Laffer curve cited directly by Laffer. For example, in 1924, Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon wrote: "It seems difficult for some to understand that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue to the government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower rates". Exercising his understanding that "73% of nothing is nothing", he pushed for the reduction of the top income tax bracket from 73% to an eventual 24% (as well as tax breaks for lower brackets). Mellon was one of the wealthiest people in the United States, the third-highest income-tax payer in the mid-1920s, behind John
To each according to his contribution concept also formed the basic definition of socialism for its pre-Marxist proponents, including Ricardian socialists, classical economists, and individualist anarchists. "To each according to his contribution" was a concept espoused by many members of the socialist and labor movement. Examples of this can be found from Ferdinand Lassalle's and Eugen Dühring's statements to Leon Trotsky's writings. However, it was Vladimir Lenin, inspired by Marx's writing on the subject in his "Critique of the Gotha Programme", who claimed the principle to be a fundamental element of socialism within Marxist theory. Libertarian socialist thinkers, such as American anarchist Benjamin Tucker, defined socialism