William Saletan continues to live up to my expectations, which I assure you is not a compliment, with a bizarre article in Slate that contends that if a law is passed in the USA to make the level at which capital losses can be written-off against income tax more generous, that would be, wait for it, “suburban socialism”.
Fascinating. So lowering someone’s tax burden is socialism. Let’s run by that again…the state gets less of a businessman’s money, which is to say, more of the ‘means of production’ currently in private hands remain in private hands… and that constitutes socialism?
Of course I do not expect someone like Saletan to have actually read and understood any serious books on political economy, but I would expect someone who opines on economic and political issues to have read some ‘Idiots Guide to Political & Economic Systems’ so that he has at least the vaguest inkling as to what the hell socialism actually means.
The plan in question is not the state socialistically redistributing wealth by taking it (via tax) from someone and giving it to someone else. No, they are just talking about reducing the amount of theft (i.e tax) the state appropriates for certain people who have run up losses: the loss making taxpayer is not getting other people’s money, he is simply being allowed to keep more of his own money by off-setting losses. Duh.
