The debate over whether people want higher taxes on themselves is, I think, slipping back and forth between two debates: a normative and a positive one. I started out with a positive claim:
What most of us are really in favor of is higher taxes on other people. If we wanted higher taxes on ourselves, we'd give the money to charity.
This is simply observationally true. People do not voluntarily give money to the government; polls show that most people support raising taxes on only a small fraction of the electorate. (Yes, yes, they're rich. Okay, and? The observation still holds: most people want other peoples' taxes raised, not their own. Whether this desire is justified is irrelevant.)
Henry Farrell, and others, stepped in to complain that I, like, totally didn't understand that people behave different collectively than individually. This does not, in fact, negate my point; it supports it. Most people are not concerned with remedying the injustice of their own high income; they want large public goods that can only be secured by taking a lot of money from other people. They are willing to kick in their own money if they have to in order to secure the coalition, or because they think this is fair. But they are primarily concerned not with their own contribution, but with that of others. This will not be a surprising observation for anyone who has ever lived in a group house.
This does, however, raise an interesting normative point, into which I have now been sidetracked without quite noticing: should you, if you think that your taxes are too low, voluntarily give that money to the government? The answer, I think, is yes, for reasons that I've laid out in previous posts. But that is separate from the positive observation I stand by: people are more interested in levying taxes on others than they are in paying taxes themselves.
Give EXTRA money to the government.
Excuse me.
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ahem.
Back to regularly scheduled "debates".
I guess this stands if you are talking about raising taxes out of some moral obligation--i.e. if one believes it is a good in and of itself that the rich become less so, regardless of what the money is spent on (coughezracough). But that's been the conservative/libertarian strawman since time immemorial. The vast majority of people who support higher taxaction levels do so because of what could be done with the money, even if it's something as simple as closing the budget gap.
Given that:
1. no marginally useful government program could be funded by the typical liberal voluntarily doubling their check and
2. there are about nine orders of magnitude between the axes of the government's and any individual's marginal utility curves for money,
there is no gain whatsoever to anyone outside of the Forbes top 400 increasing their tax bill. If one supports universal health care and is willing to raise taxes for it, your point is completely irrelevant. I guess if there's some plurality of statist liberals that wants to give more to the government out of some sort of civic-individual bonding you'd be right, but even then the point gets fuzzy if they have any policy goals whatsoever
The problem is that the evidence that supports your argument also supports the equally valid (and, to many of us, more intuitive) argument that people are only willing to make a contribution if they know that others will make a contribution as well. They are primarily concerned not with taking other people's money, but with the provision of a public good that neither they nor anyone else could generate on their own. These arguments are not, by the way, necessarily mutually exclusive. But they might well be, and yours might well be wrong.
...and we are back to you not understanding what a collective action problem is.
That people do not voluntarily give money to the government is not evidence that they would not prefer higher levels of public goods provision, and thus higher taxes.
May the circle be unbroken.
In what way does what you said, Bob, disagree with what I said?
I think your observation is true but trivial. The position in question is "I am willing to pay higher taxes provided everyone else does too." You point out that people holding this position generally don't unilaterally send checks to the government. You don't explicitly state that the position in question is thus somehow invalidated or made incoherent, but you certainly seem to be implying that it is, which I think is what is getting under everyone's skin.
But they're rich, they should pay their fair share! Notice, I'm not rich (under any possible definition), it is "they" who are rich and should thus pay more taxes.
Sincerely,
Median Voter
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems obvious that _nobody_ is interested in paying taxes for the sake of paying taxes, right? All of the normative arguments on taxes seem to come from the right - property is sacred, etc. The arguments _for_ taxes are all instrumental - I want more public services, and am willing to accept higher tax rates in order to have them.
Donating money to the government won't result in increased public services _to me_, and is therefore irrational. Right?
if i understand your post, you still seem to think that the fact that people do not voluntarily give money to the government is evidence of something about how much people would like to pay in taxes. which it is not.
Suppose that one day, whilst stroking an antique lamp at a flea market, I happen to observe that I were willing to pay another $100 in taxes if all kids were covered by Medicare. A genie who resembles Shaquille O'Neal appears and says that I can have my wish, but I must choose one of two options: (A) my taxes go up $100 and everyone's taxes go up in the same fashion; or (B) only my taxes go up by $100 and the genie pays the balance of the program cost to the federal government, leaving my fellow citizens free and clear. I think that's the hypothetical you're posing, and I suppose I agree that it would be churlish to pick (A). But, per stoneyforest, I'm not sure what it proves about anything.
Let me reframe this using another issue:
Hypothetically:
I am an American soldier. I think the U.S. should send American soldiers to intervene in Darfur. In fact, I write a letter to the editor saying "The U.S. should send me to Darfur."
Megan then points out that I could have gone to Darfur by myself, passed out bags of rice, and fought against the janjaweed. Since I haven't, clearly I not really interested in going to Darfur, but in having other people go to Darfur.
As Megan frames the issue, technically she's right, but in a very real sense she's missing the point. It's impossible to read this "observation" and not hear "and therefore people who say their own taxes should be raised are hypocrites" tacked on to the end. That addition, of course, isn't explicitly stated (and may not be intended, though I doubt it.)
Yes, but you're all missing MM's point.
If I think taxes on people like me should be $5000 higher, that's a collective action problem.
Fine. No argument!
But if I also believed the the government would spend my $5000 better than I can, I can avoid the collective action problem by just giving them the money to spend.
If you don't believe that (which, clearly, people don't), and yet you do want higher taxes, the conclusion is that what you actually value is the government spending the money of people like you, not your own.
I think the problem is that some people believe the government can spend money wisely or that the government is not collecting enough revenue for important programs and that any additional taxes would be used to fund important programs and not the waste that a lot of current taxes are spent on.
Those people are suffering from wishful thinking or some kind of delusion.
The rest of us don't want our taxes increased because we see how wasteful government spending is currently and don't want to enable more pork projects and other forms of wasteful spending.
I can waste my own money, thank you very much.
"What most of us are really in favor of is higher taxes on other people. If we wanted higher taxes on ourselves, we'd give the money to charity."
In some sort of a crazy assed world, I guess it would be nice if I got to live in a great house and got great schools, but got other people to pay for it for me. If being a libertarian means getting stuff for nothing, then sign me up, baby!
I want to live in a town with good schools, so I'm willing to pay more taxes for it. I care more about education than cars or shoes, so I like to give my money to the town to purchase books for my kids and pay qualified teachers. I care so much about schools, that I'm willing to pay more money in taxes to improve the quality of schools even more. Even if my taxes were to double, it would still be cheaper than private schools for two kids.
