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Joseph D'Ambrosio

Professor Granillo

English 101

5 December 2018

Taxes: The unfairness In America

Many people today that live in the United States of America believe that the tax system is

unfair to the lower classes unlike the rich. Joseph E. Stiglitz writer of the article “A Tax System

Against the 99 Percent” uses a lot of rhetorical devices like logos, pathos and ethos to prove his

point to the readers. The rhetorical devices logos which is hard evidence, ethos the author

credibility or ethics and pathos the use of emotions; all were created by a man called Aristotle a

famous Greek philosopher in the era 300BC. In Joseph E. Stiglitz article, he explains how the

taxes in the United States has many loopholes in their tax system that allows the 1 percent or the

richest of the rich to bypass on paying taxes. Which then creates more pressure on the lower

classes making them pay more of the burden of taxes, creating unfairness. Joseph E. Stiglitz

inputs all the rhetorical devices logos, ethos and pathos inside the article to make it sound more

accountable and compelling to others who disagree or are unsure on the topic. By implementing

all the rhetorical devices in the article Joseph E. Stiglitz can get his point across to his readers

about how unfair the taxes system is to taxpayers because the United States is founded on ideas

of equity, but he just uses a little too much of logos though.

Joseph E. Stiglitz primary way of trying to show his readers on how the tax system in the

United States is unfair is through the rhetoric device of logos. Logos is the use of logical

arguments and supportive evidence in a paper and Stiglitz uses a lot of it in his Article. For

instance, in “A Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent” it says, “In 2009, 116 out of 400 top
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earners almost a third paid less than 15 percent of their income in taxes” (Stiglitz 287). This data

from a 2009 tax study show how unfair the system can be with having almost half of the top

earners skip out on their tax payments. This shows Logos because it is actual hard evidence that

helps support Joseph E. Stiglitz point of that the tax system is unfair to the 99 percent of citizens

in the United States. But this isn’t the only use of logos Joseph E. Stiglitz uses in his article “A

Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent”.

As mentioned before Joseph E. Stiglitz use a lot of logos in his article that can help him

provide hard support to his motivation and purpose of him writing “A Tax System Stacked

Against the 99 Percent”. In Stiglitz Article he also says that “The richest 400 individual’s

taxpayers, with an average income of $200 million, payless than 20 percent of their income in

taxes far lower than mere millionaires, who pay about 25 percent of their income in taxes, and

about the same as those earning a mere $200,000 to $500,000 annual” (Stiglitz 287). This quote

goes on to show how the use of logos in Joseph E. Stiglitz article by providing the readers a

visual representation of the numbers that show that the top wealthiest people in the United States

of America are paying as much as a high middle-class American in taxes. This goes to show not

just the unfairness in the tax system in the United States is with all the loopholes it has but by

also using logos tied in with the quote helps reinforce the motivation of Joseph E. Stiglitz on how

the tax system is unfair to much of the population in the United States. Logos isn’t the only uses

of rhetorical devices that Joseph E. Stiglitz employs in his article. Instead he also uses Ethos to

help cement his credibility more about taxes at hand.

Ethos is ethic and values of a person or group of people. Another way ethos helps is it show

credibility of an article and the writer. Joseph E. Stiglitz has the power to talk about this topic of tax

issues in America because of his background. In which are great accomplishments in his past
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experiences in his life. Stiglitz is a very well know economist in the in the world of economics.

Hence why in the article it says that he won the “Nobel prize for economics back in 2001” (Stiglitz

286). The proper name is the Sverige’s Riksbank Prize in Economic Science. which is the one of the

biggest things to strive for and get as an economist. It is given by the Royal Swedish Academy of

Science to researchers that do outstanding work in the field of economic science like the Joseph E.

Stiglitz. This gives the author Joseph E. Stiglitz a huge amount of creditability towards him. Then

by connecting that credibility to his use of ethos in the article makes him more reliable to listen to.

Even though he should have used a little more of ethos to help him sound more convincing in his

article.

