President Obama’s recently proposed bank tax is open to a myriad of questions concerning how common property should or should not be utilized. If one were to apply Aristotle’s ideas on the nature of property to our 21st century economy, “taxpayer dollars” could be viewed as commonly held property to be used in common, in so much as they are derived from the earnings of all (or almost all) of the citizens and are intended to be used for the benefit of said citizens. This being said, I am not sure how Aristotle would view the concept of the government having the final say in how all of those assets are distributed. A recent article in the New York Times concerning a possible constitutional challenge to the bank tax outlines the banking industries objections. The question is whether the tax would unfairly target large banks, forcing them to cover losses incurred by nonbanking recipients of bailout money, which Aristotle would undoubtedly consider to be public property to be used for the public good. The intention of the tax is to recoup losses from TARP and other bailout plans, but its structure would ensured that the largest burden falls on those industries that have been the most stable (Those who have the ability to pay; the large, relatively stable banks), while giving hedge funds and the automotive industry another reprieve from responsibility. This may not be the most equitable distribution of common property, but it is probably the best way to increase the overall public good (that is the intention at least) so it is likely that Aristotle would lean in favor of this decision, even though his views on usury would tend to express disdain for the entire concept of modern banking.
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I think the large banks should be unfairly targeted. If you have more money, you pay more taxes. If you are a bigger bank, you should be a target. Asking for participation from any smaller lender would be very hard on their business, if you include every other expense that they are paying that is also gradually rising.
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand the concept behind this I feel like it is one of those things that are good in theory, but hard to follow through on. I agree that those that have the financial capabilities to take on such taxes should, but I feel like such a drastic change is incredibly unlikely.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I feel that the idea of common property in itself is problematic. For instance, if I were an executive at a large bank I don't think I would be overly happy about paying more money for those who are incapable of producing it themselves.
Though in a perfect world this may work, I believe we must remain mindful for the world that we actually do live in. We live in a world where wealth rules and until that changes implementing such concepts I feel would fall on deaf ears.
If you think of the economy as a bar graph that measures the quantity of wealth that a certain individual or company possesses, and you wanted to level it out equally, you would obviously take from the richest. There is no reason for the hoarding of money, no matter how hard anyone thinks they work, there is always someone working harder with nothing to show for it. I would even say that the majority of the wealthy families and companies don't even deserve their money. So in this bar graph of wealth we would find the happy medium, and take from the rich (whether they be hard workers or not) and give to the poor. Every person should have enough to eat in this country, no one should have to go to bed hungry, but because of these greedy rich assholes, this will never happen... because they think they "earned" their excess money.
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