The question that comes to mind is whether you mind paying the taxes yourself, not what you think about foisting costs on others. It is very easy (and inexpensive) to say that every problem should be solved on someone else's dime; one might even care enough to vote with that in mind, but you are not taking any personal responsibility, or even using clever rhetoric to convince someone else to act.
That's a shift of the argument and discussion.
And the simple truth is that taxes are and always will be a form of mutual coercion, mutually agreed on.
So long as the taxes are levied based on the ability to pay and not on "what other definable societal subgroup are you a member of", then anyone who happens to win at the wheel of fortune (in the metaphorical, not game-show, sense) is equally included.
Taxes are the price of a civil society.
Whether you are, as Anne Richards used to say of a fellow politician, born on third base thinking you hit a triple, happened to be fortunate enough to have been living on top of a patch of sand that had half the world's oil squirreled away underneath it (if you want to see a phenomenal story of windfall wealth impacts, look up the story of a few clans of former date farmers and oyster divers who got lucky), or just happened be be born within the geographical boundaries of one of the G7 industrial nations (the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, though much of western Europe could also be included), scored at startup bingo, and/or were ruthless enough to take on all challengers to claim your piece of the pie (see the recent story of "anti-poaching" collusion among Silicon Valley firms), there are tremendous inefficiencies in how "the market" allocates its rewards.
Engineering systems almost always include negative feedback loops to prevent runaway destructive trends. Its a concept foreign to much of economics. Not in the least helped by the anti-empirical faith-based fundamentalism of Libertarian dogma that seems to be growing in popularity.
You appear to believe that my birth in a high-tax country is tantamount to acceptance of a social contract with an arbitrary tax level clause (subject to change without notice). For a valid contract, three elements are required: offer, acceptance, and competent persons.[1] I would contend that at my time of birth, I was not a competent person, and even then, I doubt that I would have accepted the contract which you are proposing.
>"Engineering systems almost always include negative feedback loops to prevent runaway destructive trends. Its a concept foreign to much of economics. Not in the least helped by the anti-empirical faith-based fundamentalism of Libertarian dogma that seems to be growing in popularity."
The problem is that democracy has almost no feedback at all, as people have very little incentive to accept that the policies they voted for have caused real harms; in addition, there are high switching costs when it comes to political views.[2]
Libertarians usually resort to two arguments, economic efficiency, and the morality of coercion; I am not sure which of these involves the "dogma" you describe, but I will assume you speak of the economic arguments. You state that there is no feedback in markets, when I believe the opposite is true, as markets react to new information, though they may not always do it very well; the efficient-market hypothesis explains this, and is entirely compatible with feedback control systems theory, (especially the strong form EMH).[3]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis
However, to invoke your own logic, assuming you've reached age of majority, you've consciously accepted that contract of which you speak.
The problem is that democracy...
Indeed. Those liberal concepts are rather problematic in many ways. I disagree that they have no feedback, and arguably democratic forms of governance have far better feedback systems than others. Their chief advantage isn't that they achieve the best results, but as Plato observed: they avoid the worst.
Libertarian dogma is grounded in von Mises Praxeology, and its axiomatic refutation of empiricism.
You state that there is no feedback in markets.
No, I do not.
The efficient-market hypothesis is bunk. See Quiggin, Zombie Economics. Full chapter on the topic.
I have not agreed to the contract. I never have, and I never will. The only way that my actions can be interpreted as acceptance of the offer is that I have not left the nation I currently reside within; and this is not how contracts work.
>"taxes are and always will be a form of mutual coercion, mutually agreed on."
I never agreed.
>"democratic forms of governance have far better feedback systems than others. Their chief advantage isn't that they achieve the best results, but as Plato observed: they avoid the worst."
I agree with you entirely, that democracy is the best type of government available at the moment, but that is faint praise.
>"The efficient-market hypothesis is bunk. See Quiggin, Zombie Economics. Full chapter on the topic."
I doubt we will ever agree on this, and I accept that there are a number of valid criticisms of EMH; but if the market is inefficient, some people should be able to find the inefficiencies and profit from them, of which there are few examples (except ephemeral ones).