I regretted writing that post about wanting to pay more taxes. Not because I want to pay less taxes. I regretted writing it because not everybody can afford to pay more in taxes, and I hate waving our privileged position around.
Actually, Earnest Iconoclast, what you are talking about is a principal-agent problem. It is, of course, true that solving a collective action problem often creates a principal-agent problem. Whether the former is worth the latter is a question that I think liberals and libertarians can pretty easily agree to disagree on.
Mike Earl -
The problem with that line of reasoning is that the answer to "Can the government spend my $5000 better than I can?" is dependent on what the $5000 is being spent on. If it's being spent on my personal consumption, clearly the answer is no. If I'm willing to spend $5000 on constructing a massive interstate highway system or overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the answer is probably "yes", which leads us right back to the collective action problem.
My point is, for certain goods and under certain circumstances, clearly, people do believe that the government can spend their money better than they can, which in large part negates the distinction you're trying to make between collective action problems and whatever else it is you're talking about.
"Most people are not concerned with remedying the injustice of their own high income; they want large public goods that can only be secured by taking a lot of money from other people."
No one said anything about "remedying the injustice of their own high income," it's about remedying the lack of money in the government's account.
I'm not sure that I accept the premise that there's too many people who, when they say "My taxes are too low," don't actually mean "Taxes on people like me are too low." I suppose that if you, personally, feel a moral obligation to pay more in taxes, then, yeah, knock yourself out I guess.
But I'd suspect that 99.9% of people who say that they should pay more taxes really mean one of two things. The distribution-oriented one is, "It's unfair that people like me make so much money and don't have to give more of it back to the community." If that's the case, then yes, as a normative matter you should either contribute more taxes voluntarily or give your money to charity. The public goods-oriented one is, "It's too bad that the government doesn't have enough money to provide public goods X, Y and Z that I'd really like for them to provide. I'd be willing to pay more in taxes if it meant that they could." As a normative matter, I don't see why such a person should voluntarily pay more in taxes, because I doubt that even Warren Buffet could finance a large government mandate entirely out of his own pocket.
there are about nine orders of magnitude between the axes of the government's and any individual's marginal utility curves for money
If liberals believe that additional taxes are 99.9999999% deadweight loss, why are they still liberals?
It's also interesting that while it's primarily Democrats who indicate a willingness to pay higher taxes, weren't red staters shown to be much more liberal in their charitable giving.
rapid,
I'm not sure what claim the government has to money in it's account. What people want are service the government pays for and provides. And if the two are out of sync, there are plenty of solutions: raise tax revenue (through base broadening, higher rates, incentives, etc), reduce spending (cut programs, increase efficiency, fire people) or finance it. They all have externalities, they all have pro's and con's, but they all exist.
Personally, if all the government did was provide roads, lights, schools, defense and some social safety net, I'd be more than happy to chip in a few percentage points of my income. And in fact, I'm not against LOCAL taxes, as they are mush more responsive to conditions on the ground and pay for services like that.
What we have now is a behemoth of a government doing those core things and nine billion other things I don't much care for. In addition to (an at some level because of) that they are doing these things inefficiently, slowly, and expensively. I'd prefer they get that fixed before telling me they have a revenue problem.
"What most of us are really in favor of is higher taxes on other people. If we wanted higher taxes on ourselves, we'd give the money to charity."
A perfect example of this is the behavior of Warren Buffett. Buffett publicly complains that the wealthy don't pay enough (though in his most recent letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders, he expressed pride in the amount of taxes his company paid), but he avoids paying billions of dollars in capital gains taxes by donating shares of Berkshire to the Gates Foundation. Buffett is obviously a generous man, having committed to give most of his wealth to charity. But if he really thought the wealthy should pay more in taxes, why wouldn't he lead by example? A simple way to do so would be to sell his shares of Berkshire first, let the government collect its capital gains taxes, and then donate the net cash to the Gates Foundation. The foundation could then reinvest the cash in BRK if it so desired.
"And in fact, I'm not against LOCAL taxes, as they are mush more responsive to conditions on the ground and pay for services like that."
Depends where you live. Around here a large chunk goes to pay for six-figure pensions for cops and school principals.
But does the fact that you don't much care for them mean they shouldn't get done?
If we tried to organize society in such a way that people only were asked to contribute to programs they believed in, what kind of society would that be? Maybe I work from home, grow my own food and live alone; what possible need for roads, lights, schools, and all the other things you list as core responsibilities of government would I have? By your reasoning, I should not be asked to pay for them. But then how can I claim to have any kind of relationship with you? What kind of society is that?
It's not one. And for good or ill, the days when you could just move West to get away from society's demands are gone. There's no frontier anymore. The only choice you have before you, realistically, is which society do you want to belong to. If the society you live in pursues programs you disagree with, argue against them. Go to jail if that's what it takes, if it's so high a principle that you simply refuse to compromise it. Or try to find some other society to live in; but there's no "opting out" yet claiming to remain part of society. I didn't quit paying taxes when Bush was elected and the Republicans controlled Congress, and they instituted program after program with which I fundamentally disagreed. Are you arguing that I should have?
I am an American soldier. I think the U.S. should send American soldiers to intervene in Darfur. In fact, I write a letter to the editor saying "The U.S. should send me to Darfur."
Megan then points out that I could have gone to Darfur by myself, passed out bags of rice, and fought against the janjaweed. Since I haven't, clearly I not really interested in going to Darfur, but in having other people go to Darfur.
This is a bogus analogy. It would apply if everything the government did was an all-or-nothing, binary choice, which indeed going to war is. You can't go a little bit to war anymore than you can be a little bit pregnant.
However, most of what government does doesn't fall into this category. When the FDA regulates beef production, for example, they hire X inspectors to conduct spot checks. If you sent them extra money, they could hire X + 1, or at least buy one of their inspectors a new laptop so he could be more efficient and conduct a few more inspections per year. A Federal judge somewhere could have a few more hours of clerk overtime, and get a case or two more out of the way this year. And so on.
I believe McArdle already addressed this point anyway when she agreed the problem of collective action would arise if you were talking about setting up a tax system in the first place, but not when you've already got one in place and if you voluntarily increase the Federal budget by 0.0000125% they'll get 0.0000125% more of what you think is valuable done.
Most counter-arguments seem to rest on the quite unproven assumption that most proposals for tax increases arise from proposals from large entirely-new Federal programs, such as universal health-care, where, indeed, collective action problems arise. But I don't think so. When the Democrats say they want to let the Bush tax cuts expire, it's not to fund any specific new Federal program, but just to pump more money into the general fund for use throughout government.
They are, furthermore, pretty open about the logic they hope people follow to support them: raise the taxes on them ("the rich") so that you can have more bread 'n' circuses. Why not assume they know their constituents well?
