[corrral]

> The number of people that actively donate to the government is quite small while the number that advocate for higher tax rate on others is quite High.

So? It's reasonable to advocate higher taxes for all while not harming oneself for much more limited public benefit in the meantime. This often gets trotted out as a "gotcha", but it's not.

[s1artibartfast]

First, I don't understand the logic of more taxes are good, but refusing to donate until others do it too. It seems that the harm is the same either way, and the benefit/$ is the same either way too.

(e.g. I can save a life with a dollar donation today, but wont do it until you agree to do it too so we can save 2 lives with 2 dollars)

In my mind, either you don't actually want to pay, or you don't actually think your donation will bring about public benefit you claim.

Second, I almost never see advocacy for higher taxes for all (including themselves). IMHO it is nearly always a call for higher taxes for some sub-group (usually others), and usually applied in a progressive manner.

[corrral]

> First, I don't understand the logic of more taxes are good, but refusing to donate until others do it too. It seems that the harm is the same either way, and the benefit/$ is the same either way too.

If taxes go up, I receive X harm (lost dollars) and X + [huge number] of dollars go to the government.

If I give X dollars to the government, I receive exactly the same harm, but the benefit to the government is just X.

Identical harm to me either way, but one situation provides far more funding.

Further, voluntary contributions in a competitive society disadvantage the donor vs. everyone who chooses not to donate. Taxes (assuming fair application) remove this factor.

> Second, I almost never see advocacy for higher taxes for all (including themselves). IMHO it is nearly always a call for higher taxes for some sub-group (usually others), and usually applied in a progressive manner.

Progressive taxes are applied to all equally (accounting tricks and such aside—the intention is equal application).

My first dollar of reported income is taxed the same rate as anyone else's from the same sort of source.

So's my millionth dollar—I just don't happen to have that many dollars of annual income, so there's nothing to tax at that rate. Same as how a person with no income at all doesn't pay tax on that first dollar, since they don't have it to begin with.

Also, there are quite a few rich folks around who've consistently advocated for higher taxes on the rich. Buffett's well-known for that stance, but is far from the only one.

[s1artibartfast]

Re 1)...

Im genuinely interested in understanding your first position because I still don't get it.

I would understand advocating for a universal tax increase + huge benefit while donating in the mean time, just not why it isn't worth it to you today.

If you think (X harm)(number of taxpayers) to save (Y lives)(number of taxpayers) is worth it, shouldn't that hold just as true for your personal case of X(1) and Y(1)?

I get that advocating that it would be better if everyone were to do it, just not that it is not worth it individually as well.

The harm you suffer is the same either way, and the benefit you provide to society is the same.

Is there more to it than the competitive disadvantage? Is the competitive disadvantage so great that is not worth giving any any amount to a Noble cause, even $1?

Re 2)....

>Progressive taxes are applied to all equally (accounting tricks and such aside—the intention is equal application).

This is a separate question which I doubt we will be able to see eye to eye on.

It reminds me of the famous Anatole France quote: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

A law can be applied universally, but still target specific individuals. A law taxing the top 1% can be applied universally but obviously only harms the 1% and not the 99%.

That is not to say that a tax on the 1% isn't a bad idea, but I do feel it is disingenuous for the 99% to say that we too are equally subject to the law, as if they are equally harmed.

A more honest description would be "we want to harm the 1%, because we think that the majority would stand to benefit"

[corrral]

Re 1):

There are a lot of reasons it can be reasonable to advocate higher taxes while not donating money to the government. Aside from what I already covered, it might be that a donation isn't reliable or predictable as ordinary tax income, so a donation in fact may not provide as much value per dollar as tax increases. You can't plan a budget around voluntary donations amounting to 0.1% of your total intake for the year, which weren't expected in the first place and may not show up next year. Consider the difference between winning $1200 on a scratcher ticket, versus $100/m increased income indefinitely. You may win $1200 again next year, but you might not, while a guaranteed $100/m is something you can count on and factor into your budget. Or the donor may perceive their peers to be free riding on the benefits their money provides (in the form of a more-stable society, et c.) if they simply donate the cash, so prefer taxation to donation. Or they may believe the reduction in power of the rich to influence society is part of the benefit of taxing the rich more, in the first place, in which case voluntarily reducing their own power is hardly a solution, and may even be counter-productive if that money could have funded advocacy for raising taxes on the rich, instead (or any of several similar reasons one, including a rich "one", may have to advocate for changes to the tax code that happen to increase one's own taxes, that aren't strictly related to increasing the government's budget).

At a level lower than the rich, it may be easier to follow: it can be consistent for me to believe that we should all pay more taxes to increase the budget for our school district, while not donating the difference myself, because I believe I need that money to cover deficiencies in their services until such time as a tax increase passes. Or, to take the harm angle again, consider the effect one person donating $500/m to schools has. $500/m is a lot of money for an individual (well, maybe not on HN, but for most folks it is). It hurts quite a bit to give that away. However, it does almost nothing for the district's budget, especially if they can't count on you continuing to donate it. Now, $500/household (I'm using simple figures to keep this clear, of course it never works like this exactly) in the whole district? By law, not just relying on people's whims? Now the schools can really do something with it (or waste it, but if you think they're just gonna waste it, you're also not gonna donate the money, so that's outside the scope of this).

As for 2: yeah, I was equivocating a bit :-) Still, in a world where marginal-utility sure appears to be a real thing as far as how people experience money, one person's one-millionth dollar really isn't the same thing as their first dollar, and it doesn't make much sense to treat dollars $1 and $1,000,000 the same just because some people don't have that millionth dollar in the first place.

Ultimately, one's view on progressive taxation will come down to what one believes fairness is, which is... harder to nail down than one might think, and reasonable people can disagree.

[s1artibartfast]

Thanks for bearing with me. I think some of the examples you gave good and rational reasons why some people might defer contributing to a valid cause on an individual level. There are a class of problems that do require scale, and some cases were the individual is preoccupied with mitigating their personal harm instead of addressing the root cause of the problem.

I think there are some cases where this is certainly the case.

The topic at large is a bit of a sore spot for me because I think many people use aspirations to collective action as excuse not to take personal action. There are also tons of problems where immediate action can be taken on on the individual or local level, and instances where individual or local action is far more effective than top down solutions!

There is a class of people that would essentially see a starving child, want to help, but do nothing while waiting for 350 million people to (maybe) come to consensus on some federal solution. It is some sort of learned helplessness where people are scared to take personal action. I think the free rider concern also plays a part, but don't particularly respect it. It is like saying I'm going to let the child in front of my house starve until my neighbor agrees to feed the child in front of their house too. Sometimes people should do the good thing because it is good and lead by example, and especially so when the valid situations you raised do not apply.