You're invoking a "no true Scottsman" fallacy. That is, in fact, how this contract works.
I never agreed.
Do you pay your taxes? You're agreeing. Possibly under duress or objection, but you're agreeing. And no, I don't subscribe to the whole Libertarian spiel about voluntary vs. involuntary participation.
if the market is inefficient, some people should be able to find the inefficiencies and profit from them
That is, in fact, one of the larger inefficiencies of the market: that socially or long-term nonoptimal conditions can be arbitraged for personal gain. Regarding the longer view, there are numerous failures, including how markets break down under more general social failure, volatility, and, as J.M. Keynes noted, the capacity for markets to remain irrational longer than any given investor can remain solvent. Smart cookie that man.
No it is not; valid contracts require explicit offer, and acceptance (lack of opt-out is not acceptance), without duress (i.e. deportation or imprisonment).[1]
>"Do you pay your taxes? You're agreeing. Possibly under duress or objection, but you're agreeing."
I said that I never agreed, and while I do pay taxes, I never agreed to it.
>"I don't subscribe to the whole Libertarian spiel about voluntary vs. involuntary participation"
Next time you get robbed, just remember that is an involuntary charitable contribution for the welfare of the thief; this would give me little comfort, but it seems you don't mind.
>"socially or long-term nonoptimal conditions can be arbitraged for personal gain. "
Please provide examples of the people or organizations able to arbitrage consistently, over time, without the use of government coercion (i.e. no government granted monopoly or bailout). If you do happen to find this, you may want to keep it secret, so that you may have a monopoly on the arbitrage.
while I do pay taxes, I never agreed to it.
And if I were to enter into a business relationship with an entity because there was literally no other choice (an email service provider as counterparty, a local monopoly, a services provider selected by my employer), then what? Willing or otherwise, you've agreed to the terms, which don't include "whistle while you pay".
Note that the State has also not consciously elected to support your ungrateful ass from the age of 0 to 18, prior to your age of majority, nor since. It simply does. That's its end of the bargain.
without the use of government coercion
I don't accept this limitation as it inherently ignores the fact that money is power, including political power, as well as the fact that all legal property is in fact a product of government coercion (as opposed to property by right of possession, might, moral suasion, tradition, or other constructs, which have their own origins).
Oh, and "property rights" aren't all that old a thing: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=property+right...
Please provide examples of the people or organizations able to arbitrage consistently, over time
Any holder of more productive land or assets (the substance of David Ricardo's lament in his Law of Rent), extractive oil producers, patent trolls, any party who writes or influences legislation to their advantage (as noted and strongly criticised by Adam Smith), market manipulators, technology and software vendors with positive returns to scale and lock-in effects (AT&T, IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, Google, Facebook) ... It's a long list, really. I'm not claiming that the power is unlimited or extends for all time, but while it persists it can be exceptionally difficult to dislodge.
The point is that initial leverage tends to multiply.
It's not someone else's dime, full stop. The system misallocated the money in the first place by giving them a disproportionate amount. The mechanism for valuating people's contributions is self-serving and broken right now. A teacher contributes 1000000 times more to society than a hedge fund manager, despite what the hedge fund manager will tell you about the benefits of liquidity that his activities are supposedly bringing about.
Though I have never seen convincing evidence (either way) on this subject, I will accept it ad argumentum.
Using coercion to force someone else to pay for things I want is still a cheap and lazy way for me to achieve my ends. My point is that one should convince the hedge fund manager to donate money to important causes. Alternatively, you might contribute your own hard-earned money to achieve the ends you profess (or pretend) to value so highly.
Asking the parent to contribute their hard-earned money also seems sort of disingenuous. How do you know they are not doing so? Even if they did, if they are unable to contribute enough (for any number of reasons), it likely will not effect the issue in a large enough fashion.
A Democratic decision is not 'coercion'. If the public decides something is important enough to them to pass a law/change the tax code they are not coercing the rich to pay more. The wealthy could just leave (with all that would entail for both parties) and no longer make their money off/with said public... Or they could stay.
