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by pessimizer 1621 days ago
Consumption taxes are regressive and bad, but at least they're justifiable. Without government protection, the poor/weak have no rights that the rich/strong have to respect; they end up enslaved, serfs. So they pay a poverty/weakness tax.

Imagine the effort that a government has to put in to offset racist discrimination, as an example. While we might say that racism is a problem caused by the racist, we can't say that racism is a problem for the racist. It's a problem for the race being discriminated against. Levying a tax to pay for that expense makes sense in a purely payment-for-services model of government. Lots of Europe used to charge Jewish taxes, and the Islamic world both Jewish and Christian taxes.
2 comments
ClumsyPilot 1621 days ago
"Without government protection, the poor/weak have no rights"

Without government protection the poor start cutting off heads, see the French revolution. Every time there is civil unrest, from peasant uprising in medieval Russia, to Occupy Wallstreet to Anonymous DDOSing websites, the government is out in force to out it down.

Having a few limits on power, like "you cant discriminate by race, but discriminating by class is cool" does not mean thay the state is suddenly protecting the poor.

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nivenkos 1621 days ago
I see it more as a reasonable way of shaping behaviour. Like taxing diesel, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. is fair enough if it helps create a better society.

Taxing electricity whilst trying to encourage people to switch their homes from gas and their cars from diesel, is just crazy.

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pessimizer 1621 days ago
You then run into the question of whose vision of a better society you're enforcing. But aside from that you can really look at those taxes as something to offset the additional costs of commerce in those things. We've agreed that emissions are a danger, cigarettes raise health care expenditure, and alcohol raises police expenditure. We use those to justify the specific amounts of the taxes.

If this weren't the justification, there's no reason not to just ban the things you don't approve of altogether, rather than just taxing them.

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