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The problem with "absolute" taxes (A fixed % of the price for everyone) is that they punish the poor but don't affect the rich, while most of the problems out t

The problem with "absolute" taxes (A fixed % of the price for everyone) is that they punish the poor but don't affect the rich, while most of the problems out there are caused by the rich, because they are more powerful. You don't care about a carbon tax on your extremely polluting plane tickets if this represents 0,01% of your revenue. One solution is to make the tax proportional to your revenue, like in Switzerland speed tickets are which means someone already got 1.7M fine from one over-speed limit driving. But then people will manage to lie about their revenue, as rich always do. Then you could say that it's linked to the person, not the money, so in France if you drive too fast your driving licence is suspended. But once again, that would completely destroy a poor person life, not being able to go to his job anymore, while a rich will be a bit annoyed but just pay a cab. It would be so much better if people were doing the right thing because they knew it is the right thing, instead of having to add incentive to push them to do so. Our planet is burning right now, that would be a good moment to act.

PhilipRoman 2mo ago
On the other hand, there are vastly fewer rich people than poor, so for many things it doesn't matter if they can pay the fine. If only millionaires were littering, the streets would be quite clean.
- tete 2mo ago
  That's all nice on a theoretical but such ideas quickly fall flat in a world where corporations are owned by rich people and create pollution often whole countries are even unable to pull off, often completely unpunished often economically and politically ("we need more jobs") encouraged. I think reducing individuals to two people whose only difference is wealth in respect to which goods they can buy is wrong when applied to real world societies in the same way that weather prognosis based on a very limited set of parameters is wrong. Wealth is not a measure to pay just fines or good, but today effectively the approximation for power that individuals, groups of individuals or legal entities hold. And measuring wealth is a huge complex topic on its own which also makes the taxation topic very complicated. I think that's a huge flaw in present day economical thought. X is good because it increases X/Y ignoring secondary effects. It's like predicting whether it will rain on a given day by just looking at which way the wind goes on your weather station. There is theoretical truth to it, but given both secondary effects and the rest of the world that you might completely ignore but might have complete or partial reversal effects. And then you have various groups that anyway mess with the details of the rules and people that ignore them through various other means, like not getting caught. Classic example is also "We raise taxes, because then the rich will go away" which ignores things from "the rich" potentially not giving you anything if they don't give you taxes and the fact that your country might be able to offer a bit more both as a living and a working place than the level of taxes. In fact there have been studies conducted and the reality is that it barely has an effect. Turns out that people don't just leave for paying something that might even indirectly benefit them. Just like if you are rich you probably don't care much if the price for base goods increases, because you might have way bigger incentives like being in a secure place, having a house and family at a place and your company currently running smoothly with no downtrend in sight.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  You're assuming Homo Economicus - that people evaluate the risk/reward before littering.

PhilipRoman 2mo ago

On the other hand, there are vastly fewer rich people than poor, so for many things it doesn't matter if they can pay the fine. If only millionaires were littering, the streets would be quite clean.

tete 2mo ago
That's all nice on a theoretical but such ideas quickly fall flat in a world where corporations are owned by rich people and create pollution often whole countries are even unable to pull off, often completely unpunished often economically and politically ("we need more jobs") encouraged. I think reducing individuals to two people whose only difference is wealth in respect to which goods they can buy is wrong when applied to real world societies in the same way that weather prognosis based on a very limited set of parameters is wrong. Wealth is not a measure to pay just fines or good, but today effectively the approximation for power that individuals, groups of individuals or legal entities hold. And measuring wealth is a huge complex topic on its own which also makes the taxation topic very complicated. I think that's a huge flaw in present day economical thought. X is good because it increases X/Y ignoring secondary effects. It's like predicting whether it will rain on a given day by just looking at which way the wind goes on your weather station. There is theoretical truth to it, but given both secondary effects and the rest of the world that you might completely ignore but might have complete or partial reversal effects. And then you have various groups that anyway mess with the details of the rules and people that ignore them through various other means, like not getting caught. Classic example is also "We raise taxes, because then the rich will go away" which ignores things from "the rich" potentially not giving you anything if they don't give you taxes and the fact that your country might be able to offer a bit more both as a living and a working place than the level of taxes. In fact there have been studies conducted and the reality is that it barely has an effect. Turns out that people don't just leave for paying something that might even indirectly benefit them. Just like if you are rich you probably don't care much if the price for base goods increases, because you might have way bigger incentives like being in a secure place, having a house and family at a place and your company currently running smoothly with no downtrend in sight.
inigyou 2mo ago
You're assuming Homo Economicus - that people evaluate the risk/reward before littering.