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I'm deeply troubled that the majority of the respondents here are in such strong favor taxes as a means of wealth redistribution and social engineering. I wond

I'm deeply troubled that the majority of the respondents here are in such strong favor taxes as a means of wealth redistribution and social engineering. I wonder if it's because you are natural problem solvers, and see taxes as a way to solve problems. With taxes you can reward behavior you like and punish behavior you don't like (social engineering). You can attempt to address the logarithmic nature of wealth and the perceived unfairness of that. For a hacker, taxes are seductive, I suppose. We've come to a point where taxes are so accepted that your moral right to take money from your neighbor at the point of a gun is not even questioned anymore. The debate has moved from whether you are morally right to do so, to whether it is economically optimal to do so. This is a shame. To me, the Laffer curve is ignored at your peril when contemplating raising taxes. If that stops your enthusiasm for this course of action, I'll take what I can get, but it's like having you refrain from killing me because prison would be inconvenient for you. I'd really rather you didn't kill me because you felt it was morally wrong to do so. There are other ways for governments to raise revenue besides income taxes, but they lack the social engineering and individual control that income taxes provide. I understand why governments like income taxes. What I am struggling to understand is why you do.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
I love politics, for a lot of the reasons you bring up. People simply don't make any sense at all. As an example, if you had this same generic conversation -- government controlling what you can and cannot possess -- and apply it to pot, a lot of these same commenters would be yelling about government interference with private property rights. If you were on a site that favored the drug war, say a religious site, these commenters would be arguing that government can only be involved in people's lives so much, and that past that point it's immoral. Some of the religious folks would counter-argue that it's in society's best interest, and that no good comes from pot. The other side would say you can't enforce it anyway. The religious side would say well you need tighter drug laws. We need to show folks we're serious about this! Now take the same crowd and talk about progressive taxes, and everybody changes seats. It's like cognitive musical chairs. The music stops and everybody argues the opposite viewpoint and takes up their opponent's reasoning. It's great. People are wonderfully irrational.
- lukifer 18y ago
  It's a big leap from shifting numbers on someone's tax returns to locking them up for years based on a lifestyle choice. If we were debating full-blown socialism, it might be comparable, but it's not (necessarily) irrational to say that in one arena the social contract is unfair to the individual, and that in another it is unfair (or suboptimal) for society as a whole. Reality is more complicated than either/or, and the devil is always in the details.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Sure thing it's complicated. As an example, some made the case that in every major war we've been in, we've run up the debt and then raised taxes to pay for it. "The rich doing their patriotic duty" as some describe. Problem is, I must have missed the war that raised the debt to the $10 Trillion mark and am somewhat astonished that we're planning to double that in the next ten years with new programs. So obviously, to me at least, war is one thing and the decay of democracy by folks voting themselves programs we can't afford is something else entirely. So yes, absolutely it's more complicated. But when you say it's more complicated, then the onus is on you to explain where you draw the line -- where is the foundational principle that socialism violates and that progressive taxation does not (to use your example)
    - lukifer 18y ago
      I don't think we should be making decisions based on principle; we should make them based on data. But in a nutshell, I think the $10 trillion debt is not a problem of public will run amok; rather, it is a reflection of how little influence public will has over the lumbering behemoth that is our government, compared to banks, military contractors, privatized prisons, industry lobbies, large unions, et al. It's a failure of our particular democratic process, not our system of taxation. Ultimately, I don't think there is a clear distinction between progressive taxation and socialism, in the same sense that there is no clear distinction between a fetus and a human. It's a spectrum, and there is no "correct" solution, but rather a large panoply of potential solutions, some of which are less bad than others. In my personal opinion, the progressive tax system we have right now is actually a pretty good one (corporate loopholes notwithstanding), and the changes that have been proposed are pretty damn minor (yes, it could be a slippery slope, but so can absolutely anything). What matters more to me is that the money raised by taxation of whatever kind is spent on smart things (education, infrastructure, technology R&D), and not dumb things (resource wars, policing of victimless hobbies, "too big to fail" bailouts).

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

I love politics, for a lot of the reasons you bring up. People simply don't make any sense at all. As an example, if you had this same generic conversation -- government controlling what you can and cannot possess -- and apply it to pot, a lot of these same commenters would be yelling about government interference with private property rights. If you were on a site that favored the drug war, say a religious site, these commenters would be arguing that government can only be involved in people's lives so much, and that past that point it's immoral. Some of the religious folks would counter-argue that it's in society's best interest, and that no good comes from pot. The other side would say you can't enforce it anyway. The religious side would say well you need tighter drug laws. We need to show folks we're serious about this! Now take the same crowd and talk about progressive taxes, and everybody changes seats. It's like cognitive musical chairs. The music stops and everybody argues the opposite viewpoint and takes up their opponent's reasoning. It's great. People are wonderfully irrational.

lukifer 18y ago
It's a big leap from shifting numbers on someone's tax returns to locking them up for years based on a lifestyle choice. If we were debating full-blown socialism, it might be comparable, but it's not (necessarily) irrational to say that in one arena the social contract is unfair to the individual, and that in another it is unfair (or suboptimal) for society as a whole. Reality is more complicated than either/or, and the devil is always in the details.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Sure thing it's complicated. As an example, some made the case that in every major war we've been in, we've run up the debt and then raised taxes to pay for it. "The rich doing their patriotic duty" as some describe. Problem is, I must have missed the war that raised the debt to the $10 Trillion mark and am somewhat astonished that we're planning to double that in the next ten years with new programs. So obviously, to me at least, war is one thing and the decay of democracy by folks voting themselves programs we can't afford is something else entirely. So yes, absolutely it's more complicated. But when you say it's more complicated, then the onus is on you to explain where you draw the line -- where is the foundational principle that socialism violates and that progressive taxation does not (to use your example)
  - lukifer 18y ago
    I don't think we should be making decisions based on principle; we should make them based on data. But in a nutshell, I think the $10 trillion debt is not a problem of public will run amok; rather, it is a reflection of how little influence public will has over the lumbering behemoth that is our government, compared to banks, military contractors, privatized prisons, industry lobbies, large unions, et al. It's a failure of our particular democratic process, not our system of taxation. Ultimately, I don't think there is a clear distinction between progressive taxation and socialism, in the same sense that there is no clear distinction between a fetus and a human. It's a spectrum, and there is no "correct" solution, but rather a large panoply of potential solutions, some of which are less bad than others. In my personal opinion, the progressive tax system we have right now is actually a pretty good one (corporate loopholes notwithstanding), and the changes that have been proposed are pretty damn minor (yes, it could be a slippery slope, but so can absolutely anything). What matters more to me is that the money raised by taxation of whatever kind is spent on smart things (education, infrastructure, technology R&D), and not dumb things (resource wars, policing of victimless hobbies, "too big to fail" bailouts).