The push for high taxes in the ‘western world’ 

In Poland we associate socialism and communism with governmental failure, empty shops, broken roads, no businesses, governmental officials harassing small businesses and closing big businesses because… well, because they are evil capitalist who need to be kept down lest they release their diseased bourgeois ideology upon the masses. 

Perhaps that is why socialist ideology is not really taking hold in Poland that much today, aside from social programs that have been introduced there is not that much hatred towards business people and companies. At least not as much as there seems to be in countries that are having increasing problems in both economic and social terms like the, say, US, Span and Italy. In Poland, there is the newly discovered Cultural Marxist ideology creeping into the culture from the far-left, but there is a ceiling on how far it can go with Poland not being that homogeneous with ‘western culture’. In the US, being ‘wealthy’ or successful has been increasingly taken as synonymous with being ‘evil’ or ‘oppressing the poor’. In Poland, on the other hand, with regards to business, it is still ‘cool’ to have your own company. Poland learned from the failings of socialism while ‘the West’ that did not have to deal with it, it has not been vaccinated against hard socialism and is starting to show first symptoms of the malaise. 

In fact, it has always been easy for the governments who have failed because of their incompetence and ineptitude to blame others. If you have a mismanaged organisation hiring incompetent decision-makers or directors who do not care about efficiency or are not kept accountable for their actions, failure follows. So what do governments do when they squander money and flush it down the drain on projects that are either mismanaged or given to their friends? They tax… and then they tax some more. They turn to the general population and they say, ‘Look everyone, look at these businessmen, hoarding money, depriving you of what should be yours!’

My claim is that if the governments were competent about their money management, how they spend it, and on what, there would not be the constant necessity to take money away from the actual businessperson who are creating jobs, setting up companies and helping people make their own money through hard work and ethics. 

Instead, the mismanagement known from PRL (Polish People’s Republic), Venezuela, or now failing California, is now driving politicians who are slowly trying to increase taxes on the wealthy. You know what happens when you increase taxes on the wealthy? The rich hire tax consulting companies to help the avoid the taxes whereas the poorer shop owners, family owned businesses and online-shop owners pay the price… the same people that might have hired you but can’t because of high taxation. With that new tax money governments hire more government workers who perform often easy jobs without much hassle, taking jobs away from the productive private sector. 

When Elon Musk decided to move Tesla company to Texas due to California's high taxes and over-regulation a California’s assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez twitted ‘Fuck Elon Musk’. Yes, a decision making politician has actually said that publicly against a man who has paid millions of dollars in taxes, hired thousands of people and actually contributed to international innovation. How did Lorena contribute? She is a government worker, she does not have to contribute, she gets paid from your taxes. 

However, the more taxes there are, the more regulations and unemployment grows, the more socialist policies get introduced, there is always the olden but golden saying by the former UK Prime Minister...

 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.' 
										Margaret Thatcher

Questions. 

1. What do we associate socialism in Poland with?
2. Do you believe that it is ‘cool’ to have your own company? What do your friends think?
3. Do you think having an online-show would be fun and satisfying? What would you sell?
4. Do you think governments around the world are managing their affairs in a competent way? Yes/No. Justify your answer.
5. Do the rich really pay the higher taxes?
6. Who suffers as a result of higher taxes according to the author of the text?
7. Why do you think Lorena Gonzalez twitted disparaging comments about Elon Musk?
8. What do you think would happen if a polish politician tweeted something like that?
9. How do you interpret the quote from Margaret Tatcher?