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I'm a software engineer working in Sweden, a country I chose because of its strong welfare society among other things. With a good salary, I'm paying more tax t

I'm a software engineer working in Sweden, a country I chose because of its strong welfare society among other things. With a good salary, I'm paying more tax than the majority of Swedes, my marginal tax rate is over 50%, and in the election last weekend I voted to increase one of the taxes in favour of healthcare spending. My point is that paying a lot in tax doesn't necessarily make you less happy, let alone depressed. The way I view it, I'm contributing to a system that ensures affordable education/healthcare for everyone, and extra social assistance for those in need, things I believe really help the society as a whole.

beaconstudios 8y ago
you're not contributing to that system freely though - the mechanism of the state takes away your agency to freely help others in this way. You can rationalise it that you're contributing to the welfare of others, but the reality is that your money is being taken from you and put into a bucket marked "welfare" that will go to welfare but also be inefficiently wasted, spent in ways you don't agree with, and so on. At least under private charity you can engage in effective altruism (or at the very least claim altruism).
- ACS_Solver 8y ago
  I have nothing against private charities but see them only as a complement to state-run programs. The social improvement that comes from people having healthcare/education/etc requires that the vast majority of people have it, not some, and not even a simple majority. I view it somewhat similarly to herd immunity through vaccination. When you have a 95% vaccinated population, diseases can be eliminated. When you have a 50% vaccinated population, it's of course good for those 50%, but doesn't provide the same global benefits. Is some of the welfare money wasted due to inefficiency? Yes, of course. But for a task of this scale, which has to provide benefits to everyone in the country, I only trust the state with it, and not a private entity. Can I opt out of the system? No, but freedom isn't a single variable you can straightforwardly optimize for. In this case, I believe the infringement on individual freedom through taxation results in considerably higher total freedom when considering all individuals in the society.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    see, I don't think the state is very good at dealing with issues like this because from such a high viewpoint, the state can either apply a one-size-fits-all policy, or provide a localised but drastically oversimplified strategy for specific regions that will require more overhead for managing the many regional subdivisions. Providing for social healthcare is a good thing (at least within the context of how our nation states currently operate), but I think it should be devolved down to local authorities with perhaps a state-level overseer to monitor their performance. I'm of the strong belief that central management at scale is unilaterally inferior to decentralised and devolved decision-making that can more effectively take local variables into account. > But for a task of this scale, which has to provide benefits to everyone in the country, I only trust the state with it, and not a private entity. Trusting the nation state and trusting a private (presumably either commercial or charitable) entity are not the only two options. The charity and taxation options can both occur at a local authority, or a community, level.
    - ACS_Solver 8y ago
      Too much centralization is definitely bad (for an extreme example see the Soviet economy that was centralized to a ridiculous extent). But government doesn't have to mean centralized, to take the Swedish system once again, the healthcare is handled at a regional level, within the national legal framework. This does take local variables into account, which is important - different parts of Sweden can actually have significant differences in the medical situation. It's still state-run in the important sense that the legal mandate comes from the state. This is a major advantage over private initiatives in my opinion. To take a simple example, say there's a legal requirement that people who cannot use their legs are entitled to receive a wheelchair. When that's the law, it means the government (regional, local, whatever applies) has to make it happen, even when it's inconvenient or expensive. When it's a charity or a private initiative, it might not have enough money/incentive/commercial interest/insert reason here to cover everyone. Admittedly my views on centralized vs. regional governance aren't sophisticated due to my background. I live in a country of 10 million, which isn't too big globally, and I moved here from a very centralized country of 2 million where devolved decision making only makes sense in truly local issues.

beaconstudios 8y ago

you're not contributing to that system freely though - the mechanism of the state takes away your agency to freely help others in this way. You can rationalise it that you're contributing to the welfare of others, but the reality is that your money is being taken from you and put into a bucket marked "welfare" that will go to welfare but also be inefficiently wasted, spent in ways you don't agree with, and so on. At least under private charity you can engage in effective altruism (or at the very least claim altruism).

ACS_Solver 8y ago
I have nothing against private charities but see them only as a complement to state-run programs. The social improvement that comes from people having healthcare/education/etc requires that the vast majority of people have it, not some, and not even a simple majority. I view it somewhat similarly to herd immunity through vaccination. When you have a 95% vaccinated population, diseases can be eliminated. When you have a 50% vaccinated population, it's of course good for those 50%, but doesn't provide the same global benefits. Is some of the welfare money wasted due to inefficiency? Yes, of course. But for a task of this scale, which has to provide benefits to everyone in the country, I only trust the state with it, and not a private entity. Can I opt out of the system? No, but freedom isn't a single variable you can straightforwardly optimize for. In this case, I believe the infringement on individual freedom through taxation results in considerably higher total freedom when considering all individuals in the society.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  see, I don't think the state is very good at dealing with issues like this because from such a high viewpoint, the state can either apply a one-size-fits-all policy, or provide a localised but drastically oversimplified strategy for specific regions that will require more overhead for managing the many regional subdivisions. Providing for social healthcare is a good thing (at least within the context of how our nation states currently operate), but I think it should be devolved down to local authorities with perhaps a state-level overseer to monitor their performance. I'm of the strong belief that central management at scale is unilaterally inferior to decentralised and devolved decision-making that can more effectively take local variables into account. > But for a task of this scale, which has to provide benefits to everyone in the country, I only trust the state with it, and not a private entity. Trusting the nation state and trusting a private (presumably either commercial or charitable) entity are not the only two options. The charity and taxation options can both occur at a local authority, or a community, level.
  - ACS_Solver 8y ago
    Too much centralization is definitely bad (for an extreme example see the Soviet economy that was centralized to a ridiculous extent). But government doesn't have to mean centralized, to take the Swedish system once again, the healthcare is handled at a regional level, within the national legal framework. This does take local variables into account, which is important - different parts of Sweden can actually have significant differences in the medical situation. It's still state-run in the important sense that the legal mandate comes from the state. This is a major advantage over private initiatives in my opinion. To take a simple example, say there's a legal requirement that people who cannot use their legs are entitled to receive a wheelchair. When that's the law, it means the government (regional, local, whatever applies) has to make it happen, even when it's inconvenient or expensive. When it's a charity or a private initiative, it might not have enough money/incentive/commercial interest/insert reason here to cover everyone. Admittedly my views on centralized vs. regional governance aren't sophisticated due to my background. I live in a country of 10 million, which isn't too big globally, and I moved here from a very centralized country of 2 million where devolved decision making only makes sense in truly local issues.