There is a justifiable Intent for doing away with most forms of Taxation such as Income Taxation. I had discussed the topic of taxes before in The Work-Standard (2^nd Ed.) where I provided some convenient arguments for deemphasizing Taxation in favor of the Arbeit and Geld created from the LER Process. When I advocated for eliminating Income Taxation, I was essentially arguing in favor of a different methodology to accommodate the other factors introduced by the Work-Standard. Under the Work Theory of Money (WTM), Wages and Prices, despite continuing to relay information about the national economy, are both dependent on the Quality of Arbeit (QW) and Quality of Geld (QM). Issuances of Paygrades are treated as a matter of the Council State because the employers and employees of different Enterprises and Industries now had to focus more on their individual and collective contributions of Arbeit and Geld to the Life-Energy Reserve. The amount of Actual Geld allocated toward the Paygrades by the Council State is impacted by the overall performance of the VCS Economy and the Attrition/Inaction Rate, in addition to the usual qualifications like “years of service” and “number of dependents.” 

Without Income Taxation, as the reasoning from Social-Democrats and Social Liberals (Read: Progressives) went, there would be nothing to deter people from becoming wealthier than others. How we intend to interpret their positions depends on whether we are evaluating them from the standpoints of Production for Profit, Production for Utility, or Production for Dasein.  Production for Profit and Production for Utility represent the two sides in the issue of “Wealth Inequality.”

In Production for Profit, we would have to argue that by promoting a “Progressive Taxation System,” there will be fewer ‘Incentives’ for the Market/Mixed Economy to generate a higher Quantity of Kapital to surpass the concurring Quantity of Schuld. The upper classes, because they have more Kapital, can afford to pay down their Schuld, whereas the same cannot always be said for the lower classes. To have the upper classes spend more of their Kapital in taxes will leave them with less Kapital to maintain Kapital Accumulation.  

Conversely, in Production for Utility, the “Progressive Taxation System” will create a Wealth Redistribution effect that will trickle-down a fixed Quantity of Kapital to the lower classes to mitigate their Quantity of Schuld. As stated earlier, the lower classes are less likely to ensure that their Quantity of Kapital will surpass their Quantity of Schuld as the upper classes. This Wealth Redistribution occurs in the form of Welfare Capitalist programs created by the Parliament.

When we evaluate the other two Modes of Production in Production for Dasein, we have to realize that the ‘Incentives’ for the “Progressive Taxation System” revolve around getting the upper classes to spend more of their Kapital. They have to spend more Kapital in order to ensure that the lower classes will have less Schuld. The Parliament’s Welfare Capitalist programs function as the vehicle through which the transfer is conducted. The so-called “Wealth Equality” emerges as an “Equilibrium” in Kapital Accumulation between the upper and lower classes: the Quantity of Kapital and the Quantity of Schuld generated by both classes would then be on par with each other. Going back to the Work Theory of Money (WTM), Income Taxes are incapable of directly targeting the LER Process. What it will target instead are two accounts of Actual Geld:

• A “Personal Income Tax” on the Actual Geld that Vocations and Professions receive from their Paygrades each week.
• A “Corporate Income Tax” on the Actual Geld that Enterprises and Industries receive from selling goods and services.

It takes Actual Geld to contribute Actual Arbeit, just as it takes Actual Arbeit to generate Actual Geld. Income Taxation not only reduces the possibility for Life-Energy Charging (LEC) and leaves larger Enterprises and Industries with less Actual Geld, it is also an inefficient, wasteful solution at addressing the question of what to do with the Actual Geld owned by the wealthy. There are already other methods provided by the Work-Standard in resolving this particular matter. I can think of six different options on what the wealthy could be doing in Production for Dasein:   

1. The first option is to have the wealthy invest their Actual Geld into some NSFIs at the Kontor (Financial Office), giving the Totality and the State the ability to create more Actual Arbeit.
2. The second option involves the wealthy spending their Actual Geld on goods and services from Small Businesses and Cooperatives, which will also support the Totality and State.  
3. The third option entails the wealthy allocating their Actual Geld toward specific Personal Properties that, when attached to a Domain within the Work-World, can be turned into a Productive Property as part of a new Enterprise.
4. The fourth option is for the State to provide the wealthy with opportunities to invest their Actual Geld into research and development projects at the Kontor.  
5. The fifth option is for the State to help the wealthy spend their Actual Geld on causes that benefit the national interests of the Totality.
6. And the sixth option, which will be focus of this Section, is for the wealthy to invest their Actual Geld into the affairs of the SSE by working with its Student Government.

The fifth and sixth options tend to overlap with each other. The Student Government might be interested in promoting certain initiatives that do not necessarily require the intervention of the Council State. A likewise occurrence can also emerge from the Council State, only this time the SSE will not be involved. In both cases, the Council State and the Student Government are trying to provide new Intents for the wealthy to do something with their Actual Geld. It should be noted that not everyone who is wealthy will have political-economic motivations for their Actual Geld. Sometimes, there might be those who believe that they should spend their wealth on causes that appeal to them. That would be the opportune moment for the Council State or the Student Government to take the initiative and turn the cause itself into a national policy issue.

On their own, the Actual Geld of the wealthy is nothing without the Totality and the State. It matters very little as to how much Actual Geld somebody has in their personal accounts. They can spend their wealth on promoting certain causes which benefit the Totality and State, but their efforts alone will not take them far. The Council State and the Student Government’s involvement will provide them with access to manpower and resources, which can include the participation of religious congregations. That too is where Production for Dasein needs to distinguish itself from the other two Modes of Production. In essence, the Actual Geld of the wealthy should be spent in a manner that will lead to the flourishing of the Totality and without losing their wealth while doing so. Such acts of charity must not be allowed to devolve into ways of evading taxation (as in Production for Utility) or being a poor substitute for the Council State (as in Production for Profit).

The question that needs to be ascertained now is an in-depth discussion of how each of the six options can be applied in practice. In the next half of this Entry, I will address the Explicit and Implicit Intents behind the wealthy’s spending habits in the first and second Modes of Production and how they might change in Production for Dasein. Then I will determine why the wealthy should be inclined in investing their wealth in any one of the six options.  

Categories: Third Place

Tags: Economics, Finance, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Socialist Finance, Socialist Student Economy, Taxes, Third Place, Total Educational Effort, Total Mobilization, Wealth Inequality, Work-Standard