Kevin Drum remarks on ‘excise taxes’ (aka tariffs), the hypocrisy of ‘no-new-taxes crusader’ Grover Norquist, and a new study:
… tariffs are just taxes, and nearly the entire burden of tariffs is paid by consumers in the form of higher prices. So why aren’t Republicans yelling about this? Why isn’t Grover Norquist threatening to primary anyone who supports higher tariffs? Why are Republicans so amenable to this particular tax increase?
Then I came home and was looking around at some related material and happened to come across this:
Of course! A tariff on yachts or private jets would be progressive, but Trump’s tariffs are on food, steel, aluminum, consumer electronics, and so forth. That means they’re regressive: they hurt the poor more than the rich.
It’s easy enough to say this is actually unsurprising, given the class behaviors outlined in Turchin’s Secular Cycles, particularly during the disintegrative phase. First, the upper classes enrich themselves at the expense of the lower classes. Then, as upper class (and wannabe) population continues to stretch resource availability, they fall to fighting amongst themselves. In fact, I wonder if we’re seeing a little bit of that in the conflict between Trump and the House of Representatives, because when I say “Trump,” I must include the elected Republicans in Congress, as they are, just about to a man/woman, supporting Trump as if his personal failures are of no danger to the nation.
But this does prompt reflection on human nature. What brings us to this place where the well-being of the lower classes is disdained, even loathed, by the very “cream” of society? After all, the Republicans in Congress have tried very hard to get rid of affordable healthcare, reduced taxes on the rich in ways that had little to no impact on the middle class on downwards. Are they seen as potential competitors that must be suppressed at every turn? Or is it more subtle than that?
It does suggest that humanity can fragment along lines other than ethnicity and religion. I suppose it comes as no great surprise, given the frequency with which we hear the old phrase class warfare. The thing about Secular Cycles is that it was mostly descriptive, with some causal material thrown in; Turchin’s War and Peace and War appears, from what little I’ve read of it, to have more explanatory material in terms of human psychology.
