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I think assuming that the only value you derive from voting being tax rate is the major flaw here. Altruistic value is usually very high in the issues that peo

I think assuming that the only value you derive from voting being tax rate is the major flaw here. Altruistic value is usually very high in the issues that people seem to vote based on: gay marriage, government health care, military operations, etc. Many people do value these things much higher than their tax rate. The problem arises when we treat dollars as the unit of value. Value is not possible to practically quantify, and using money as the common denominator pushes things that actually are money to the fore, and fails to expose the things that do matter to people.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I discussed a tax increase simply because it made things simple, but you can assign a dollar value to any of the items you've mentioned. How much would you, personally, pay to legalize gay marriage? $50,000? If so, repeat my calculation. $100,000? If so, then voting is worth $0.001 to you. $100 million? Then voting is actually worth $1 to you. A much simpler explanation of voting behavior is the expressive value of voting. People devote great effort to cheering for their team and signalling allegiance - just look at sales of $50 Yankees pinstripes or $80 Paquiao jackets. Most people don't wait in line for 10 minutes just to donate $1 to a good cause.
- moxiemk1 16y ago
  What I'm saying, though, is putting a dollar figure on things like gay marriage is disingenuous. We have this conception that "value" automatically means that it can be put in terms of money. Money has value, and events like law changes have value. However, both money and events have wildly varying value to different people. What a dollar is worth to me is different than what a dollar is worth to you, and indeed, what the millionth dollar is worth to me is far different than what the first one is. The problem is this assumption that money is an appropriate expression of value. This is what I reject. It is an abstraction parallel to the bundles of mortgages that American banks were brought down by - putting it into a unit the MBAs and politicians can understand meant losing essentially all the meaning of what was bought and sold, and ignored fundamental fallacies in assumptions made.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

I discussed a tax increase simply because it made things simple, but you can assign a dollar value to any of the items you've mentioned. How much would you, personally, pay to legalize gay marriage? $50,000? If so, repeat my calculation. $100,000? If so, then voting is worth $0.001 to you. $100 million? Then voting is actually worth $1 to you. A much simpler explanation of voting behavior is the expressive value of voting. People devote great effort to cheering for their team and signalling allegiance - just look at sales of $50 Yankees pinstripes or $80 Paquiao jackets. Most people don't wait in line for 10 minutes just to donate $1 to a good cause.

moxiemk1 16y ago
What I'm saying, though, is putting a dollar figure on things like gay marriage is disingenuous. We have this conception that "value" automatically means that it can be put in terms of money. Money has value, and events like law changes have value. However, both money and events have wildly varying value to different people. What a dollar is worth to me is different than what a dollar is worth to you, and indeed, what the millionth dollar is worth to me is far different than what the first one is. The problem is this assumption that money is an appropriate expression of value. This is what I reject. It is an abstraction parallel to the bundles of mortgages that American banks were brought down by - putting it into a unit the MBAs and politicians can understand meant losing essentially all the meaning of what was bought and sold, and ignored fundamental fallacies in assumptions made.