The Bottom Line

Rhesus Monkeys

It’s Tuesday, which must mean that you’re in desperate need of your weekly tax fix. Well, it’s not quite “Ask the Taxpert”-worthy IRS advice, but for my junkies out there, I hope this will suffice.

Right before the big tax deadline, The New York Times ran an article about taxing as a rite to be a member of society. The Times compared human taxing to rhesus monkeys and food calls, where a monkey who happens upon a tasty morsel must call out to the rest of society and share. If a monkey fails to do so, he is subject to excommunication from the rest of the group and vicious beatings.

Basically, the IRS is the rest of the group of monkeys who makes the implicit threat of violence, while the rest of us dutiful taxpayers are the monkeys who happen upon the tasty morsels and must make our contribution to society.

And so this example repeats throughout the rest of animal kingdom, although instead of money, the valuable resource to be redistributed is food. Members of the group who have more of this precious resource are better fed and must give up some of their share to the rest of society to equalize the wealth, making sure they all get fed, too. (Although Darwinism would say, let them starve, survival of the fittest and weed out the bad food scavenging genes!)

Applying this line of logic to human society, shouldn’t the richest percentage of Americans pay the most tax? Unfortunately, with the Internal Revenue Code as it stands, these members of society rarely pay the full proportion they should, despite numerous attempts at tax code revision by the politicians. But then again, the wealthiest also donate to these politicians’ campaigns. I blame the political contributions: after all, nature doesn’t have a corresponding example for politicians getting reelected.

Angela Hu Taxes animals, society, Taxes