5 ms·

I hate it. It just more of Canadian government paternalism, taking away people’s agency: “you cannot be trusted to make the right decision, so we’ll make the wr

I hate it. It just more of Canadian government paternalism, taking away people’s agency: “you cannot be trusted to make the right decision, so we’ll make the wrong decision more expensive to do.” The worst thing isn’t even the paternalism, it’s the hypocrisy. “This tax is to protect you and everyone around you” but in reality “oh yeah please don’t stop drinking because it’s bringing in so much tax revenue.”

csours 8y ago
You can be trusted, but I can't. I'm an asshole.
noarchy 8y ago
We're saddled with these vestiges of the early 20th century because of Prohibition. But that period has long since passed. The new reason for keeping them is the revenue stream. This is often justified by the "societal cost" of alcohol because it is more fashionable to use that as the excuse, rather than money.
daniel-cussen 8y ago
What about drunk driving? That qualifies as endangering those around you.
- tengbretson 8y ago
  Can we just condemn and prosecute drunk drivers and call it good enough?
  - daniel-cussen 8y ago
    I don't think it's good enough. It's just one situation, but there are others. Alcohol makes people more aggressive. It also makes them piss on the streets. A neighborhood I lived in banned alcohol sales past 10pm for those reasons. The fact is there are social costs to alcohol and they have to be internalized somehow. Taxes are a pretty good way of doing that.
    - tengbretson 8y ago
      > A neighborhood I lived in banned alcohol sales past 10pm for those reasons. Call me cynical, but I would take a good look at how many tavern owners were behind the lobbying for this sort of legislation.
    - brianwawok 8y ago
      To be fair, lack of public toilets is often a bigger cause of pissing on the streets ;)
AaronFriel 8y ago
Yes, that's what libertarian paternalism (see: Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein) is meant to do. Legal and abundant alcohol imposes high negative externalities on the rest of the population. Sin taxes reduce consumption because economic incentives usually work. It's when things are outright illegal (see: prohibition, narcotics) or the cost of ignoring the law is de facto lower than the legal price that things become quite dangerous for consumers, like the sale of narcotics laced with cheaper, more potent compounds like fentanyl. For better and worse, a regulated market that pushes prices upward is usually better than an unregulated market or a criminalized one.
- noarchy 8y ago
  >libertarian paternalism Just when you think you've seen everything; someone actually came up with this term? Is this meant to try to convince libertarians as to the merits of statism and regulation?
ticmasta 8y ago
I agree. Lotteries and Gaming are even worse; they warn you one sentence "please play responsibly" and then with the next sell you "this is how all your dreams come true" Legal weed is the next one. They could have just decriminalized it but instead play this game to maximize how much they can sell it for without creating a black market.
jmoss20 8y ago
Sure, agency and personal responsibilities are important values. But if you were the lawmaker here, would you remove the sin tax? Empirically, you should be pretty confident that removing the tax will cause deaths, illnesses, etc. to go up. Keeping it costs some people some annoyance, and reduces everyone's agency. At the end of the day, you have to make a judgement on: value(agency) + value(tax annoyance) > value(deaths, illnesses, etc., externalities of these on others) So what do you do? You might think it's obvious. I'm genuinely not sure -- and I think `value(agency)` is pretty high. But am I confident enough in just how high it is /really/ to live with the possibility of being wrong? (And the, in this case pretty concrete, blood on the hands?) (What I'm really getting at here is a way to think about this, not the actual problem. Things are extremely polarized these days. Calling something paternalistic/etc is asking for an emotional response. But if what this really means is just that someone thinks `value(agency) > value(X)`, and I don't... well, there's no immediate emotional response there. How confident am I in `value(agency)` and `value(X)` really? That seems like a path to much healthier discussion, at least to me.)

csours 8y ago

You can be trusted, but I can't. I'm an asshole.

noarchy 8y ago

We're saddled with these vestiges of the early 20th century because of Prohibition. But that period has long since passed. The new reason for keeping them is the revenue stream. This is often justified by the "societal cost" of alcohol because it is more fashionable to use that as the excuse, rather than money.

daniel-cussen 8y ago

What about drunk driving? That qualifies as endangering those around you.

tengbretson 8y ago
Can we just condemn and prosecute drunk drivers and call it good enough?
- daniel-cussen 8y ago
  I don't think it's good enough. It's just one situation, but there are others. Alcohol makes people more aggressive. It also makes them piss on the streets. A neighborhood I lived in banned alcohol sales past 10pm for those reasons. The fact is there are social costs to alcohol and they have to be internalized somehow. Taxes are a pretty good way of doing that.
  - tengbretson 8y ago
    > A neighborhood I lived in banned alcohol sales past 10pm for those reasons. Call me cynical, but I would take a good look at how many tavern owners were behind the lobbying for this sort of legislation.
  - brianwawok 8y ago
    To be fair, lack of public toilets is often a bigger cause of pissing on the streets ;)

AaronFriel 8y ago

Yes, that's what libertarian paternalism (see: Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein) is meant to do. Legal and abundant alcohol imposes high negative externalities on the rest of the population. Sin taxes reduce consumption because economic incentives usually work. It's when things are outright illegal (see: prohibition, narcotics) or the cost of ignoring the law is de facto lower than the legal price that things become quite dangerous for consumers, like the sale of narcotics laced with cheaper, more potent compounds like fentanyl. For better and worse, a regulated market that pushes prices upward is usually better than an unregulated market or a criminalized one.

noarchy 8y ago
>libertarian paternalism Just when you think you've seen everything; someone actually came up with this term? Is this meant to try to convince libertarians as to the merits of statism and regulation?

ticmasta 8y ago

I agree. Lotteries and Gaming are even worse; they warn you one sentence "please play responsibly" and then with the next sell you "this is how all your dreams come true" Legal weed is the next one. They could have just decriminalized it but instead play this game to maximize how much they can sell it for without creating a black market.

jmoss20 8y ago

Sure, agency and personal responsibilities are important values. But if you were the lawmaker here, would you remove the sin tax? Empirically, you should be pretty confident that removing the tax will cause deaths, illnesses, etc. to go up. Keeping it costs some people some annoyance, and reduces everyone's agency. At the end of the day, you have to make a judgement on: value(agency) + value(tax annoyance) > value(deaths, illnesses, etc., externalities of these on others) So what do you do? You might think it's obvious. I'm genuinely not sure -- and I think `value(agency)` is pretty high. But am I confident enough in just how high it is /really/ to live with the possibility of being wrong? (And the, in this case pretty concrete, blood on the hands?) (What I'm really getting at here is a way to think about this, not the actual problem. Things are extremely polarized these days. Calling something paternalistic/etc is asking for an emotional response. But if what this really means is just that someone thinks `value(agency) > value(X)`, and I don't... well, there's no immediate emotional response there. How confident am I in `value(agency)` and `value(X)` really? That seems like a path to much healthier discussion, at least to me.)