> What action would be more effective: wanting people in my wealth bracket to be taxed more, or donating my income to charity? Donating your income to charity,

> What action would be more effective: wanting people in my wealth bracket to be taxed more, or donating my income to charity? Donating your income to charity, for the sole reason that "wanting people in your wealth bracket to pay more taxes" isn't an action, it's the desired outcome. Voting would be an action. Activism would be an action. The simple desire is not an action. It's one thing to say, "I want to be taxed more", knowing that your declaration is not likely to have any impact on the reality of the situation. Saying, "I'm writing a 10,000 dollar check to a malaria or deworming charity" (of which there are many: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) is an action. > Okay, since you're said the magic word 'empirically' I would like you to cite your studies and evidence that proves your position. I think you understand that paying 10 dollars for a person's meal is more efficient than having 6,000 administrators facilitate the transfer of that 10 dollars to a person. Every person you add to the process wants their cut, which is why any organization (private, public, government, corporate) becomes less efficient. They can make up for that efficiency in scale, but scale comes at a price. And, again, I haven't advocated for the elimination of taxes, I'm just giving the OP an actionable option that will do more than his desire to be taxed at a higher rate. There are not a lot of great studies I could find that compare the efficacy of "tax + welfare" vs "charity", other than libertarian-ish journals that you probably won't view as valid.