Megan is playing the freshman in grad school classes right now. Harry made an accurate and interesting point, and Megan *disagreed* with it, by making a couple of bad arguments, and a few correct-but-irrelevant ones.
Harry then responded by explaining that her bad arguments were wrong and her correct-but-irrelevant arguments are irrelevant.
Megan is now saying, "but that doesn't make them wrong! After all, its a pretty uninteresting point!"
Yes, yes it is, Megan. I fear for the children.
When the FDA regulates beef production, for example, they hire X inspectors to conduct spot checks. If you sent them extra money, they could hire X + 1, or at least buy one of their inspectors a new laptop so he could be more efficient and conduct a few more inspections per year.
That sounds like a good idea. Which line on my 1040 is for donations to buy FDA beef inspectors new laptops, again?
"They are willing to kick in their own money if they have to in order to secure the coalition, or because they think this is fair."
Say I would like to pay more taxes for a particular government program. You seem to think the fairness rationale is valid----very well, then, how is it fair to *me* to have to pay for it unilaterally? I might as well say that I would tax other people just to feel that I'm being treated fairly when I give my voluntary contribution. And, of course, I will not voluntarily contribute to something unfair.
The point is not that people think one thing or the other; the point is that this entire exercise is sophistry.
Generally I think you're right on the merits, and I choose to believe that Henry is being willfully obtuse. However, if one's argument in favor of higher taxes were not the inadequate level of services provided but the excessive amount of government debt, unilaterally paying extra would do nothing to solve the problem. Even if all of the extra money went to offsetting the debt, you will still be liable for a full share of the remaining debt when the bill comes due. I wouldn't bother mentioning this, but it seems to be a frequent argument among supporters of excessive taxation, so it probably shouldn't be ignored.
In the end, I think your opponents arguments only have merit when it comes to funding for non-existing programs or for discharging government debt. In every other case, it is absolutely true that small payments by individual taxpayers would be just as effective separately as they are bundled.
It's not even about fairness. The fact of the matter is that, without doing excruciating levels of damage to one's own financial well being (except for the wealthiest few people on earth), their individual contribution will not make any significant dent in the change in social structure. It's like the person who sends his kid to walk to school on an empty street first - he's more likely to have his kid killed (and nobody will then want to have their kid walk) than create a better society full of walking kids.
At some point, you need to move to another equilibrium point - the problem, as Henry pointed out in HIS VERY FIRST POST, is the prisoner's dilemna. Each person who donates his $5000 is out $5000, without having moved the equilibrium a bit, because nobody else has donated their $5000. But if you move the equilibrium point, then everybody gladly will donate $5000.
It's true that some substantial portion of the country (but hardly all) would neglect to pay their $5000 if they knew they could get away with it even at the new equilibrium. But that's entirely reasonable under game theory as well (hence why PD's have only one equilibrium), and it simply means that while the sum of everyone's $5000 contribution is worth more than $5000 (in both actual benefit and emotional benefit) to perhaps each and every individual, its still highly unlikely that the last $5000 contributed to the pot increases their personal enjoyment $5000.
But it doesn't mean that the person who wants taxes raised wants only other people's taxes raised. Sure, they'll take it if it was sustainable - but that's an uninteresting point. What they want is to change the equilibrium to something higher, which a proposal to raise everyone else's taxes (but not their own) will not do.
No, what I'm saying is that government has no claim to money, for money's sake. Government has a claim to my money to pay for the services it provides, regardless of my preferences. I'm not disputing that, nor wishing to move to the frontier.
Some people argue it is immoral for me to not want to pay more in taxes, as if tax revenues themselves were an moral end. They aren't. Taxes are a necessary evil that civil society requires.
If I feel the government is doing net negative things with the extra dollars I throw in (distorting the economy, fighting poppy growers in Asia, graduating kids who can't read, and lining the pockets of corn growers), then I don't want to contribute any more to that system then I currently have to. And I resent someone arbitrarily telling me that makes me immoral, uncaring or what have you.
Justin,
The question is, if you think the "equilibrium point" is too low, and that you ought to pay more in taxes than you actually do, why not voluntarily donate that additional amount to the government anyway?
If you have an answer, it seems to be the claim that the difference between what you actually pay and what you think you ought to pay is too small to make any significant difference to what the government does. By this logic, of course, donating to charities and voting are also unjustified, because they're not going to make a significant difference, either. (It is of course possible that your vote could decide an important election, but the probability is minuscule).
But that is separate from the positive observation I stand by: people are more interested in levying taxes on others than they are in paying taxes themselves.
You know, even if it were true that advocacy of higher taxes for all obliges someone to "give extra money to the government"-- here's the test for you: what does one accomplish in giving extra money to the government, compared to what is accomplished by levying higher taxes on everyone; the answers are "effectively nothing" and "a great deal"-- even if that were true, I wouldn't trust you with this argument.
Because I am quite certain that this is just another of your sadly frequent dressed-up ad hominems. It's like your voucher screeds. They were dominated by your incessant appeals to these phantom voucher opponents who nonetheless send their children to private school. Whether the ranks of people who oppose vouchers are filled with those kind of hypocrites are not (hint: they aren't) it utterly irrelevant to the question at hand. And the same thing is true here. Even if advocacy of paying higher taxes (which generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the government) and giving money away to the government (which generates next to nothing) where the same, and even if those who advocate paying higher taxes were hypocrites, that fact would be utterly irrelevant to the question of whether it is indeed in the best interest of our society to levy higher taxes. It's just ad hominem. It has no rhetorical value whatsoever.
I wish you would argue the way you're capable of arguing, rather than constantly pandering to your
ideology.
You put the issue in terms of paying taxes or buying an iPod. Supposing there are plenty of social goods you could contribute to unilaterally (say, paying for a field trip for a local youth group) or collectively (subsidized federal health care). Subsidized federal health care is a bigger "good," but it won't get off the ground if you're the only one paying for it. Unless your taxes are raised collectively, the bigger "good" is going to be paying for the field trip. Government can only spend your money more wisely than you can when it gets a lot of it from a lot of sources. Hence, the collective action problem.
And again, this is sophistry, because you're trying to atomize the issue of paying taxes---a collective duty---into an issue about individuals. When it comes to tax-paying duty, you can't separate the individual duty from the duty of the whole.
Freddie,
You know, even if it were true that advocacy of higher taxes for all obliges someone to "give extra money to the government"-- here's the test for you: what does one accomplish in giving extra money to the government, compared to what is accomplished by levying higher taxes on everyone; the answers are "effectively nothing" and "a great deal"-- even if that were true, I wouldn't trust you with this argument.
