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Respectfully, why do you feel taxes are the best avenue for your philanthropy rather than donating personally to one or more organizations/causes? It seems like

Respectfully, why do you feel taxes are the best avenue for your philanthropy rather than donating personally to one or more organizations/causes? It seems like the former would result in far more waste and ultimately less getting to the cause of your choice.

sidibe 7y ago
The reason wealthy liberals want higher taxes is they get many times that in matching funds vs making a donation. Even if taxes are much less efficient, having a lot more money in the pool means more of it ends up where they want to see it distributed. Also, a lot of stuff the government does actually cost a lot of money and needs to be done but people wouldn't donate like infrastructure maintenance
- zozbot234 7y ago
  The power of "matching funds" is actually an underappreciated force in making voluntary, non-tax based provision of public goods more feasible. "Matching funds" is how threshold-based crowdfunding ala Kickstarter works: if you're a pivotal funder (i.e. your contribution pushes the funding campaign over the threshold), you get "many times your contribution in matching funds"! This effectively means that everyone involved wants to be a pivotal funder; it becomes a self-sustaining outcome. (Proposals have been made to extend this principle to non-threshold-based funding, see e.g. https://www.snowdrift.coop https://www.snowdrift.coop as one example.)
- atq2119 7y ago
  Exactly. Another aspect to it is that taxes eliminate the free-rider problem. If I, as a socially-minded millionaire, make a lot of philantropic donations, but my neighbor, the not-so-socially-minded millionaire doesn't do that and instead uses their money to fund a think tank that lobbies for the abolition of social welfare, then we have a problem. Rather than engaging in philantropy, it is more rational for me to fund a think tank that lobbies for the expansion of the social welfare system.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    If your millionaire neighbor is genuinely less "socially-minded" than you are, it's not clear whether she would actually be "free riding" on your philanthropy. "Free riding" generally means getting a benefit that you strategically avoid paying for, not just having different preferences. Now, there might nonetheless be a case for taxing your neighbor millionaire a bit more, but it would have to be somewhat different. (For instance, you might think that having more millionaires around creates negative externalities in the form of way too much corruption, rent-seeking etc. from aspiring millionaires. This would indeed be the kind of thing that taxes could correct.)
Pfhreak 7y ago
Part of it is because the cause of my choice is not where the money should go. I want a functional safety net, good schools, strong infrastructure, and a million other things to ensure a healthy society. I'm not sufficiently educated to donate money in a way that ensures all that stuff gets funded. I accept that some inefficiencies exist but also the government is funding things I need but have no idea about. Also, I can make only so much impact on my own. Advocating for taxes gets many people to give.

sidibe 7y ago

The reason wealthy liberals want higher taxes is they get many times that in matching funds vs making a donation. Even if taxes are much less efficient, having a lot more money in the pool means more of it ends up where they want to see it distributed. Also, a lot of stuff the government does actually cost a lot of money and needs to be done but people wouldn't donate like infrastructure maintenance

zozbot234 7y ago
The power of "matching funds" is actually an underappreciated force in making voluntary, non-tax based provision of public goods more feasible. "Matching funds" is how threshold-based crowdfunding ala Kickstarter works: if you're a pivotal funder (i.e. your contribution pushes the funding campaign over the threshold), you get "many times your contribution in matching funds"! This effectively means that everyone involved wants to be a pivotal funder; it becomes a self-sustaining outcome. (Proposals have been made to extend this principle to non-threshold-based funding, see e.g. https://www.snowdrift.coop https://www.snowdrift.coop as one example.)
atq2119 7y ago
Exactly. Another aspect to it is that taxes eliminate the free-rider problem. If I, as a socially-minded millionaire, make a lot of philantropic donations, but my neighbor, the not-so-socially-minded millionaire doesn't do that and instead uses their money to fund a think tank that lobbies for the abolition of social welfare, then we have a problem. Rather than engaging in philantropy, it is more rational for me to fund a think tank that lobbies for the expansion of the social welfare system.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  If your millionaire neighbor is genuinely less "socially-minded" than you are, it's not clear whether she would actually be "free riding" on your philanthropy. "Free riding" generally means getting a benefit that you strategically avoid paying for, not just having different preferences. Now, there might nonetheless be a case for taxing your neighbor millionaire a bit more, but it would have to be somewhat different. (For instance, you might think that having more millionaires around creates negative externalities in the form of way too much corruption, rent-seeking etc. from aspiring millionaires. This would indeed be the kind of thing that taxes could correct.)

Pfhreak 7y ago

Part of it is because the cause of my choice is not where the money should go. I want a functional safety net, good schools, strong infrastructure, and a million other things to ensure a healthy society. I'm not sufficiently educated to donate money in a way that ensures all that stuff gets funded. I accept that some inefficiencies exist but also the government is funding things I need but have no idea about. Also, I can make only so much impact on my own. Advocating for taxes gets many people to give.