Jonathan Weinstein has provided some strictly economics arguments that the standard conservative notion of "whatever the market will bear" is unjustfied. In this particular case, Weinstein offers a defense of the graduated income tax:
Besides which, anyone whose output is easily scalable, including inventors, entertainers, and financiers, is able to create value in proportion to the size of the economy. Fairness would seem to dictate that they owe a greater proportion of their income to the upkeep of society than those in non-scalable professions such as hairdresser, teacher,etc.An added bonus is Weinstein's mockery of Ayn Rand:
I have always thought that the conclusion of Atlas Shrugged, in which the noble
captains of industry go to their own secluded valley to be free of the oppressive liberal state, is a hilarious, unintentional, reductio ad absurdum against the entire position of the book. I mean, really, how exactly are financiers, railroad managers, entertainers or authors, who pro t immensely from living in a large industrial society, going to achieve anywhere close to those pro ts by moving to a tiny community of elites?
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