Economic policies often rest on assumptions about human motivation.\u00a0\u00a0Here’s Rep. Ryan (Republican of Wisconsin):<\/p>\n
The left is making a big mistake here. What they\u2019re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. People don\u2019t just want a life of comfort. They want a life of dignity \u2014 of self-determination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Fox News has been hitting the theme of \u201cEntitlement Nation\u201d lately. This Conservative case against things like Food Stamps, Medicare, welfare, unemployment benefits, etc rests on some easily understood principles of motivation and economics.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Giving money or things to a person creates dependency and saps the desire to work. That\u2019s bad for the person and bad for the country.
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A person working for money is good for the person and the country.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We want to encourage work.
\n4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We do not want to encourage dependency.
\n5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Taxing something discourages it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nNow that you\u2019ve mastered these, here\u2019s the test question:<\/p>\n
1. According to Conservatives, which should be taxed more heavily:<\/p>\n
a.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 money a person earns by working.
\nb.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 money a person receives without working, for example because someone else died and left it in their will.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIf you said \u201cb,\u201d you\u2019d better go back to Conservative class. A good Conservative believes that the money a person gets without working for it should not be taxed at all.<\/p>\n
Not all such money, of course.\u00a0 Lottery tickets are bought disproportionately by lower-income people.\u00a0 If a person gets income by winning the PowerBall or some other lottery, the Federal government taxes the money as income. Conservatives do not object.\u00a0 But if a person gets income by winning the rich-parent lottery, Conservatives think he or she should not pay any taxes.<\/p>\n
What Conservatives are saying to you is this: working for your money is not as good as instead of inheriting it. This message seems to contradict the principles listed above. But, as Jon Stewart recently pointed out<\/a>, Conservatives apply those principles of economics and motivational psychology only to the poor, not to wealthy individuals or corporations.<\/p>\n
Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>\u00a0and the Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University<\/a>. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a> or on Twitter<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Economic policies often rest on assumptions about human motivation.\u00a0\u00a0Here’s Rep. Ryan (Republican of Wisconsin): The left is making a big mistake here. What they\u2019re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. People don\u2019t just want a life of comfort. They want a life of dignity \u2014 of self-determination. Fox News has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":62091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23384,36,85,76],"class_list":["post-62076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-economics","tag-politics","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/03\/151.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62076"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62209,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62076\/revisions\/62209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}