So if a state decides (through referendum or legislative measure(s)) to compel slavery or imprisonment of one race or another, through police or military action, that would not be "coercion"?
If we are reducing to absolute absurdity... This conversation is over. I have no interest in an HN fallacy battle. A 'democratic' decision to enforce slavery/commit genocide/etc is pretty clearly well outside of what was being discussed.
My example was based on the many governments which have treated certain races as sub-human; I agree it is not directly analogous, but I was trying to demonstrate that democracies are not always fonts of virtue.
You went and called me a "Randian" (without any demonstrated reason), I believe it was you who was enjoining a "battle" through unsubstantiated allegation.
Thirteen Colonies, 1705
Wood, Origins of American Slavery (1997), p. 92. "In 1705, almost exactly a century after the first colonists had set foot in Jamestown, the House of Burgesses codified and systematized Virginia's laws of slavery. These laws would be modified and added to over the next century and a half, but the essential legal framework within which the institution of slavery would subsequently operate had been put in place."
Germany, 1933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_...
South Africa, 1948
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,...
In other words I had a trick question. You first have to ask what democracy is before you can even approach it....
Equate? No. But there are of course similarities.
(Yes, I know: Some stole it, some got it via government influence, etc. But in the majority of cases, what I said is true. Bill Gates, for instance: what system gave him a disproportionate amount? Did he earn it by paying substandard wages to Microsoft employees? Well, no, he didn't.)
(Also note that nothing in this comment is a justification for the appallingly poor rate at which we pay teachers.)
Those people who would have to pay then could either take their wealth and attempt to leave with it (with all the consequences for both parties that might entail), or they can pay the share they are designated, and attempt to make more money with their wealth/connections/etc.
Greed is funny in that if you have a lot, you don't tend to see wanting more (or to pay out less) as greedy, while those who are denied the same amount, see those with a great deal (who do not want to contribute what the public believes is their fair share) as greedy.
This is how western democracies currently function, though it does not imply that the results are moral or even good.
>"Those people who would have to pay then could either take their wealth and attempt to leave with it (with all the consequences for both parties that might entail), or they can pay the share they are designated, and attempt to make more money with their wealth/connections/etc."
This statement basically says 'take it or leave it', which I suppose is fine, but does not mean that the state which implements high tax rates will achieve its desired results, and this does not speak to the morality of the average voter either.
You seem to ignore my point, which is that people who vote for higher tax rates and increased redistribution of wealth are not actually doing very much to solve any real problem. Voting to raise taxes on the rich demonstrates little personal responsibility, as the voter does not pay to solve the problem, and does not even try to convince others of their moral responsibilities.
This requires the assumption that the distribution of wealth that is being address is not a real problem.
> Voting to raise taxes on the rich demonstrates little personal responsibility, as the voter does not pay to solve the problem
Payment to solve the problem is a method to "demonstrate personal responsibility" because it is one method by which one exercises one's power to solve a problem one has perceived, but voting is equally so a method to "demonstrate personal responsibility".
> and does not even try to convince others of their moral responsibilities.
Well, sure, voting itself may not be an mechanism for trying to convince others of their moral responsibilities (then again, it may be, people have been known to cite drawing attention to an issue and raising awareness to be motivations for voting behavior on issues and candidates), but even where it is not it is often not an isolated behavior, people who based on a preference for a particular policy very often engage in advocacy around the policy, including advocacy based on the premise that it enforces a moral obligation.
My point was that voting is 'not actually doing very much', as it is easy to do, and unlikely to have any real impact.
>"but voting is equally so a method to "demonstrate personal responsibility"."
Voting is cheap, easy, and free from repercussions; I struggle to see how it involves any measure of responsibility.
>"people have been known to cite drawing attention to an issue and raising awareness to be motivations for voting behavior on issues and candidates), but even where it is not it is often not an isolated behavior, people who based on a preference for a particular policy very often engage in advocacy around the policy, including advocacy based on the premise that it enforces a moral obligation."
