LETTERS
Editors: The article ["Is Equality a Necessity?"] by Herman Miller in the Winter 1975 issue of Dissent is disturbing. By far the largest part is devoted to telling us that income and wealth are...
...Fortunately (we have sufficient problems of credibility and prestige), Haldeman never studied law...
...Miller's point...
...It is safe to say that they don't hate deficit financing so much that they are willing to stop it by eliminating tax loopholes...
...The purpose of such graphic pie-making should be On Facts and Figures to clarify, not to obscure or propagandize...
...That the more "millionaires" there are, the worse the state of the country...
...In any case, when all the variables are taken into consideration, the proportionate rise in the category will be seen to be nearer to a one- or one-and-a-halffold increase than to a fourfold one...
...Clearly when one thinks in terms of the "new dollar" (sugar at 60c, apricots at $3, "reasonable" rent at $350, postcards at 8c), we are speaking in terms different from those of a dozen years ago, just as a millionaire in Italy now has no standing at all...
...It is another part of the conventional wisdom of the now ancient New Deal that needs to be discarded...
...Certainly, sociologist Spencer must enjoy this cognizance...
...More important, however, a respect for the law—as a moral "science"—is de hors one's status as an attorney...
...192...
...Simple honesty and respect for institutional standards cannot be learned in school, especially between the ages of 21 and 24...
...he was not admitted to the Bar...
...Miller has apparently recently discovered this rereading...
...Miller's credentials as head of the population division of the government, will say, "147/53 increase is not fourfold, but 2.78-fold...
...5 million...
...Would he say the same if we had 50 million millionaires...
...2) Revenues for the I million public service jobs proposed by Mr...
...but as new generations are born and grow up, it is doubtless important that these secrets be imparted to them, and it is surely better for them to learn it from such a magazine as ours, than to have to pick it up on the streets...
...He will then consider the fact that the population of the country increased by some tens of millions during the decade, adding a certain proportion to its millionaires...
...When this turned out not to be the case (actually the rich got richer, and the poor got richer too), the new Marxism-Leninism modified the tenet to say that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer in proportion to the fortunes of the rich...
...The rates should be fixed in such a manner that they accomplish the following objectives: (I) A permanent reduction of income tax for people in the lower and lower-middle tax brackets...
...One of the early tenets of Marxism was that the rich always get richer and the poor poorer...
...The democratic Left should advocate a simplified income-tax structure along the lines proposed in Philip M. Stern's book, The Rape of the Taxpayer, but not necessarily using the same rates...
...FRANK E. DOHERTY Chicago 304...
...Miller has told us just what a millionaire is— Webster says it is someone who is worth a million in dollars, pounds, francs, etc., or "a very rich man...
...Miller tells us that there was a rise in the number of millionaires in the country, from about 53,000 in 1960 to 200,000 in 1970...
...Miller has drawn a fine piece of pie, showing a segment of the pie marked "5 percent of income...
...Not content to let the figures speak for themselves, and perhaps fearful that the reader may do the arithmetic himself, he has added this false statement to show his own horror and perhaps instill it in the reader...
...ELLIOT A. COHEN Pomona, New York q Proposals for Recovery Editors: I want to call attention to a serious omission in Michael Harrington's article on "Some Proposals for the Economic Crisis," in the Spring 1975 issue of Dissent...
...Here Mr...
...He adds, "This is a fourfold increase...
...Unless offset by deflationary factors in the economy, deficit financing is inflationary...
...In any case, just what is Mr...
...He helps us, again as before, by explaining, "The diagram below shows this quite clearly...
...WALTER GOLDWATER New York City Haldeman, Law, and Integrity Editors: Martin E. Spencer states erroneously in "Political Technicians, Corrupters of Democracy," Dissent, Spring 1975, that Watergate wrong-doer Haldeman is a lawyer (p...
...To some of the older people among us, this will not come as news...
...He says nothing whatever about one of America's most vital needs—the elimination of the $60 billion or $70 billion in tax loopholes benefiting big business and the upper and upper-middle income-tax brackets...
...and if he takes note of some other figures in the article, he may see that the value of the dollar went down a good deal in those ten years, so that a millionaire at the end of the decade would be considerably less wealthy then one at its beginning...
...Harrington and for additional social, environmental, and energy needs now not provided for...
...Not that Mr...
...It would build some real distribution of wealth into the economy, which deficit financing cannot do, with its interest payments to banks and others holding government securities...
...By far the largest part is devoted to telling us that income and wealth are unequally and unfairly divided in this country...
...The figures and facts, however, are sufficiently convincing so that no extra weighting is necessary...
...Financing social needs by eliminating tax loopholes would not be inflationary...
...One more typical case of distortion in the article may be seen on page 45...
...The latter, however, wanting to do his own figuring, and not influenced by Mr...
...In addition, the program I have proposed would have the political advantage of putting all varieties of conservatives on the defensive...
...But he has made this segment not a 5 percent but a 17 percent segment, i.e., 60 degrees of the whole circle, not 18 degrees...
...What this does show quite clearly is that the writer is willing to distort both figures and diagrams to make his point...
...Let's face it...
Vol. 22 • July 1975 • No. 3
