Thinking Citizen Blog — Property Re-visited: Majority Rule, Minority Rights, Individual Rights
Thinking Citizen Blog — Saturday is Justice, Freedom, Law, and Values Day
Today’s Topic: Property Re-visited: Majority Rule, Minority Rights, Individual Rights
This morning a set of musings on what once upon a time was called the right to property.
Should the right to property be thought of as the “right to the fruit of your own labor” or not? If not, why not?
Did you know that only 21% of billionaires inherited any money at all? For argument’s sake, who should decide how much of their hard earned money the other 79% should have a right to?
Should some rights be beyond the reach of majorities? If so, which rights are those?
Who decides? How? In the name of what?
But on the other hand technology is leading to a greater and greater concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the most productive. Is this a sustainable or desirable trend? How can we balance the value of the sanctity of the right to the fruit of your own labor, the principle that some rights are so basic as to be beyond the reach of majorities, and the fact of a dramatic increase in the concentration of income and wealth?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS WAS JUST A VARIATION ON THE THEME OF “LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PROPERTY”
1. In fact, “life, liberty, and property” was included in most state constitutions at the time of the revolution.
2. And the phrase life, liberty, and property is enshrined in the 14th amendment to the Constitution, arguably the most important of all amendments.
3. “Life, liberty, and property” is also in the Fifth Amendment to the constitution.
SHOULD PRODUCTIVITY AND TAX RATES BE POSITIVELY CORRELATED?
1. Should you be taxed at a higher rate the more productive you are?
2. Is this fair? does such a system promote productivity?
3. Is this the system we have? If so, how did we get here?
NB: Might there be a better way?
IS THE GRADUATED INCOME TAX CONSISTENT WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW? How important is the distinction between war time and peace time? Between exceptions and rules?
1. Should the “ability to pay” principle be allowed to trump the principle of equality before the law?
2. Is a consumption tax to be preferred to an income tax?
3. How about a land tax?
NB: Let your imagination fly. Mirror, mirror on the wall, what is the fairest tax system of them all?
Estonia? (see last link below from the Tax Foundation which ranks Estonia #1 in the world)
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness — Wikipedia
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution — Wikipedia
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution — Wikipedia
Due Process Clause — Wikipedia
Why the Estonian Tax System Would Remain Competitive after Tax Reform
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
For the last four years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
Four special attachments below:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
#4 Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field
(“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to justice, freedom, the law or basic values.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to justice, freedom, the law, or basic values.
Or just some random justice-related fact that blew you away.
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart.
