I heard on the radio some intriguing remarks by a Wall Street businessman who takes offense at some of our Occupy 99% vs. 1% rhetoric and suggested lowered capital gains texes in exchange for higher estate taxes to prevent the growth of an aristocracy of people and their spoiled kids who have not earned their wealth and dont know what to do with it. Well, Ill listen to such a proposal. I am as anti-aristocratic as any American. I fondly remember a long discussion on my Wall between Jeanine Molloff and Anton de Bergerac about mostly local issues that turned into a discussion of class and privilege. My school friend Everett Dolman chimed in with the last word: Solution: 100% estate tax. Yesterday at Ciceros St. Louis I floated this by a construction business owner from an old St Louis family, after he made some unfavorable comments about the nouveau riche. He responded that in his experience the old moneyed families were much more generousl than the news newly rich. Can we tax the latter but not the former? Would this be fair? Though like most Americans I was brought up to dislike aristocracy, I have known many aristocrats from various countries including the USA in the course of elite training in cultural anthropology, comparative religion, and Sanskrit philology. They are not so bad as persons and perhaps a lot of leisure time is necessary for the cultivation of such knowledge. I was one of a very few students in my class of working class background. Its not poor mans work. So who will help me play devils advocate for Old Money and aristocracies of all sorts, even the Tenured Aristocracy that I have been anathematizing in my fliers and op-eds and posts? Attn: Art Sci Council, Washington University in St. Louis, Webster University (Its nothing personal, you know)
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 02:18:26 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015