Should We Tax the Rich, Eat the Rich, or Kill the Poor?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her 

Tax the Rich dress (Met Gala 2021)

 

 

I suppose the slogan tax the rich that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had emblazoned across the back of her off-the-shoulder white designer gown in large blood red letters at the Met Gala earlier this week is a more reasonable-sounding version of the radically-cannibalistic eat the rich, a phrase attributed to the 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1] which remains popular within anti-capitalist circles concerned about class inequality and hungry for revolutionary change.        

 

However, more reasonable-sounding or not, tax the rich is an equally asinine remark, if only because the rich are already taxed; certainly on their income, if, arguably, at an insufficient level upon accumulated and inherited wealth, which is, I think, a separate (and more important) issue.  

 

As an American politician, AOC is obviously concerned primarily with what's happening in the United States. But, if I may, I'd like here to present a few facts and figures concerning the income tax paid by the richest members of society in the UK. My purpose isn't to praise or express my gratitude to those who earn obscene sums whilst others scrape by on a pittance, but merely - as AOC would say - to start a conversation on this issue ... 

 

Every year, HM Revenue and Customs publish an analysis of the income earned and tax paid by by UK citizens. In 2016/17, for example, £174 billion was raised in income tax [2]. Of that amount, nearly a third - £52.5 billion - came from the 381,000 highest earning individuals (i.e., those on salaries of more than £150,000 per annum). And that is more than all the income tax raised amongst the first 20 million lower earning individuals (£50 billion).            

 

As The Guardian's money editor, Patrick Collinson, notes, if you examine things in London, the truth of this matter is even more inconvenient to those who, for ideological reasons, like to believe that the highest earners don't pay their fair share:  

 

"The city has 4.2 million income tax payers, but just 87,000 individuals earning over £200,000 a year paid nearly half the £43.8bn income tax raised in the capital. It’s uncomfortable to say it, but if we lose all those absurdly paid investment bankers [...] the hit to the public purse will be painful, as they are clearly paying vast amounts to the Treasury. Those London bankers, lawyers and their ilk paid more income tax in 2016-17 than the entire sum raised from every income tax payer in Scotland and Wales combined." [3]

 

And so, simply shouting tax the rich - or eat the rich - is as politically suspect as the secret fantasy of killing the poor is amongst members of the super-rich who would sooner exterminate those in need than provide funds to help eradicate poverty ...  

 

 

The sun beams down on a brand new day / No more welfare tax to pay 

Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light / Jobless millions whisked away 

At last we have more room to play / All systems go to kill the poor tonight [4]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, President of the Paris Commune, is believed to have given a speech on 14 October 1793 (i.e., during the Reign of Terror), in which he quoted Rousseau as saying: Quand le peuple n'aura plus rien à manger, il mangera le riche.

 

[2] I am using figures given by Patrick Collinson writing in The Guardian (9 March 2019): click here.  Those who wish to find more recent figures should visit the government website concerned with income and tax: click here. 

 

[3] Patrick Collinson, ibid. 

[4] 'Kill the Poor', written by Jello Biafra and East Bay Ray, was the third single released by the Dead Kennedys (Cherry Red Records, 1980). Lyrics © Decay Music / Bmg Vm Music Ltd.

      Click here to play the re-recorded version on the band's first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (Cherry Red Records / Alternative Tentacles, 1980). 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on AOC and radical chick, click here.