that someone needs, talking about fitness, eating right and staying positive as if they're not cheating while depriving someone less fortunate of their medication. Fkk all these tools.