So what? Your one vote also accomplishes "effectively nothing" compared to the votes of the majority. Your individual donation to a charity accomplishes "effectively nothing" compared to the donations of all donors. Do you therefore think the choices to vote and to donate to charity are unjustified?
You can't control how much everyone else contributes to the government, but you can control how much you contribute yourself. If you think you're contributing too little, why not contribute more?
If you think you're contributing too little, why not contribute more?
Every time this argument gets repeated, a public finance professor cries.
that fact would be utterly irrelevant to the question of whether it is indeed in the best interest of our society to levy higher taxes.
I kind of hate to agree with Freddie because it will ruin my street cred, but he's right. Whether I'm a hypocrite has nothing to do with whether I'm right. Drunks who warn people against addiction, or ex-cons who tell kids to stay in school, are right on the merits even if wrong in their own choices.
I'll also have to chip in for those who argue that sending a check to the government is a pointless waste, but raising taxes isn't, instrumentally speaking (But I agree with Will Allen that if it's truly a moral matter, then you should do it anyway). Most people want better highways, but their entire income is barely enough to fill a couple of potholes, so it's stupid to ask them to deprive themselves of gas money to make some big point.
At best what the failure of "tax me more" funds proves is that most people don't really see higher taxes as a moral matter, although they talk that way.
And I would point out that sending your children to private school does reveal that you think the public schools are so very inferior, you're willing to pay for the same service twice to avoid them. So at the very least you're lying if you claim public education is just fine and dandy and must be preserved as is.
bob,
Every time this argument gets repeated, a public finance professor cries.
It's a question. Do you have an answer?
I'll also have to chip in for those who argue that sending a check to the government is a pointless waste, but raising taxes isn't, instrumentally speaking (But I agree with Will Allen that if it's truly a moral matter, then you should do it anyway). Most people want better highways, but their entire income is barely enough to fill a couple of potholes, so it's stupid to ask them to deprive themselves of gas money to make some big point.
Again, this argument makes no sense unless your position is that all other voluntary acts that individually have a very small effect on outcomes are not worth doing. Voting is an obvious example. Donating a modest sum of money to Oxfam or your church or Planned Parenthood or the National Rifle Association or whatever other charities or non-profits you support is another. Are you in fact saying that you think these acts are essentially a waste of time?
>people are more interested in levying taxes on
>others than they are in paying taxes themselves.
That's probably true. You should do a study.
I'm sure there are also a lot of people like me, who would be willing to pay more *along with everyone else* (allocation is another subject) because we believe (not irrationally) that that collective action would make us all better off.
I contributed about $600,000 to charities in 2007. This is the approximate amount of my total tax bill that went to fund entitlement programs and the interest thereon. Put another way, this is money that went from my pocket to the pocket of others because a law or regulation was promulgated in the belief that others were more entitled to the funds than was I. I am not complaining (okay, I'm complaining a little). I'm simply agreeing with your conclusion that those who believe they do not pay enough in taxes should contribute more and they will have my everlasting thanks.
What most of us are really in favor of is higher taxes on other people. If we wanted higher taxes on ourselves, we'd give the money to charity.
Seldom have so many bad inferences been packed into so few words. First, wanting higher taxes = wanting to pay more + wanting others to pay more. a = b + c. That's what taxes are, that's what people know them as, and that's what people say they want. You can just ask them--no need for "revealed preferences" hokum. You're argument says that since people don't want b by itself (without c), they must not want a. Fallacy of composition. It's like saying, "If you really want a ham sandwich, you'll want to eat a bowl of mayonnaise by itself; conversely, if you won't eat a bowl of mayonnaise, you must not really want a ham sandwich."
Secondly, you seem to be saying that charity is an indicator of a willingness to pay more taxes, but only in the negative, apparently. You might just as well say that those who donate to charity are revealing a preference for higher taxes (no less silly a proposition than yours).
Thirdly, the idea that the "Tax Me More" fund is a good empirical indicator of willingness to pay more is itself unsupported and rather dubious. It assumes that people will see the "fund" as a good-faith effort to increase tax revenue, when arguably it is not that at all. Surely many people see it for the cheap political stunt it is and pass over it. A real empirical study of people's willingness to pay more under various circumstances would be interesting; this is not that, however.
And none of this is really even touching on the collective action problems mentioned by many, which you continue to botch badly. The original post was an absurd argument, but at least had the virtue of being short and somewhat witty. Your attempt to defend it at such length now is just embarrassing. Now enjoy your bowl of mayonnaise (or whatever it is you vegans put on a ham sandwich).
Again, this argument makes no sense unless your position is that all other voluntary acts that individually have a very small effect on outcomes are not worth doing.
That's not my position. My position is that the failure to perform a given act--regardless of the size of the benefits--does not prove anything meaningful about the act itself. It may be a good idea, it may not, but the fact that you personally don't take it doesn't make any difference in that analysis at all.
Furthermore, I would hardly expect anyone to donate to a charity which either 1) had no reasonable prospect of achieving its stated goal, or 2) could not offer a reasonable assurance that the money would be used in the manner intended by the donor. Failure to donate under those circumstances doesn't even say anything meaningful about your own internal beliefs, never mind the wisdom or morality of giving.
If you have reason to believe that my feed-African-children charity will never be able to afford to ship even a single bag of grain to Africa, because nobody has ever heard of me or donated any money, then yes, it's a waste of time to send me $5--because of, as it turns out, the collective action problem. The charities you mention don't have a collective action problem because they're big enough. The government doesn't as to things it currently does, so maybe if your goal is laptops for the FDA, it makes sense to donate. But if what you want is single-payer healthcare, it doesn't.
Furthermore, if you're trying to donate to feed children, but I refuse to give you any assurance that I'll spend it on that, and might instead spend it on the International Cowgirl Hall of Fame, then failing to donate doesn't prove that you don't want to feed children, or that you don't "really" believe in charitable giving.
this argument makes no sense unless your position is that all other voluntary acts that individually have a very small effect on outcomes are not worth doing.
This is a confusion of scale. Taxes, at the federal level especially, don't buy anything until they are aggregated. Many charities, on the other hand, work with much smaller projects and therefore smaller aggregations, or even with individuals directly. An isolated $100 will buy dinner for several homeless people at a charity operation, but it won't even buy the processing time of the clerks who will see it into the public treasury if given as a voluntary tax.
It doesn't make sense to regard the government as a charity, doing good works. It's more like a service provider, from whom we purchase things we want. It makes sense to be willing to pay for more services, but be unwilling to pay extra for the same services. Nobody sends Microsoft a check hoping that the next version of Windows will have nifty new features.
Again, to the extent that some people argue for tax increases as a moral matter, they should be donating. But if you simply think that we need to raise taxes to improve roads, it's not reasonable to expect anyone to pay extra if they don't get better roads in return.
