The inequality engine: How American tax policy values wealth over work.
If you get income from investment, it's taxed much more lightly than salary and wages you make as earned income. The idea here is there's something more important, more powerful, more socially beneficial about investments than labor, and tax policy should reflect that. Even if you believe that, the reality nowadays is that tax preference is received by the 1% and above. Overwhelmingly.
Historian Julia Ott explores the tax system's role in amplifying American inequality - from the low capital gains tax that values investment over labor and leads to assett bubbles and market crashes, to the Clinton-era takeover of Democratic Party policy by the investor class - and calls for a broad movement dedicated to tax justice beyond just demanding Donald Trump's returns.
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Julia wrote the article How Tax Policy Created the 1% for Dissent.
Guest
Julia Ott
Julia Ott is an Assistant Professor in the History of Capitalism and Co-Director of the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at The New School for Social Research.
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