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This is extremely unjust. Just because someone produces more value for society (works harder, is more intelligent, and is therefore more useful to their fellow

This is extremely unjust. Just because someone produces more value for society (works harder, is more intelligent, and is therefore more useful to their fellow humans and thus gets higher compensation) shouldn't mean that society takes more from them when they break the same laws as everyone else. A poor person speeding and a rich person speeding are both creating the same negative externality and should compensate society by the same.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
Consider that a poorer person's life could be devastated by just a few offences. While a very rich person never bothers to ever consider laws as they can easily buy their way out of nearly all of them thousands of times over. That should probably be priced in relative to their ability to buy get-out-of-jail cards. Edit: buy, not 'but'
- hnracer 6y ago
  Should someone that dreads prison (say, they are physically weak, or have an anxiety disorder) be given less prison time than someone who is more comfortable there? I think we all recognize that this would be unjust, and I think the same reasoning applies to financial penalties. If a poorer person (say, someone that works 6 hours a day at Walmart) and a richer person (say, someone that works 12 hours a day at Walmart) both steal $10,000 from someone, they have both caused the same amount of damage to the harmed individual. That is, they caused $10,000+moral damages (let's say $20,000 total damage). Why should the person that slaved harder and provided more value to society fork out more when they caused the same damage as a poorer person? If anything, the poorer person should pay more as recompense for being less useful to their fellow humans and broader society in aggregate. Of course money isn't the perfect proxy for societal value add but it's the best we have, especially in the context of a strong rule of law which will punish fraud etc.
  - tux1968 6y ago
    It's not about justice, it's about pragmatic deterrents.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  > While a very rich person never bothers to ever consider laws as they can easily buy their way out of nearly all of them thousands of times over. In reality, rich people have lower actual crime rates than poor people. Compliance with the law is as much a financial rounding error as fines. The police in rich neighborhoods have easier jobs. Your typical rich person isn’t going around making a nuisance of himself. Even John DuPont kept his behavior on his own property.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    The actual dividing line in terms of wealth and avoiding fines is more like people who are broke but sensible, versus people who have an income.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    Is it really a lower crime rate or that less are reported against them? If so it could be due to their crimes being more white collar and complex, or because they can buy silence/settlement.
    - SamReidHughes 6y ago
      It really is lower. Not just from basic crime reports, but other ways of measuring like population surveys of victims. Nonscientifically, my feeling is that the median rates of finable crimes are about the same (~0) but all the people that can't help but go around and rack up infractions are usually bad at holding down a job, too, so they're less often rich, unless they're a successful misfit. Like, Marco Rubio comes to mind, he got a lot of speeding tickets. And two guys I know who are somewhat successful startup founders seem to have expressed the notion that getting pulled over is something that you expect to happen a lot, and I can't imagine them enjoying life in middle management.

paulryanrogers 6y ago

Consider that a poorer person's life could be devastated by just a few offences. While a very rich person never bothers to ever consider laws as they can easily buy their way out of nearly all of them thousands of times over. That should probably be priced in relative to their ability to buy get-out-of-jail cards. Edit: buy, not 'but'

hnracer 6y ago
Should someone that dreads prison (say, they are physically weak, or have an anxiety disorder) be given less prison time than someone who is more comfortable there? I think we all recognize that this would be unjust, and I think the same reasoning applies to financial penalties. If a poorer person (say, someone that works 6 hours a day at Walmart) and a richer person (say, someone that works 12 hours a day at Walmart) both steal $10,000 from someone, they have both caused the same amount of damage to the harmed individual. That is, they caused $10,000+moral damages (let's say $20,000 total damage). Why should the person that slaved harder and provided more value to society fork out more when they caused the same damage as a poorer person? If anything, the poorer person should pay more as recompense for being less useful to their fellow humans and broader society in aggregate. Of course money isn't the perfect proxy for societal value add but it's the best we have, especially in the context of a strong rule of law which will punish fraud etc.
- tux1968 6y ago
  It's not about justice, it's about pragmatic deterrents.
SamReidHughes 6y ago
> While a very rich person never bothers to ever consider laws as they can easily buy their way out of nearly all of them thousands of times over. In reality, rich people have lower actual crime rates than poor people. Compliance with the law is as much a financial rounding error as fines. The police in rich neighborhoods have easier jobs. Your typical rich person isn’t going around making a nuisance of himself. Even John DuPont kept his behavior on his own property.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  The actual dividing line in terms of wealth and avoiding fines is more like people who are broke but sensible, versus people who have an income.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Is it really a lower crime rate or that less are reported against them? If so it could be due to their crimes being more white collar and complex, or because they can buy silence/settlement.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    It really is lower. Not just from basic crime reports, but other ways of measuring like population surveys of victims. Nonscientifically, my feeling is that the median rates of finable crimes are about the same (~0) but all the people that can't help but go around and rack up infractions are usually bad at holding down a job, too, so they're less often rich, unless they're a successful misfit. Like, Marco Rubio comes to mind, he got a lot of speeding tickets. And two guys I know who are somewhat successful startup founders seem to have expressed the notion that getting pulled over is something that you expect to happen a lot, and I can't imagine them enjoying life in middle management.