Rob Lyman,
My position is that the failure to perform a given act--regardless of the size of the benefits--does not prove anything meaningful about the act itself. It may be a good idea, it may not, but the fact that you personally don't take it doesn't make any difference in that analysis at all.
This is all irrelevant to the point at issue. If someone believes his taxes are too low, why shouldn't he voluntarily pay more to the government, in lieu of those higher taxes? You previously said he shouldn't pay more because his additional contribution would have little effect ("their entire income is barely enough to fill a couple of potholes"). But this is also true of any number of other voluntary acts that individually have little effect, such as voting and donating to charity. So if this is not a valid reason for failing to vote or failing to donate to charity, why is it a valid reason for failing to donate to the government?
Furthermore, I would hardly expect anyone to donate to a charity which either 1) had no reasonable prospect of achieving its stated goal, or 2) could not offer a reasonable assurance that the money would be used in the manner intended by the donor.
Well, if he believes those are valid requirements but doesn't believe the government would satisfy them, then presumably he wouldn't support higher taxes in the first place. We're talking here about people who do support higher taxes, who think the government would use the extra revenue for some purpose they consider beneficial and justified, not people who think the government would just waste the extra money.
Taxes, at the federal level especially, don't buy anything until they are aggregated. Many charities, on the other hand, work with much smaller projects and therefore smaller aggregations, or even with individuals directly.
First, both government and charity involve projects and programs of all sizes, from direct cash handouts to individuals to hugely expensive scientific research programs. And second, individual voluntary donations to the government can obviously be "aggregated" with one another, just as they are in charities, and with tax revenues. Indeed, if they are just treated as additional tax revenues for accounting purposes they would be indistinguishable from a tax increase.
I guess you call a town that votes for a raise in property taxes to save a school crazy. Or would it seem more reasonable for the town to wait until people randomly donate money to save it.
It's a completely bogus question.
Whatever happened to basic civics?
Or would we better we no taxes, no government, etc?
Ha.
How about another analogy: I believe that my country is under attack so I think we need additional soldiers. One approach is to suggest that we need a draft (ignoring for a moment that most who suggest a draft do so in order to make it more difficult for the US to defend itself or attack others). Another approach is for me to join the US military and often take a lower salary than if I had remained a civilian.
Those who suggest that we should raise taxes on everyone are also probably more likely to support a draft (I won't serve unless others are compelled to), at least based on surveys of the political preferences of those who are have joined the military. Those who volunteer out of a sense of duty are also less likely to belong to the political party more opposed to taxes.
SO some people are willing to put their lives on the line to protect their country without others being forced to. Shouldn't those who think the government needs more money be as willing to provide their excess cash as the citizens who are willing to risk their non-excess lives?
Most of the advocates of single payer health care are NOT trying to solve any collective action problem. They generally claim that the program can be funded by taxes on "the wealthy" whatever that means, and they are trying to sell it to voters who do not consider themselves to be among the wealthy.
-dk
Did Warren Buffet ever say by how much he thinks his taxes are too low? If it's more than a fraction of 1%, he could fund any one or two of a great number of worthwhile projects with charitable donations.
I guess you call a town that votes for a raise in property taxes to save a school crazy. Or would it seem more reasonable for the town to wait until people randomly donate money to save it.
I wouldn't call it crazy at all. I'm sure Megan wouldn't, either. Neither of us is challenging the need for taxes. The question she asks is "Should you, if you think that your taxes are too low, voluntarily give that money to the government?" She and I both think the answer is "Yes."
Applying this to your school scenario, "saving" a school that is facing closure for lack of money obviously isn't the only way in which voluntary donations to the government could be beneficial to schools. More often, they could simply be used to fund additional resources for the school. In fact, this kind of voluntary supplementary funding appears to be quite common in American public education. Teachers and parents sometimes pay out of their own pockets for supplies they think the school needs. PTAs and student groups organize fund-raising events to raise money for school supplies and facilities. If you think your taxes for public schools are too low, you are perfectly free to pay extra money for public schools in this way. The same principle could be applied to any other area of government spending. The government could even collect this additional revenue from people who think their taxes are too low through the IRS or some other existing collection mechanism.
Like so many libertarian arguments, Megan's claim here is a too-clever-by-half analysis that ultimately has nothing to do with the real world. In point of fact, millions of people deliberately make choices that will tend to raise their taxes--by moving from Alabama to New York, by moving from the city to the suburbs, by voting for liberal Democrats. Obviously I would like it if by some fluke I didn't have to pay taxes at all, just as I would like it if someone would give me a free car. But I am perfectly willing to pay taxes--even higher ones--just as I am willing to pay for a car, provided what I get in exchange is worth the cost.
Megan is right. The fact that we have a (grossly) progressive tax system and pride ourselves on the increasing percentage of people who "pay no income tax at all!" (as though thats a good thing) indicate irrefutably that people in this society want things delivered by the government that they did not pay a fair value for. I know its been a long time we've believed "the rich" somehow owe more - but in what universe does their success create an obligation to subsidize your receipt of government benefits? This was never "fair", merely popular.
Yes, this really is one of those coy slanders dressed up as an 'argument'.
But the fact of the matter is, I know my own mind, I know why I pay taxes, why I vote for tax increases (sometimes), why I volunteer time at the Humane Society, why I donate money to specific causes. It has nothing to do with 'wishing other people were taxed instead of me.'
So in reality, what we've got here is a nasty little go-around where the people making this accusation are demanding that others prove it isn't so. And guess what - big surprise - they profess to be 'not convinced'.
Of course, in reality, the burden is upon them to argue their case, not on others to prove them wrong. Not that they can do it, obviously, otherwise they would have.
As for MM's positive assertion, I think the reason people keep bringing up collective action is that it seems difficult to deduce that people are more interested in levying taxes on others rather than themselves simply because they tend not to just donate their own money. If they want a program, and it will take everyone paying in to fund the program, then they may be willing to pay, but wish first to be assured that everyone pays. There doesn't seem to be a dichotomy there, between wanting everyone else to pay and wanting yourself to pay.
On her normative claim, there seems to be a way for MM's argument to work, but at that point it seems to become pretty underwhelming. I mean OK, so there are some people who think that taxes should be higher as a moral matter, and not only that, but they also think their own taxes are too low, and that that is a moral matter, and they think the government has a better use for their money that they themselves do, so they ought to donate that excess money they have (that would otherwise be taxed) to the government. OK, great, so long as there are people like this (I'm not denying that there are, it would just be nice to clearly signal how weak the arguments being dealt with are as opposed to other argument for higher taxes) and we accept the normativity of the hypothetical syllogism or believe that people have an obligation to be consistent or something, fine.
