Because I disagree with him, that’s why. Full stop. Plus, I find him to be grating and arrogant in his views. So there is that. And he clearly is about profiting off the system and his position within it. Just look at how he profited off his relationship with Jack Abramoff.
He views any sort of taxation as “communism” and that’s just patently untrue. Nothing that FDR did, for example was “communist”, it was meant to stop the rise of both fascism and communism in the face of a social and economic emergency world wide. While big government can be an issue, this is related to who actually makes policy and how policy interacts with people’s everyday lives - ask people in the nordic countries how they feel about “big government” that actually works for them. He wants a system that privileges the rich and large corporate interests. We need a system that actually benefits the most people…
As long as we live in a capitalist society, we need some sort of protections from exploitation, because capitalism is exploitative. corporations are huge entities with an enormous amount of powers that DO NOT have our best interest at heart. This has been shown time and again historically. They are created simply to make money for the people who have a stake in the company. It’s not about making the world better, because they will tear it apart if it gets those stock prices soaring. they will underpay their workers, and even use slave labor if it suits their needs. For example, the capitalist paradise known as Dubai:
Now - has capitalism created a vast amount of wealth and lifted some out of poverty, you bet! Even Zizek has admitted this fact. Hell, even Marx argued that and he did that in the 19th century - he was glad that old regime was being wiped out before his very eyes. But the times when it benefited the most people was when people agitated for government regulation in their favor - unions were the strongest in the 50s, and (white) workers benefited (race is a complicated factor here, just look at Sugrue’s monograph on Detroit). But it has also impoverished people historically in the process and helped to create artificial differences that are dangerous and destructive today (rise of nation-states, the rise of race as an organizing principle, the rise of colonialism, etc). The rise of mass agriculture with the “discovery” of the new world is one example (see Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power for that story - also, see Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocaust).
Given the realities of our system, and what it will mean if it falls apart, there is nothing wrong with calling for a tax base that actually provides the general funds for a working society within the capitalist system and I’m kind of sick of people like Norquist using invective against people who do support that. Those who disagree with his political views are not evil stalinists… we are people who disagree with him! It’s, at the kindest, disingenious and ahistorical of him to do this. We as a country, in fact, pay more in taxes, but get less services than just about any other developed country. We do far less for our citizens than any other developed country. Why? Because large corporations need the “freedom” to be “job creators”… never mind that many of those jobs do not pay a wage where people can support themselves and their families.
Now, do I think that the modern system we live in is corrupt and problematic? Yes. I do. A major reason for that is the role that corporations play (though it is also institutionalization in general that’s a major part of the problem). Do I have more leftist tendencies? I do. But I also recognize that completely pulling down the system, for the sake of it would be incredibly destructive to my fellow human beings, no matter how that’s done - whether it’s through a radical, leftist revolution, as advocated by groups like the weathermen or the Panthers (though they actually did go in for some rather pragmatic solutions under Elaine Brown’s leadership in the early 70s) or if it’s strangling government in a bathtub, so some rich, old white business men can turn a faster buck. Our goal should be to increase freedom, but ever more that is connected to only the freedom related to spending money and making money - this is in fact the “objectivist”, libertairian capitalist definition of freedom, as far as I can see. That is not the only definition of freedom, and in fact is the least constructive definition, IMHO. In a society with wealth rules, do you think that those without any wealth are actually free? Free to die miserably under a bridge pass maybe. We live in a time and place where nearly everything costs. How do you think that impacts people’s daily lives, if they are poor?
We don’t just live in a capitalist system, we live in a system that is set up on the notion that individuals within the system spend what they make and that is what the system rests upon. We are a consumer capitalist society. I don’t think that’s really debatable. In order to keep our economy humming and healthy, you need a majority of people, if not all people, able to spend over and above their basic needs. Some libertarians actually recognize that and support a basic income (though I’m not sure what the angle is at this point):
Whether that’s a good idea or not, I don’t know.
I guess the truth is, I don’t know what the answers are, but I don’t like Norquist’s solutions, because it doesn’t seem people centered to me. It seems corporation centered. I don’t think that he cares that we have major collective issues that we need to address, I think he gets off on playing the game and that it has materially benefited him. I think, like many other people who are part of the game, he doesn’t care about the rest of us. That includes 99.9% of DC, regardless of party. The few who care are little heard and little noticed, because they actually do work for their constituents - hence, they aren’t interesting to the media.
But, you probably disagree, and that’s fine. YMMV. That’s just how I feel.
