Re: Re: further adventures in political surrealism
Marvin Gandall wrote:
I agree that this is another depressing example of “false consciousness”, which I think has mostly do with people believing that tax cuts in these times offer a more promising way of improving their take home pay than fighting for higher pay and improved social benefits. This view is reinforced both by the decline of working class economic and political power, and ruling class promotion rather than resistance to tax cuts. The fact that there may be more than offsetting cuts to social programs doesn’t occur to many working people, or are regarded as something uncertain and far off whereas well-defined tax cuts promise immediate relief. Some popular support for tax cuts is also animated by hostility within the working class towards the poor, especially racial and ethnic minorities and new immigrants (”them”) who experience higher than average unemployment and are seen as disproportionately and undeservedly benefiting from “too high” taxes and government spending.
It’s worse than that: people support eliminating the estate tax (aka “death tax”) because they think their own taxes are too high, even though the repeal would have no effect on their own tax bill. Bartels calls this “unenlightened self-interest.” And he marshals evidence showing that it’s not just a matter of being poorly informed; there are real conceptual difficulties linking A and B to C.
Read the paper http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/homer.pdf; it’s extraordinary. I wonder if Canadians and others would react the same way as Americans, or if this is yet another case of American exceptionalism.
Doug