But don't most people who think taxes should be higher think that BECAUSE there are certain services or safety nets that can't be achieved at all unless everyone pays in?
In other words, don't most people think that a single instance of lower taxes here or there is much less of a problem than a pervasive injustice in taxes? We can argue about whether they're right or not, and I tend to think that moral arguments about taxes tend to go nowhere, but we're just granting people's underlying moral commitments and then testing their consistency. If the real problem is that the large scale structure needs changing to be less regressive on the whole or something like that, then my sending in my own excess money won't change the structural injustice.
This seems to be where collective action meets the moral argument. So it seems to me that a moral argument for higher taxes does not necessarily mean that the one making such an argument ought to send their own money in voluntarily in order to be consistent. Rather, it has to be a particular type of moral argument, one that says not only that the tax system is structurally unjust, (because certain imperative services can't be provided without a large scale change in the tax code) but that MY taxes specifically need to be higher. In that case, OK, great, but that seems underwhelming.
First, as has been noted, it seems that when people say that their taxes are too low, they are colloquially expressing that it would be better on the whole if their tax bracket where subject to a higher rate. But to whatever extent people literally mean that their individual taxes are too low, and this is an injustice, then sure, they should send more money in I guess, but is THAT all this argument has been about?
Scent,
But the fact of the matter is, I know my own mind, I know why I pay taxes, why I vote for tax increases (sometimes), why I volunteer time at the Humane Society, why I donate money to specific causes. It has nothing to do with 'wishing other people were taxed instead of me.'
If you think your taxes are too low, why don't you make up the difference, in voluntary contributions, between what you actually pay and what you think you ought to pay?
Jay,
I think the reason people keep bringing up collective action is that it seems difficult to deduce that people are more interested in levying taxes on others rather than themselves simply because they tend not to just donate their own money. If they want a program, and it will take everyone paying in to fund the program, then they may be willing to pay, but wish first to be assured that everyone pays.
But it won't take "everyone paying in to fund the program." That's just empirically false. Most tax increases simply raise funding for existing programs. They don't create new programs that cannot exist unless "everyone pays in." Higher taxes generally just provide more money for things the government is already doing. If you think you ought to be paying more to the government for social welfare, or scientific research, or the military, or whatever else it may be, why don't you just pay it? I realize you think everyone else should pay more too, but that's irrelevant. You can't control what other people pay. You can control what you pay.
Mixner,
Whether or not taxes pay for existing programs or new ones is not important. The important thing is the collective action problem. And "everyone paying in" refers to collective action. If you can point to a percentage of the populace that doesn't pay taxes since they don't make enough to pay taxes, that essentially doesn't change anything. "Everyone" means that it is a large scale project, as opposed to my as an individual just paying in voluntarily.
If MM was referring to people who don't pay taxes, but wish for others to pay taxes, fine. But simply because people don't donate money over and above what they're taxed doesn't necessarily mean that they interested in others paying taxes as opposed to themselves. That's not a necessary inference. And what I've said above deals with the positive argument.
Now, as for the normative argument, I suppose if I thought that I should be paying more in taxes (aside from concerns about collective action) then I would send more money in.
But as I said in my post, it seems that when most people say they pay too little in taxes, it's a colloquial way of saying that they wish their tax bracket were taxed more, not necessarily that they, individually, are paying an immorally low amount of taxes.
But again, from my post, to the extent that people believe (aside from concerns about collective action) that they, individually, are paying too little in taxes, then yes, they would have to send more money in to the government in order to be consistent.
If the real problem is that the large scale structure needs changing to be less regressive on the whole or something like that, then my sending in my own excess money won't change the structural injustice.
If you think your taxes should be raised only as part of a revenue-neutral tax reform, so that the total tax burden remains the same and only the distribution of that burden changes, then that might be a legitimate reason not to voluntarily pay the extra amount you think you otherwise ought to be paying. Your voluntary payment wouldn't be revenue-neutral and it wouldn't reduce anyone else's taxes. But most people who think their taxes are too low do not seem to want to keep the total tax burden constant. They want to raise it, so that the government has more money to spend.
Mixner,
In response to your !2:09 AM post,
Good response, it give me the chance to sharpen up the meaning of "injustice."
Injustice can refer to the relative tax burden, or it can refer to a tax system that inadequately funds projects or services that some see as moral imperatives.
Even if it refers to inadequate funding, one person's money probably won't make a difference.
And now we're back to square one, which is that in order for MM's moral argument to work, we have to be talking about people who
1) Think that the government needs more money to spend on needed projects (or perhaps think rich people don't pay their fair share).
and
2) Think that their own personal taxes are too low (as opposed to just thinking that their tax bracket should be taxed more).
If you have #1 without #2, then the argument doesn't apply. If you have #1 and #2, well great, you win but so what? That still doesn't mean wanting higher taxes means that you should send more of your own money in.
Mixner,
Obviously I meant, "In response to your 12:09 AM post."
I'm used to posting where I can edit, so I don't preview anything...
Whether or not taxes pay for existing programs or new ones is not important.
The argument you proposed against paying more voluntarily was that it would take "everyone paying in to fund the program." That's obviously not true for existing programs. Your additional payment would provide additional funding for that program, whether anyone else paid in or not. And even for "new" programs, it is virtually inconceivable that the program could not exist unless "everyone was paying in." So I think this is yet another bogus argument.
The important thing is the collective action problem. And "everyone paying in" refers to collective action.
You and others keep alluding to this alleged problem without clearly explaining what it is. What is "the collective action problem" supposed to be, exactly? Are you talking about the problem of free riders? Or what?
But again, from my post, to the extent that people believe (aside from concerns about collective action) that they, individually, are paying too little in taxes, then yes, they would have to send more money in to the government in order to be consistent.
Good, then we agree. Again, please explain clearly what "concerns about collective action" is supposed to mean.
Injustice can refer to the relative tax burden, or it can refer to a tax system that inadequately funds projects or services that some see as moral imperatives. Even if it refers to inadequate funding, one person's money probably won't make a difference.
I've been over this. If "one person's money" donated to the government probably won't make a difference, then it probably won't make a difference if donated to a charity. Do you therefore think it is foolish to donate to charity? "One person's vote" probably won't make a difference to the outcome of the election. Do you therefore think it is foolish to vote? Sorry, this is another bogus argument.
And now we're back to square one, which is that in order for MM's moral argument to work, we have to be talking about people who1) Think that the government needs more money to spend on needed projects (or perhaps think rich people don't pay their fair share). and 2) Think that their own personal taxes are too low (as opposed to just thinking that their tax bracket should be taxed more).
