. Do We Live in a Plutocracy?

A progressive tax policy is one in which the more income you have, the higher the rate (after what amount to subsidies and loopholes) at which it’s taxed. In a progressive society, workers tend be paid increasingly higher wages and salaries in real dollars (i.e. adjusted for inflation) as productivity rises. According to the economist Clara Mattei, the medium male worker in America earns less in real dollars than in 1973, and the richest 400 families pay an overall tax rate lower than that paid by any other income group. By these measures, we live in a regressive society, one that it would be apt to call a plutocracy.