The last way he shows his credibility about what he is talking about in the article is when

again he tells us that he has a lot of background experience dealing in economics and money.

Joseph E. Stiglitz was the “chief economist and vice president at the world bank” (Stiglitz 286).

The world bank is an international financial institution that has 189 countries involved, created in

1944 and is based in Washington, D.C. it provides loans to countries of the world for capital

project. This give Joseph E. Stiglitz major power or authority to talk about the subject at hand in

the Article “A Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent” which mostly is about the unfair tax

system and how it is making Americas economic growth slower and harder for the middle and

lower classes making them take most of the burden. However, Joseph E Stiglitz still use more

use of rhetoric device and use the last one in the bunch which is pathos.

Pathos is the use of emotions in a persuasive piece of text or used in any type of writing and

Joseph E Stiglitz provides pathos through his article when he quotes Leon Helmsley. Helmsley is a

hotel chain executive that was convicted of federal tax evasion in 1989. Leon Helmsley goes on to

say that “only the little people pay taxes” (qtd. In Stiglitz 286). This is stating that rich people like
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Helmsley might think that only the week or money challenged people should pay taxes. That the

rich don’t have to pay making them get richer and leaving the middle class and lower class to

struggle. Showing Joseph E. Stiglitz point about how this makes slower economic growth showing

the unfairness of the tax system. At the same time this passage shows the rich can be blind to the

lower classes and have no compassion for them at all. This can make the reader get emotions of

hatred toward Leon Helmsley because he degrades the lower classes and does not want to do his

part as a law-abiding citizen of the United States to pay taxes. Then about the “little people” part

and how it can give us feelings of compassion towards the families of the lower class that are

struggling due to the ignorant rich people that don’t pay their fair share of taxes towards the

government. This isn't the only use of pathos that Joseph E. Stiglitz use in his article to help get his

point across that the tax system is unfair with the use of rhetorical devices.

The other use that Joseph E. Stiglitz uses pathos in his article to show how the American tax

system is unfair. Stiglitz uses pathos from his article and it says that “by contrast, it is unpleasant to

spend one’s days fine tuning dishonest and deceptive practices that siphon money off the poor as

was common in the financial crisis of 2007-2008” (Stiglitz 292). This shows that cause of the

financial crisis was due to the rich taking money from the poor with using deceptive tactics at taking

the poor people's money from out under them. This can invoke feelings in the readers which is

pathos rhetorical device in use. The emotions that the readers can feel is anger again towards the

rich from stealing from the people that are already poor making the money crisis in 2007 through

2008 causing problems for everybody else but the them and other rich people. The reader can also

see the selfishness in the rich because how just to make more money they cheated and lied their way

through making other suffer for it. This is how Joseph uses all three of the rhetorical devices in his
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article “A Tax System Stacked Against the 99 Percent” to show to his reader the unfairness of the

tax system in America.

Even though there are a lot of loopholes still in the United States tax system that many

extremely rich people use to bypass paying their taxes through. Joseph E. Stiglitz yet uses the

rhetorical devices logos, ethos and pathos inside his article “A Tax System Stacked Against the 99

Percent” to help get is point across to the reader that the tax system is unfair in the United States of

America. Stiglitz use all three rhetoric devices logos the appeal to logic or facts, ethos the author

credibility and values and finally is pathos the appeal to emotion. By using all three of the rhetorical

devices in his own writing, Stiglitz gets his readers to sympathies, trust and agree to his argument

with the issue with the tax system here in the United States. Then Stiglitz hopes the use of the

rhetoric use in the article that the reader will see the effect of the tax evasion that the very rich do

and how it is causing us all problems in the long run. In the end the middle-class and lower-class

citizens of the United States will have to regulate the rich by making the government patch up those

holes in their tax system.

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Works Cited

Graff Gerald, Birkenstein Cathy, Durst Russel. They Say I Say. New York, London. W.W.

Norton (2008), book

Stiglitz E. Joseph. “A Tax System Stacked against the 99 Percent.” The Great Divide (2013):

p286-pp295. Article.