Yes, and there appear to be many such people--people who want to increase government spending and who think their own taxes are too low.
By the way, why would someone think "their tax bracket should be taxed more" but not that their own taxes are too low? Unless you're talking about people who think they have been unfairly put in the wrong tax bracket, or people who think they should have a personal exemption from the tax rate everyone else in their bracket is required to pay, it's hard to know who this could mean.
This whole "collective action" issue is a massive red herring. The classic collective action problem is environmental spoliation, yet millions of committed environmentalists nevertheless shell out large wads of their own hard-earned cash for hybrid cars and other expensive eco-friendly products.
The key word here, of course, is "millions". The whole "I'm just one lonely do-gooder" argument against putting one's own money where one's mouth is, loses its force when millions are willing to act together. We can therefore just rephrase Megan's question as, "if so many people think that taxes should be higher, then why don't they all band together and donate money to the government en masse?" After all, environmentalists, NPR listeners, and many other groups of altruists have shown themselves willing to bite the bullet and endure large numbers of free riders for the sake of the higher good--why not tax-raisers?
When the question is phrased that way, the answer is obvious: if you're going to band together with the like-minded to achieve some result--whether helping the poor, treating the sick, or saving the earth--there's always a more effective and efficient vehicle for your dollars than the government. The only advantage of working through the government is that it can pull in dollars from people who never would have contributed a dime to your cause.
That doesn't necessarily make it wrong to want to require everyone's contribution to a goal. Even most libertarians agree, for instance, that taxing everyone to fund a national defense force. But yes, if you want to raise taxes to achieve a goal rather than act together with your like-minded fellow citizens to achieve it, then your motive is almost certainly the desire to ensure that the non-like-minded contribute as well.
Mixner,
People can think that social security is inadequate right? Well that's an existing program. People can also think that we need universal health care, and that would be a new program. In either case, this is a completely plain way of interpreting what many people mean by injustice, in the case of inadequate existing current programs, or possible new programs. Or of course they can think the tax burden is uneven in that they wish it were more progressive or regressive.
The important thing is that the program needs to be large scale in order to be funded adequately. If we took universal health care, for example, this would be true whether you agreed with the program goal's or not. I tweaked "everyone paying in" to "large scale" because I didn't want a minute technicality to get in the way. There may be some who make so little that they don't pay taxes.
What's important in the hypothetical is that whether the program is old or new, there needs to be large scale involvement, in the way of lots of people paying taxes, in order for the program to be funded adequately, given the goals of the hypothetical program. One person paying in won't fund the program.
If a program were going to be eliminated, then the moral justification for the higher tax would go with, at least that's how many people view. To the extent that there are people who think they should pay more, like in a vacuum, then Megan's argument applies. But her argument wasn't stated with those caveats or qualifications from the beginning, and many of her defenders in the comments section have presented even more blunt arguments for a position that seems to need to apply to a pretty specific subset of people who desire higher taxes.
So no, we don't really agree, because the argument I posted was careful and specific about which subset of people MM's argument applies, to where I think her argument was overly broad, and I especially think the arguments of many in the comments sections were too broad.
If the subset of people who wish for higher taxes and see this as a moral imperative are properly specified, then OK. But just because someone wished that taxes in general were higher, and that the government should have enough money to spend on key projects (old or new), and that this is a moral imperative, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're under any rational obligation to send more money in over and above what they're taxed. It has to be added that they think that aside from these factors, they think that they personally should be paying more taxes (aside from just wishing their tax bracket were taxed more). At times, it seemed like the argument was specific enough, at other times, it was applied so broadly as to be unwarranted.
Nah, I don't think I'll get into collective action and the like. I'm not to interested in arguing with someone who flippantly refers to something as a "bogus argument" without really understanding what the argument is.
Really, speaking as one of those people you're attempting to malign, it's not my motive. And I'll thank you not to question my motives any more. Unless you want me to question yours, or for that matter, your character.
Mixner,
If a charity works with the government, then the same argument apples. However if a charity has projects more close to the local ground level, then an individual's donation may have much more impact. My own tiny tax contribution over and above what I'm already taxed would go to...what? Some amorphous "tax me more" fund? At least with a charity I know what particular purpose is being pursued. But as you said before, government and charities have all sort of projects of varying sizes. To the extent that a charity has the dizzying responsibilities of a government, and half-heartedly makes known that it has a "give me more" fund, then I suppose we have the same problem.
As for tax brackets and the like, there could be a distinction in wishing your tax bracket were taxed more and thinking that you personally don't pay more in taxes. If the taxes of those who make as much as you aren't raised, then you might not think you personally are paying too little, since your payment alone would necessarily adequately fund anything. If however, the taxes of those in your range were raised, then perhaps your favorite programs would have adequate funding.
Incidentally, I think Dan Simon's question "if so many people think that taxes should be higher, then why don't they all band together and donate money to the government en masse" is excellent. I do think, however, that it is not a rephrasing of Megan's point. It's a DIFFERENT QUESTION. Megan's question, at least at times, (and certainly some of the comments), seemed to imply that even in a vacuum, if one thought that taxes should be higher as a moral matter, then one ought to just shell out more money to the government, as an individual.
It actually matters how an argument is phrased. If it's phrased vaguely, then it can mean something completely different from what it was intended to mean. Hopefully over the course of several posts and threads an argument can gain more clarity and specificity. However this was the third such entry on this topic, and it didn't seem to make the argument pointed enough to apply, there was too much buckshot flying around, in other words.
But this is getting laborious...
Megan is getting herself into an insanely contorted position in order to defend a silly initial argument. If I'm in a group of 5 people, and I say, "Let's go to IHOP," it follows from Megan's position that I am not actually concerned primarily with eating pancakes, but with OTHER people eating pancakes. When the group instead decides to go for Thai food, and I go along, it follows that my revealed preference was not for eating pancakes, but for eating Thai food. What I really wanted initially was for everyone else to eat pancakes, and clearly my ideal outcome here would have been for everyone else to go eat pancakes while I go for Thai food.
It seems markedly less insane to describe what is happening here as a collective process of deciding where to go eat together. Similarly, it is less insane to describe the national debate over tax levels as a collective process of deciding how high taxes should be and what services government should buy with them, rather than a process of 100 million taxpayers deciding whether or not they have too much or too little money.
Laborious and late...
This is my 1:23 post, edited a bit.
Mixner,
If a charity works with like government, then the same argument applies. However if a charity has projects more close to the local ground level, then an individual's donation may have much more impact. My own tiny tax contribution over and above what I'm already taxed would go to...what? Some amorphous "tax me more" fund? At least with a charity I know what particular purpose is being pursued. But as you said before, government and charities have all sort of projects of varying sizes. To the extent that a charity has the dizzying responsibilities of a government, and half-heartedly makes known that it has a "give me more" fund, then I suppose we have the same problem.
