To be fair, ever since Reagan, progressive the world over have struggled to make a case for taxation beyond “it helps the poor”, a concept with all sorts of issues. Because individualism runs rampant and taxes are about collective wellfare, individualist rich people really don’t understand why they should ever be asked to partake into a concept (the common good) they simply cannot figure out. So they see it as a somewhat-voluntary charity act, but because it’s not voluntary in size, they resent it as an imposition, a forced sacrifice. This goes double for people who were born into it, like Linton, for whom a life of leisure is just an obvious birthright, why should she ever “suffer” the “threat” of getting a little bit poorer?
I honestly have no idea how to go about fixing this. Shaming them or shutting them down will not change anyone’s mind - Linton’s awful thoughts are now private but they’ll obviously keep spreading through the White House, and Trump is obviously on the same page (he also inherited it all, before pissing it all away several times over). The charity approach doesn’t scale - for every Bill Gates there are hundreds of Panama-Papers crooks. Re-education camps have been somewhat unfashionable for some time now. What’s left? How do we make these people understand what “the common good” is and why contributing is not optional? Do we parachute-drop them into some failed state? I honestly don’t know.
