Monday October 4, citizens of Civic Mirror country Paltopia, a 10th grade Civics class from Brampt, Ontario, lead by instructorMs. Rebecca Cook at Turner Fenton Secondary, awoke to an announcement from Citizen Natassya:
“…we’ve realized we needed to make a few changes in our policies to adapt to our citizen’s needs.
Based on the pre-game prices, we’ve come up with a new tax system that will be practical, and realistic to meet your needs.
These are our approximate prices for each unit:
Food- $300
Health Care- $800
Education- $800
Energy- $800
We have raised our taxes, but they are suited to the needs of the people, and are now affordable…
For incomes:
lower than $2000, we will be charging 17% tax
$2001-$3000, will be 24% tax
$3000+, will be 26% tax
This way, we will be providing a $150 on one unit of food, health care, education and energy, per family, which we consider necessary for each citizen.
*We still stand for equality among ALL citizens, we have no tolerance for discrimination, and we want to provide opportunities for all citizens to prosper. We also are focused on our environment, and providing renewable energy sources to be available to all citizens, and to keep our economy going strong.”*
Citizen Asad replied with vigor:
“Let me get this straight, you are taking away about 1/4 of the people’s money (richer people) and providing them with a very small discount of $150, that wont help, what if the owners deceide to jack up the prices, what if they deceide to not sell anymore and wait until you give in to their higher prices? Everybody is going to try and benefit themselves before the rest of the country, so why take away the citizens’ money and give them almost nothing in return? Its a lose-lose situation.”
Citizen Madison disagreed:
“In your eyes it is a lose lose situation. You have only talked about the ‘rich’ people. What about all of the citizens of Paltopia? We are trying to look out for everyone especially the people that struggle to make ends meet. Your platform is already starting to divide the community into different classes ‘rich’ or ‘poor’. PROP looks out for everyone to provide a fair and healthy community!”
The class moved to a discussion of class and capitalism versus a more socialist or communist society:
Citizen Asad: “If there is no division is classes, then that is the beginning of a communist society altogether. Eventually if you keep taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, where will the class be? ‘Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless society structured upon communal ownership of the means of production and the end of wage labor and private property.’ – Wikipedia Definition.”
Citizen Madison: “We are actually trying to get the rich richer but at the same time we are trying to get the poor richer as well. At the end of the day there are still going to be classes but they won’t have large gaps.”
There was some back and forth as to whether the government was supporting the rich or the entire population. There were arguments that the gap between rich and poor would continue and that there was enough resources for everyone involved.
Citizen Jasreen ended the discussion with a new idea in terms of what to charge taxes on, “…we are actually trying to get the rich richer but at the same time we are trying to get the poor richer as well. At the end of the day there are still going to be classes but they won’t have large gaps…”
Clearly, societies need taxes but there are many schools of thought on how and whom to charge. Will Paltopian taxes help the “common man” or aid the rich?
*small parts of this passage have been deleted to better fit the length of the post
