IN THE MAGAZINES

...As Jill Conway points out in the same issue of Daedalus, American social scientists in the Gilded Age, under the influence of social Darwinism, developed a powerful justification for America's devel= oping industrial society...

...Surviving the "surrender of the intellectuals under Stalin, the tradition is now embodied in a "conscious, amorphously organized group of intellectuals who dare to speak their mind in independent activity...

...taxpayers" are not able to present opinions on tax cases to the IRS either before or after its rulings...

...There are two problems...

...3) The right of citizens to challenge particular rulings in court should be broadened...

...indeed, at times they have been among its staunchest defenders...

...2) The appeal process is one-sided...

...It is arguable that contrary to Lipset and Dobson, intellectuals tend to be rebellious when they find themselves excluded from political power, and tend to defend the status quo when they are influential...

...In America, they find both that the intellectuals have been traditionally "on the progressive, liberal or leftist side," and that no other stratum has even approached them in their support of leftist activities...

...Lipset's and Dobson's argument is of great interest, for it gives broad meaning to the recent currents of dissidence among intellectuals both in Russia and the West...

...If so, the political and economic elites continue to dominate postindustrial society, with knowledge-producers cast in a subordinate if comfortable role...

...WASHINGTON MONTHLY, January 1973...

...Reflecting on Stern's arguments, and other recent criticisms of our tax system by Robert Lampman, Herman Miller, Taylor Branch, and IN THE MAGAZINES 240 James Fallows, one wonders why the prospects for a truly progressive tax system now seem so dismal...

...Indeed, it is those "who rank high on indicators of academic status [which] are among the most left-inclined professors...

...3) Despite congressional attempts to ensure that all IRS rulings of "precedential" value are made public, the public is not informed of many significant IRS decisions...

...Lipset and Dobson, following Robert Merton, attribute the adversary role to the "normative pattern" of intellectual work, which demands a "suspension of judgment until the facts are at hand" and a "detached scrutiny of beliefs in terms of empirical and logical criteria...

...In 1964 the IRS ruled that treble-damage payments by antitrust violatorswere "ordinary and necessary" business expenses, and therefore tax deductible...

...After all, Congress provided for a "progressive" income tax more than a halfdecade ago...

...2) Opportunity should be provided for public comment before major rulings take effect...

...Thus it is not deprivation or repression that is primarily responsibile for the impulse to react critically, but concern for creativity and originality...

...IRS ruled, in a precedent-making decision, that a loan taken by an oil company to buy a coal company be paid back with untaxed dollars, rather than with after-tax dollars, which are used to pay back most loans...

...Ifthe ruling...

...For while knowledge becomes increasingly important, the increasingly specialized bearers of that knowledge may be losing their independence and consequently their influence...

...Similarly, 19thcentury Russian nihilists and populists founded a tradition of Russian intellectual dissidence...

...As of 1971, it was estimated that this one ruling had cost the American taxpayers $400 million, the electronic companies alone saving about $250 million...

...The authors conclude that the stability of postindustrial societies is threatened by the intelligentsia, because such societies are increasingly dependent on it...

...The Intellectual as Critic and Rebel," by Seymour Martin Lipset and Richard B. Dobson...

...First, the American people have never understood and accepted the principle of progressive taxation...

...But this too is not inevitable, no more than politics, choice, will, decision...

...To put it another way, the IRS ruling effectively amended the anti trust laws and cut the damage payments in half...

...The growing significance of science and other branches of knowledge, in a society in which theoretical knowledge is the principal source of economic change, has led to a major increase in the status and prestige of the intelligentsia...

...Intellectuals have not always opposed the status quo...

...P hilip Stern, one of America's leading tax experts, argues that the Internal Revenue Service has become an agent of the corporations it is supposed to tax in the public interest, and that the IRS performs valuable services for private industry...

...It usually interprets tax law in favor of corporations, and its interpretations have the force of law...

...Given the tendency for intellectuals to rebel, the result for both America and Russia could be a crisis within the elite itself...

...The IRS gives advance-of-the-fact rulings, after private hearings, to corporations contemplating new investment, which ensure that corporations—but not the public—know how alternative investment procedures will be taxed...

...The authors find the adversary role of intellectuals to be pervasive in the history of both the United States and Russia...

...favors the requesting company, shifts a major tax burden onto the rest of thetaxpayers—they have no corresponding right tochallenge the ruling in court no matter howunjustified IRS' action might be found there...

...The ruling saved Continental Oil $175 million in taxes, and facilitated the subsequent purchase of five of the ten top coal companies by other businesses...

...While individuals have long viewed their tax burden as too heavy, they have attributed this fact to criminality, corruption, excessive gov ernment spending, and government waste, rather than to a systematic bias in the tax laws in favor of corporate wealth...

...However, the argument is flawed...

...q "The Secret Way the Rich Escape," by Philip M. Stern...

...If IRS' decision is unfavorable to the requestingcompany, it can proceed with the intendedcourse of action, refuse to pay the tax, andcontest the IRS position in a court of law...

...DAVID BENSMAN...

...Indeed, one wonders whether it is true that scholars apply their "detached scrutiny of beliefs in terms of empirical and logical criteria" to the social and political world, as Lipset and Dobson suggest...

...Another example was the IRS's in-advanceofthe-fact ruling in 1966 on Continental Oil's purchase of Consolidated Coal, the largest coal company in the United States...

...Both of these rulings prompted Congress to pass laws reversing them, but the damage had been done...

...Second, the American people NIXON WIELDS THE HATCHET have not understood that what they feel to be an unfair tax burden is a consequence of the nonprogressive functioning of our tax system...

...For most, fair taxation means equal taxation, not progressive taxation...

...To make the tax system more open Stem proposes that (1) All IRS rulings should be made public...

...Stem argues that the present system of tax-law enforcement will continue to produce such antisocial decisions unless there are fundamental reforms...

...Lipset and Dobson themselves admit that the Soviet intelligentsia played a major role in consolidating the Russian Revolution under Stalin...

...This madeit just half as expensive to be caught violating the antimonopoly laws...

...I n a Daedalus forum on "Intellectuals and Change," Seymour Martin Lipset and Richard B. Dobson argue that the "historical and traditional" stance of alienation of both the American and Russian intelligentsia, resulting from "features inherent in the role and social organization of intellectual life," threatens to undermine the capacity of postindustrial American and Soviet society to maintain a social equilibrium...

...Similarly, in Bismarckian Germany intellectuals defended the authoritarian Prussian state with a powerful religious and nationalistic ideology...

...He points to three major defects of the present system: (1) The "rest of the U.S...

...Finally, the assumption that the influence of the intelligentsia in postindustrial society is increasing also seems questionable...

...In the first place, the historical presentation is inaccurate...

...Since the political role of the intelligentsia has not been consistent throughout history, it cannot be true that it is inherent in the nature of the intelligentsia to challenge the conventional verities...