Looks like a fairly normal and reasonable tax rate from here.
(table shows current Oz income tax rates)
Northern European rates are a bit higher than local, but that’s mostly due to a sustained effort by the right to Americanise our tax code in the '90’s (i.e. slash taxes on the wealthy, shift the tax burden to the poor via sales taxes and user fees).
It’s true that a number of things I mentioned are actually the result of capitalism, not natural outcomes in any society. The way I see it, people are often naturally inclined to value certain ideals more than others, or see certain threats as bigger than others. According to some studies (that I’m sure are duly simplified to the pop psychology level), conservatives generally have a stronger reaction to threats and to emotional stimuli; there’s a more structured and less flexible thinking style; less tendency to think outside of the box; a greater tendency to use analytical thought rather than insight and some other traits. In general then, conservatives may well be more likely to respond negatively to perceived external threats. We see a multicultural society, they see tribes (especially if signs of integration and identification with the wider community are not there. That area used to be full of people with our culture, now it looks like a different country and we’re the outsiders). If it can be shown that these issues are not a big problem and don’t affect the person’s security or way of life, they will happily live in a liberal society and respect others. Where there’s plenty of money, everyone identifies with each other and there’s a good safety net, life is good (and the value you get for paying high taxes is definitely higher than the cost). If these issues are not controlled and there’s significant friction, they will lose confidence, withdraw support for the wider community and go into defensive mode.
This is what I’ve been worried about with the refugee crisis (and specifically where I live in Germany). If it goes well, no problem. But you’re betting a liberal society on the positive outcome of something that historically doesn’t go well at all. And if it doesn’t, there is no shortage of people with the kind of mindset I described. In 2010, Angela Merkel claimed that multiculturalism had completely failed. That people weren’t living side by side or integrating. 30% of the country felt that the country was overrun by foreigners. In 2015 she became the face of multiculturalism and welcoming of refugees, but now she is apologising for the government’s poor handling of the situation and saying that they lost control. She has lost a lot of support from her party and the far right AfD is getting record success in regional elections. People talk about whether they fear Islamists or racists more, but I see them as two sides of the same coin – a very risky descent into tribalism and lack of social cohesion.
(This should probably go into the unpopular opinions thread)
I don’t get why, if the supposed reason his face is black is actually soot from going down the chimney, people don’t go for makeup like this for Zwarte Piet more often.
Yes, that’s the kind of details I was looking for, thanks. I don’t think we should underplay these kinds of soft sexism, even if they are beneficial. I’d much prefer “family leave” which acknowledges that men want to be care givers, too and in some case are the only options. Now much of elder care falls upon women, even for their parents-in-law.
I totally agree with all this. the whole notion of “choice” is often used to undercut the idea that norms are still often sexist. I wish I had an easy answer for changing that, but I really don’t.
I think that’s the ideal, but the reality is always much more complicated. The french have their own problems with race, and as a friend of mine who did her dissertation on Francophone africa discovered, they very often ignored their own racial problems (especially related to their African colonies) while condemning American racial politics.
But the place to look for that would be works by Francophone African writers, especially from the negritude movement. Franz Fanon’s lesser known work, Black Skins, White Masks worked to get at this issue, and came to similar conclusions that WEB DuBois did, meaning the notion of double consciousness.
So was the USA’s in the time period being invoked by demogagues on the right. It’s almost like federal spending on the things that bettered the lives of people is what got cut.
Actually, what got cut was the wealthy’s requirement to actually pay their taxes.
On the pros side of the argument: The Netherlands are home to this awesome looking children’s play place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYBhZyvE5sg&t=43s
After seeing the video, my 2-year-old daughter asked to go there. I explained to her that it’s “far far away” and we would have to take an airplane. Then she sees an airplane flying over our back yard and she asks if they’ll stop to pick us up and take us to the “fun jumpy place”.
The world is pay to play. US people should be willing to pay taxes so we can have nice things as well.
Um… aren’t you German? Do you really want to compare notes during the second world war?
Social justice (sharing) might be easier in a uniform culture because it’s easier to view cultural change that social justice requires as being from within rather than without, but it’s not impossible.
Multiculturalism means cultural change, and we’ve been changing a lot faster than it appears most of the population is comfortable about, but even absent immigration, the forces for and more relevantly, against, cultural change would still be present.
For most of us here, we see the change that still needs to happen - we’ve travelled 10 km on a 100 km journey and every moment we waste is a moment that people are being harmed.
But for much of the country, the changes that surround them cause them are making them profoundly uncomfortable, and if we’ve taken 10 steps forward in the last 20 years, we’re about to be dragged 5 steps back.
However, despite the horror of the last election, I’m still confident that at the end of this, we’ll be 5 steps beyond where we were 20 years ago.
The arrow of progress is inevitably moving in our direction, but many of us will be die of old age seeing just how much further we need to go. Unless imposed upon the populace by force, justice will take generations, not years, to achieve.
So it’s ok then? As long as it’s not as bad as Hitler you get a free ride?
I’m german so I have to shut up about everything that happened during WW2 (Operation Wetback was 1954 btw)? … good to know
Perhaps I it’s the other way round … I’m german so I should be the first to say something because I recognize the patterns
No. Of course not. If you’ve been around here lately, you’d notice there is a fair amount of alarm over what’s happening in our country and that some of us have cared about this stuff for quite a while. In case you haven’t noticed, right wing parties around the world are feeling mighty empowered right now. I’m all for appealing to history, but let’s not pretend like this is an American problem right now or in the past. White supremacy has been a rallying cry and a way of life in Europe and the Americas for quite a while now. Until we root it out, collectively, this is going to keep coming back. We have to figure out a workable solution rather than laughing at each other’s shitty governments.
I’m not laughing. I’m concerned too. The difference is that I was concerned before Trump and said so. A lot of things happened in the US recently that reminded me of a certain time period in Germany. Not laughing … more like “Told you so”
Again, if you think that there wasn’t concern going back to well before the Trump election, you haven’t been paying attention. There are and have been people expressing concerns and trying to come out on the streets for years now. Just because you don’t hear about it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
And again, don’t forget that your chancellor is about to head into elections, too, if I’m not mistaken and there are at least some people in Germany who aren’t happy with her letting in so many refugees.
We have a collective problem here, I think. The same problem our grandparents had in the interwar period. It will happen all over again if we just end up sniping at each other.
Why are his clothes clean?
There’s a saying, supposedly from the (dry) Western part of the US, that “Water always flows uphill toward money.” Ironic if you apply it in less dry regions.
No, no, PLEASE GO ON 
The thing is, racism and xenophobia seems to be pretty much universal.* Humans have a way of sorting themselves into rival tribes regardless of the political superstructure. Nation-states can certainly exacerbate this tendency, but there are many parts of the world where the same hatreds occur along ethnic, religious, or (ahem) political lines.
Given the universality of the problem (again, not disputing that nationalism might scale-up the affects of tribalism), maybe we need to ask if there’s anything common in background of those countries or regions where tribal/national violence has been ameliorated—at least to some extent.
One way to begin might be to look at the ideological sources for the idea that all people have equal value – it’s by no means a common, or even intuitive, idea.†
† By this I mean, that the idea had to advance in centuries when it seemed that European peoples (because of their technical and political prowess) were just obviously superior to everyone else.
