Armstrong and class interest

Marty G
14 years ago
Categories: class war, gst, poverty, tax

John Armstrong’s piece today focuses on how Labour are winning the debate on GST but, unfortunately, he reveals his own prejudices in this passage:

“Labour is highlighting the ones who will most definitely be better off – those who stand to benefit from the top tax rate falling from 38 to 33 cents in the dollar.

Labour argues National’s package takes from the poor to reward the rich and thus fails to meet Key’s test of fairness.

What Labour is doing is invoking the politics of envy.

National is invoking the politics of aspiration in the belief that tax cuts for the well-off have greater acceptance among those less well-heeled than Labour gives credit.”

I’m sorry John, but those are the words of a rich man. A person disconnected with low and middle income New Zealand.

The poor are not envious of the rich. They are pissed off by them. They are pissed off that they work hard all day to get a pittance but those who belong to the right class, the ruling class, get paid many times more for doing jobs that are less dangerous, less degrading, less difficult. They are pissed off that they are the ones who lose their jobs first in the recession the rich caused. They are pissed off that they are the first to get the pay freezes and bear the brunt of public service cuts while the rich get more money for their private schools

The poor are not envious of the rich’s tax cuts under National’s plan. They are outraged by them. Paul Reynolds will be getting $1,000 a day in tax cuts. That money doesn’t materialise out of thin air. It comes from dipping into the wallets of everyone else.

The poor don’t need tax cuts for the top 12% to to inspire them to want to get out of poverty. Poverty is inspiration enough. But the poor cannot all become rich. To function capitalism needs poverty. There’s got to be lots of people doing the shitty, dangerous, hard jobs for cheap. And the wealth will always flow to the elite few who own capital or defend their interests.

There’s no aspiration in this tax swap from rich to poor. There’s only greed. The greed of the rich class that John Key and National represent. They want more and to give it to them National will take from those who have the least.

On a lighter hearted note, John Cleese had this ‘aspirational’ crap pinned 40 years ago: