Is the elimination of the tax cuts for the rich really class warfare? A lot of the communist rhetoric was based on the dichotomous notion that the rich are bad and should be punished. Communism is a failure because it ignores the contribution rich people make to society through the creation of organization. We live in an entropic universe where it is always necessary to do work to create order.

The goal of government revenue is to create the organizational structures that the private sector cannot. The rich will make whatever arguments they can to keep as much of their money as possible. Their goal is primarily to protect what they have and to get more. Entitlement programs actually do represent, as the rich would say, “the government taking our money and giving it to poorer people.” That said, the way to keep the argument as far away from the “class warfare” concept as possible is to avoid the dichotomous aspects of the debate.

The focus of the debate has to be on the degree to which government revenue creates the “domestic tranquility” that permits the rich to achieve their goals. No one should discount the possibility that the Occupy Wall Street movement could spiral out of control. The fairness argument revolves around the long list of benefits the rich disproportionately enjoy, including interstate highways, bridges, airports/TSA, courts, not to mention our military which supports corporate interests around the world. Arguments that go “You are bad because you are greedy” just lead to responses such as “If we give them an inch, they’ll take a mile,” So as always, I advocate focusing on the goal-oriented arguments and avoiding the dichotomous arguments.