[ExI] Cosmopolitanism, collective epistemology and other issues

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 9:11 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> How to fix is _obvious_.  Stagnant or falling per capita income
> (analogy of food in the stone age) switches on the whole cascade of
> xenophobic memes building up, irrational thinking, following crazy
> leaders and, if it goes far enough, internal or external conflict.
> Rising per capita income switches the cascade off.
>
> How long has it been since you heard of the IRA?  What happened to
> them?  Ultimately it was the Irish women who cut the birth rate to
> near replacement.  Economic growth got ahead of population growth, per
> capita income started going up and in particular the future prospects
> looked better.  The IRA lost population support and eventually went
> out of business.
>

This makes a lot of sense.  But where, then, are the candidates proposing
to redistribute the growing wealth to the lower and middle classes, so as
to reverse their diminishing prospects?  Certainly a lot more wealth is
being generated; it's just not getting out to most of society.

Why do US tax brackets currently stop at 39.6% at $406,751+ annual income?
Why not another, higher tax bracket (say, 49.9%, or at least 44.9%) for
$1,000,001+ or even $10,000,001+?  (
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Historical_Marginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and_Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg
shows that we had about 70% highest tax rate for the '70s and beyond, and
before that the highest tax rate was about 90% since WWII.  The economy was
chugging along just fine, for the most part.  I know the dangers of "good
old days" nostalgia, but that's a specific thing that could be restored.)

Sure, Congress could vote down such a proposal - and a President pushing
this could then use that vote as sufficient evidence to call for a
corruption investigation against each member voting against.  Said
President would probably get quite a lot of public support for doing so,
possibly enough to also launch recall efforts against the members of
Congress who vote against.  Political hardball?  Perhaps, but it's also
doing what the voters want, and the voters are supposed to be the bosses.
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