4 ms·

Accounting of the externalities when applying taxes would certainly help.

• esarbe 7y ago
  Oh boy, that would be awesome. I'd love to see the EU to start addressing this by setting higher environmental standards, putting them in force locally and apply such taxes to imported products.
• qayxc 7y ago
  Sadly this won't work. Unfortunately, the capitalist system is very opportunistic and "[my country] first!" initiatives would quickly out-compete countries and trade blocks that heavily tax consumption or production in that way. Just look at Norway, my personal go-to example for that kind of taxation. The country has an absurdly high "luxury"-tax on cars (up to 100% all costs combined). The only reason they can do that, though, is the complete lack of a domestic automotive industry. The high taxation simply doesn't affect their national economy in the slightest. Countries like Sweden, the Czech Republic,or especially France and Germany couldn't do that - they have a substantial automotive industry. What unfair competition can do could be observed in Europe in the 1970s and the 2000s. In the 1970s, pretty much the entire textile industry moved to South East Asia due to absurdly low costs compared to Europe (one could name it outright slavery). In the 2000s, the Chinese government did the same to Germany's solar industry by undercutting prices using substantial government subsidies. Proper taxation of goods depending on environmental impact would be able to fundamentally change the economy from focus on consumerism to a more sustainable and cyclic economy. But it only takes a few market actors that don't participate to render the scheme unsustainable overall... And the recent trend towards autocratic "alpha males" in global politics (from the White House, to the Kremlin, to the Bosporus, and South America) paired with increasing nationalism worldwide doesn't make me hopeful for the near future.
  • esarbe 7y ago
    These are some very good points. Thanks for putting them together.