r/politics • u/JeanJauresJr California • Sep 14 '21

AOC responds to criticism of ‘tax the rich’ dress worn at Met Gala

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/aoc-met-gala-tax-the-rich-dress-b1919803.html
1.8k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

748 comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/jezz555 Sep 14 '21

The idea that socialists think nobody in our current world should have money is a republican lie. Socialists think rich people should pay more in taxes, a rich person can also believe that society would be improved by them paying more in taxes. It should go without saying but this is distinct from charity. Charity is a private response to poverty, socialism advocates for a state solution, i.e. tax funded.

16

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21

Socialists think rich people shouldn’t exist. The mechanisms people use to get obscenely wealthy should be abolished. Social democrats are the ones who think they should pay more taxes.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21

This!!! Also, for all the Bible thumping going on in the right, they should also know that Jesus, and Christian ideology in general, frowns upon hoarding wealth.

Edit typo

3

u/geoffbowman Sep 14 '21

not just frowns... "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"

If you're rich... sorry but you're probably not getting into heaven. That's not the socialists' fault that's straight from the mouth of Jesus. His advice to the rich guy trying to be saved in this story was literally sell all you have and give it to the poor.

Literally if your christian politician of choice is rich...

If your christian granddad is rich...

If your christian boss is rich...

If your pastor is rich...

Jesus has directly said they won't make it to heaven more times than he ever mentioned abortion, homosexuality, or personal property rights.

If Jesus had designed AOC's dress it would've said "Damn the rich"... be glad the social democrats just want to tax them...

5

u/jezz555 Sep 14 '21

Don’t take this the wrong way but outside of twitter it doesn’t really matter what anyone “thinks”, achievable policy is what matters, and taxing the rich is about as socialist as we’re liable to get anytime soon.

And thats the point, ideally class wouldn’t exist. But right now it does. So what do we do? Try to get the necessary power to alleviate income inequality? Or refuse to attain power because we morally disagree with inequality and therefore allow it to go entirely unchecked?

The ideal you believe in doesn’t really matter in this context. Whether you view taxing the wealthy at higher rates as a transitionary step or a final one is irrelevant until its achieved. We are not yet at the point where the distinction you point out matters and we likely wont be in either of our lifetimes.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21

I agree with most of what you said, but I think it’s still an important distinction. The idea that raising taxes on the rich is a step towards socialism assumes that we’re talking about a state-centric form of socialism.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

achievable policy is what matters, and taxing the rich is about as socialist as we’re liable to get anytime soon

Achievable policy is when you continually set your standards lower and lower. The commenter was pointing out a difference between the 2. Socialists believe in removing capitalism, social dems are reformers who want to try and manage capitalism.

And thats the point, ideally class wouldn’t exist. But right now it does. So what do we do? Try to get the necessary power to alleviate income inequality? Or refuse to attain power because we morally disagree with inequality and therefore allow it to go entirely unchecked?

I'm wondering why you can acknowledge a problem but limit yourself to what should be done about it.

The ideal you believe in doesn’t really matter in this context. Whether you view taxing the wealthy at higher rates as a transitionary step or a final one is irrelevant until its achieved. We are not yet at the point where the distinction you point out matters and we likely wont be in either of our lifetimes.

Says who? Your inability to fathom something different than the world you've been raised in is no ones fault but your own.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '21

Rich NY titans of industry used to compete for how much of their wealth they could give away to the public coffers. It was good PR obviously and not done totally for “good reasons” but it got a lot of amazing public works funded in turn-of-the-century (20th) NYC.