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The thing is - 100% tax on cars is libertarian. You charge car owners something closer to the costs they cause to society. Compare that to the USA where we heav
by andys627 9y ago
The thing is - 100% tax on cars is libertarian. You charge car owners something closer to the costs they cause to society. Compare that to the USA where we heavily subsidize car ownership.
- dragonwriter 9y agoGovernment intervening in the market to internalize externalities is not libertarian. At least, not by the definitions used by any self-identified libertarians I've encountered. The libertarian approach is to privatize recovery of social costs so that instead of government internalizing the aggregated social cost into the transaction, each individual who can demonstrate an unlicensed adverse impact from the transaction has a personal cause of action to recover damages resulting therefrom. A particularly generous libertarian might recognize a class action as an appropriate mass venue for aggregating such claims.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoSo if I have asthma I can sue all drivers who drove in the area where I grew up and all coal plants operating in the area where I grew up for contributing to the development of my asthma with each one paying a few cents? That sounds insane.
- jonknee 9y agoI think fuel taxes, market rate parking fees and road/congestion tolling would be more libertarian. If you live in a rural area the impact of your vehicle is much different than if you live in the middle of a dense city. Also, a $50,000 car does not have double the societal impact as a $25,000 car (which could be larger and less fuel efficient). Progressive taxes aren't a very libertarian construct.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoAnd... we are back to no-true-liberatarian. In a libertarian utopia governments are not supposed to add taxes to neutralize negative externalities.