. . . [E]conomic freedom. . . . Freedom for men to choose their own callings, to accumulate property in protection of their children and old age, freedom of private enterprise that does not injure others. . . . A large number of the men administering our preparedness program do not believe in this freedom. With a long war--and it will be long if we put our boys into it--then their methods with the inevitable debt, inflation, unemployment and demoralized agriculture will make us over into State Socialism, probably under some other name. -- Herbert Hoover, 1941

Someone, I forget who, once said the history of the world is the history of class struggle. In the current politically morbid period, where the predators and the stupids have unearned market power in the marketplace of ideas, the history of the world is the history of class struggle over taxes. But maybe not for long.

What's the difference between what John McCain characterizes as capitalism and socialism? According to the Urban Institute, it's annual tax revenues of 6/10ths of a percent of GDP, or almost $100 billion a year. (For an idea of scale, current Federal outlays are $2,955 billions.) That's the difference between the tax collections of McCain and Obama, as these plans are described by the respective campaigns. By this metric, under Bill Clinton we had Ginormous Socialism.

But Clinton's was an odd sort of socialism. The ranks of Federal civilian employees were drastically reinvented reduced. Federal non-defense public investment grew more slowly than GDP. Millions were pushed off the welfare rolls. With the see- hear- and speak-no-evil Clinton policy with respect to the Federal Reserve, coupled with Bob Rubin's inclination towards financial deregulation, Alan Greenspan helped inflate some mighty financial bubbles, first in tech stocks, then in housing, the bursting of which has destroyed trillions of dollars in middle class savings. No wonder the working class hates socialism.

Getting back to taxes, what currently passes for debate in the Gabby Hayes campaign is the charge that Obama wants to 'share the wealth.' If it isn't obvious, and it isn't because of Gabby's general political incompetence in the higher discourse, what they are actually referring to is refundable tax credits. A refundable tax credit is one that you are allowed to receive in its entirety, whether or not you pay as much (or anything) in income tax. Barack Obama has a bouquet of refundable tax credit proposals. The credits are geared to earnings, mortgage payments, child care, savings, and reducing marriage penalties. McCain never refers directly to the benefits, either because he can't remember them, understand them, or because he is afraid a more specific description might have the reverse of the desired effect. What we do hear is payments to those "who don't pay taxes." This is a replay of the Earned Income Tax Credit debates.

As with the rest of McCainian doctrine, this is an appeal to ignorance. You can't get these credits unless you work. If you work you pay payroll taxes, a good part of which funds general government activities, since there is a surplus over and above what is required to pay somebody else's Social Security benefits. So anybody who works pays taxes. Anybody carrying a mortgage is likely to be working, or living off saved earnings. And of course everyone pays gas taxes, state and local sales taxes, etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile Gabby has his own refundable tax credit, in his case for his farkakta health insurance plan. If Obama's refundable credits send money to "those who don't pay taxes," so does Gabby's.

Broadly speaking, the logic of condemning a shift of tax burden from rich to not-rich as "class war," but the reverse as excellent economic policy, is another bit of Republican intellectual poo.

Which brings us to Joe the Plumber (sic). I know everyone is tired of hearing about him, but we have to say a few things. First of all, for Jeebus's sake lay off his personal life. The fact that he has a tax lien has not the least significance. People have been ranting about the fact that he is in no position to buy a business and would actually get lower taxes as a citizen in Obama Nation. In so doing, they miss something important.

Workers would like to escape the servitude of wage labor. (See class struggle, above.) They would like to provide for their own by their own devices, not with handouts. They would like to work for themselves, in their own business. They value autonomy. In the absence of a professional degree, privileged lineage, or a winning lottery ticket, this is the only way to become financially comfortable. Joe's type views liberal policies as an obstacle to this goal. So we get Joe foolishly mouthing libertarian nostrums that actually defeat his own self-interest, while a progressive tax system and ObamaCare would help him.

Now it's difficult to become financially secure in the only way open to most workers. Gazing over the fence to where the grass is greener, Joe cannot easily diagnose his inability to make the transition. Nobody likes to blame themselves. Joe is vulnerable to conservative propaganda, which subsists on displacing blame from corporate predators to government, reinforced by racism ("He did a tap dance like Sammy Davis"), nativism, xenophobia, and other pathologies. So we get Joe's murky understanding of tax policy, fed by the refrain of government taking from the productive and subsidizing the shiftless. This ceases to work when the Joes of the world realize that the shiftless category means anyone not rich and is defined to include their very selves.

In the 1930s, a far more benighted and miseducated white population elevated enough Democrats to at one point give them 76 seats in the U.S. Senate, plus two Farmer-Labor and one progressive. In the House, the Republicans were reduced to 88 seats. These are the logical fruits of the Republicans' bankrupt rants about socialism and sharing the wealth.

Hooverism is back, and not a moment too soon.