You may be correct, and I may be too cynical, but I see 'raising awareness' as the last refuge of the ineffective activist.
does not mean that the state which implements high tax rates will achieve its desired results, and this does not speak to the morality of the average voter either.
Agreed! Every situation is different and that is by no means a silver bullet.
If people voted for increased redistribution to redistribute wealth than they are doing something to solve the 'real problem' as they see it. You are correct that it may not be the actual problem... But I do not think that you can effectively bring 'morals' into the equation of tax codes or being rich/poor.
Personal responsibility means very very different things to any given person. I do not think you can find many extremely wealthy people who think they have a moral responsibility to help out their lesser man (feed the poor), while you can find many 'poor' people who think it should be their moral responsibility ('if you have so much more than you can ever use why can't you help those less fortunate' sort of thing).
Your vote is unlikely to have any real impact, (the same is true of mine,) so while the people may be 'doing something', this 'something' may be the least effective action one could possibly take. I vote in every election, but even I must acknowledge that I would be doing much more for my fellow citizens if I spent the same amount of time picking up garbage from the streets.
The people, through their votes, lend their power to a government that aggregates that collective power to accomplish larger societal objectives (financing wars, building bridges, educating generations, enforcing civil society, etc), that would not be possible if the maintenance of society was left to everyone's individual will.
Just as valid: peoples votes in elections after 9/11 gave the government power to compromise civil liberties in the name of security.
Does your city have a street sweeping service (which are usually publicly funded by taxes approved by ... votes)? Without one, in an urban/suburban environment, your street would be full of garbage in no time, probably too much for you or other like-minded people to clean up.
Votes aren't a solution for every large problem, but it's far fetched to say that don't have any impact. Much of what we take for granted in modern public conveniences happened because people voted for representatives that in turn supported those endeavors.
I agree with you entirely on how the system functions, though not all people want to grant all the powers which the government has collected over the years, and it should not be assumed that a vote is a tacit agreement to the current system.
>"Does your city have a street sweeping service (which are usually publicly funded by taxes approved by ... votes)? Without one, in an urban/suburban environment, your street would be full of garbage in no time, probably too much for you or other like-minded people to clean up."
You assume the street must be state owned and maintained; plenty of private communities do a good job keeping things neat and tidy (though I do not live in one).
>"Votes aren't a solution for every large problem, but it's far fetched to say that don't have any impact. Much of what we take for granted in modern public conveniences happened because people voted for representatives that in turn supported those endeavors."
I never said that elections are bad, but saying that you "voted for 'x'" means that you did very little to actually make it happen, because individual votes are insignificant.
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/top-one-percent-pays-twice-inc...
edit: dragonwriter correctly pointed out that the numbers mentioned above are actually 'income tax', not 'total tax'. I apologize for my vagueness.
edit: the average total effective tax rate for one percenters is 27.9%, compared to the lower 99%, who pay an average of 27.5% TETR http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2012.pdf
Do they actually end up paying that tax rate? Or is that before deductions and only the rate on their personal earned income. There are a lot more ways to game the tax system when you have a great deal of wealth.
What percentage of the wealth do they have relative to everyone else?
The quoted number was only their income tax rate.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/04/18/the-real-tax-rates-of...
Even assuming that there are no errors or misrepresentations in the material from the anti-taxes-on-the-rich propaganda outfit you cite, even they don't claim that. While they certainly count on people to conflate "effective income tax rate" with "effective tax rate" (or even "effective rate of taxation on income"), they carefully restrict their claim to "effective income tax rate".
Income tax isn't all of tax, or even (despite the name) the only (or, even, for most wage earners, the most significant) tax on income.
1. Mean vs. median. Here be dragons.
2. That roughly corresponds with my experience: it's easy for a USA'er to compute their federal effective income tax rate: the IRS's idea of your income is at the bottom of the first page and the "total tax paid" is about two-thirds of the way down the second. Mine was around 15% for many years; it has gone up lately, but I don't remember specific numbers any more.