I am curious who is the analog to the french aristocrats. With 95% of the tax burdened by those earning more than $50k, it is crucial to define this. The median income is roughly about this value as well, so basically nearly all the tax is burdened by the top 50% earning populace. If you raise the bar further ($200k), its still nearly 60% of the taxes being paid by 5-10% of the populace. So I am not sure I buy that the "aristocrats" are "refusing" to pay their taxes. Maybe we could oversimplify to just politicians?