Why Not Protest To Raise Taxes?

There are a lot of people out (mostly students now, I think) protesting against spending cuts in education. This state, California, as well as the country as a whole, is massively in debt. However, all that I hear are frantic cries for: no more spending cuts and no more new taxes. Now, just how is that suppose to work?

On top of this, when California had a massive budgetary surplus, the people spent it left and right, saving none for an economic downturn. Should I laugh or cry? My kids as toddlers had a better sense of frugality than many adults these days. I can only guess that this is due to the habits ‘taught’ in an extremely affluent culture like ours. It was different in the old pre-capitalist days of famine and serious want. Back then, people were motivated to save surpluses.

This is yet another example, if one were needed, of our core animal nature. We are irrational and emotional just like every other creature on earth. We would like to have it both way; we want to have our cake and eat it too. Chapter 70 speaks to our irrational predicament:

My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice.

I think, if asked, most people do understand ‘that one must pay for what one gets’. It is natural common sense, right? Yet, the urge to get something for nothing is irresistible⁽¹⁾. Credit (cards and the rest) imparts a sense of ‘free’ because you get your desires met now, but postpone payment. Free is one of the most emotionally enticing words we use. Free is also illusionary! Capitalism, because it is based on growth rather than conservation, probably ties into all this. And, endless growth, like ‘free’, is an illusion. Natural processes are based upon balance, with a little ‘growth’ (decay later) and ‘free’ (payment later) thrown in to make Great perfection seems chipped.

⁽¹⁾ The overpowering desire to get something for nothing drives us to conjure up by-paths that make us feel we can. An good example of this is the idea of taxing the ‘rich greedy corporations’. That either forces a corporation to move out of state, pass on the tax increases on to customers (us) through higher prices, or make its business less competitive in the global market place and so lay off workers (us). Getting something the easy way is a healthy instinct in the wild. I reckon the core driver of human civilization has always been to make life as easy as possible. However a blind obsessive focus on getting it the easy way has consequences that make life much more difficult in the long run. In the end, balance will always be maintained. It is the way of heaven. There is no free lunch, despite all our rationalization to the contrary. Joke’s on us!