Derek Thompsonn, in an Atlantic blog, argues that rich people who support higher taxes are just a befuddling as Thomas Frank's Kansans, I am not so sure.
If people are at all introspective, they will recognize that fortune can be fleeting--that anyone can get a bad draw. Catastrophe call befall anyone, because of illness, because of natural disaster, because of unexpected changes in business conditions. For example, while it is possible that the demise of the newspaper industry was foreseeable many years ago, I am not sure that it is likely. As a result, many people who thought themselves secure in their work are now being laid off.
We can think of taxes as being both user fees and as insurance premiums. Social Insurance helps the rich--as well as their parents and children--survive at a minimum living standard even if the world turns on them. While we all like to think we have some control over our lives--and to some extent we do--we are also all subject to chance, and for some of us, it is good to know there is a society that cares about the misfortune of others should we encounter a bad draw.
Certainly some rich people are also motivated by altruism and their desire to repay a country that had given them so many great opportunities. But people pay all sorts of insurance premiums; to some extent, taxes are another.
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