Hacker News Reader

> 1. A carbon tax is regressive and might result in the middle class still being just about able to afford cars, but the lower class completely unable to, which would be unfair.

I hear similar things to this a lot. Doesn't every good have some level of money required to be able to afford it? Are you saying that it's unfair that some people have more money than others?

View on HN

> Doesn't every good have some level of money required to be able to afford it?

Yes, of course. The point here is that a carbon tax further skews the situation in favour of the rich. We, as a society, accept the current situation as a compromise between fairness and "market efficiency", and hence are worried by shifts away from it.

To a large extent this is a "status quo bias", but it is natural — if people could afford something until now, but are suddenly being told that they won't be able to, they'll be, rightly or wrongly, unhappy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com