“Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and thereby lessening the sale of their good … They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent? with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”

“Servers, labourers, and workmen of different kinds make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

In Australia some people may pay higher taxers and wages, however we also get medical care from the state rather than our employer.
Look at all the million GM is paying for employees and ex-employees! Surly that is much more expensive than paying decent wages and taxes for universal healthcare.

Although you might get lower taxes (this is debatable) for upper middle class people, and wages; US companies are running to near financial ruin paying for medical costs for low paid employees. That is one reason why the US auto industry is going bust, the companies are paying for services that should be paid for by the state. Thus ,they can not compete with countries like Japan and Germany that have universal health care.