As for tax brackets and the like, there could be a distinction in wishing your tax bracket were taxed more and thinking that you personally don't pay too litle in taxes. If the taxes of those who make as much as you aren't raised, then you might not think you personally are paying too little, since your payment alone wouldn't necessarily adequately fund anything. If however, the taxes of those in your range were raised, then perhaps your favorite programs would have adequate funding.
Incidentally, I think Dan Simon's question
"if so many people think that taxes should be higher, then why don't they all band together and donate money to the government en masse"
is excellent.
I do think, however, that it is not a rephrasing of Megan's point. It's a DIFFERENT QUESTION. Megan's question, at least at times, (and certainly some of the comments), seemed to imply that even in a vacuum, if one thought that taxes should be higher as a moral matter, then one ought to just shell out more money to the government, as an individual, even in the absence of other factors.
It actually matters how an argument is phrased. If it's phrased vaguely, then it can mean something completely different from what it was intended to mean. Hopefully over the course of several posts and threads an argument can gain more clarity and specificity. However this was the third such entry on this topic in the last couple of days, and it didn't seem to make the argument pointed enough to apply, there was too much buckshot flying around, in other words.
But this is getting laborious...
Jay,
Your posts are kind of confusing. You seem to agree with the basic point (people who think their taxes are too low should pay more voluntarily) but you also keep repeating bogus arguments against it that I have already addressed.
It obviously isn't necessary for "everyone to pay in" in order for your modest individual contribution to help achieve some goal, whether you're paying it to the government or to a private charity or non-profit organization. You're contributing to the goal, and your contribution could obviously be combined with tax revenues and voluntary contributions from other individuals to help fund large-scale programs. I don't know why you can't understand this point. People engage in all sorts of individual voluntary acts in support of large-scale goals--feeding the poor, protecting the environment, electing a candidate, or whatever else it may be--that considered in isolation have only a very small effect. This isn't an argument against giving money to the government any more than it's an argument against giving money to charities or non-profits. If you still don't understand this point, read Dan Simon's post.
brooksfoe,
If I'm in a group of 5 people, and I say, "Let's go to IHOP," it follows from Megan's position that I am not actually concerned primarily with eating pancakes, but with OTHER people eating pancakes.
You're another one who seems to have completely misunderstood the argument. Your claim above is nonsense. Taxes are involuntary, remember? You're not merely suggesting that your group goes to IHOP, you're seeking a law that compels them to go to IHOP. And in that case, you're most definitely concerned primarily with making other people do what you think they should do. Ditto if you seek to impose higher taxes on them.
Jay,
I do think, however, that it is not a rephrasing of Megan's point. It's a DIFFERENT QUESTION.
It's not different in any way that is relevant to the point. It's just a rephrasing of the question to expose the utter irrelevance of this "He's just one lonely do-gooder" argument to excuse people who think their taxes are too low from paying more voluntarily.
First, both government and charity involve projects and programs of all sizes, from direct cash handouts to individuals to hugely expensive scientific research programs. And second, individual voluntary donations to the government can obviously be "aggregated" with one another, just as they are in charities, and with tax revenues. Indeed, if they are just treated as additional tax revenues for accounting purposes they would be indistinguishable from a tax increase.
Again, you've lost sight of the scaling problem. The government, by necessity, is built to deal with very large numbers. It doesn't matter that $100 buys a modest meal for several people; what matters is whether it will get to the needy people with the least overhead loss. At any reasonably well-run charity or a homeless shelter, an isolated gift of $100 definitely will. A hundred bucks' worth of food is purchased and an extra ten or fifteen servings' worth of dinner can be prepared that night.
If it goes into the government, it definitely will not get to the needy in any meaningful way, even if the entire amount is somehow directed to eligible WIC or EBT card holders, because it will necessarily get processed into the treasury and then disbursed back out. Subtract the administrative losses and divide the remainder by several million and the result will be, at most, a microfraction of a cent difference in the amount that can be distributed to each needy person this month.
To fund a government program that services a large number of people, a large number of people need to be paying in. Anything less is just spitting on a burning barn.
Mixner,
I have no idea how many posts have been entered since your 1:32 post, but it's not necessary for you to say "I don't know why you don't understand" this or that.
I understand fine. I read Dan Simon's post, and like it, as I said. But his claim was careful in a way that Megan's wasn't, and in a way that many of the comments supporting Megan's posts were not.
And I just don't agree that a small contribution will *necessarily* achieve any worthy goal at all. It might, but in many cases it wouldn't. If I were a member of a group of homeowners and I wanted us to hire a lawyer, that wouldn't mean that I should just donate money toward getting a lawyer even if I didn't know if the neighborhood was going to pitch in with me or not. What would happen if I did? Well I guess I could pay the lawyer what I had and he could drive down to our neighborhood, but then he would have to turn right around and go back to the firm since the money he was paid wasn't enough for him to have an actual conference with us.
It shouldn't take very much imagination to see this, and how similar things could happen with insufficient funding for projects.
And to whatever extent charities have the dizzying responsibilities of governments, and they half-heartedly advertise some "give us more" fund, I suppose we have a relevant comparison. I wouldn't donate to that fund, for the record.
As to whether liberals should band together, and perhaps request that their pet projects be funded better through the collective donations from their group, that's a fine question. But it's not the one this thread was based on.
Ok Mixner,
Seeing now that there is only one other post to respond to, (for the time being), let me just say,
The "He's just one lonely do-gooder" argument is relevant insofar as there is an assertion that individuals (not cooperatives, but individuals) should give more to the government if they wish for higher taxes. If that argument wouldn't have been made, then the "he's only one lonely do-gooder" argument wouldn't have been relevant. As it stands, it is relevant.
If the argument Dan Simon presented would have been the argument from the beginning, you would have a point. If I were a doctrinaire liberal, I would think that the idea of perhaps huge numbers of liberals banding together to request paying more to the government for X or Y fund would be a great idea, and that it should be done.
But THAT WAS NOT THE CLAIM.
The claim was that somehow, if someone thought that taxes should be higher, and that this was a moral imperative, that they should just give more of their own money (unassociated with some sort of liberal cooperative) to the government.
I've explained how this needs to apply not to people who only believe taxes should be higher, but who also believe that THEIR OWN taxes should be higher aside from the concerns about their how their own individual contribution will be a drop in the bucket since they can't be confident others are contributing.
If the claim Megan wished to make was something like,
"Well there's something really wrong with people who think taxes should be higher, but aren't working to establish cooperatives were large groups of people could pay more to the government,"
THAT would have been a different claim. You can defend that one if you want, and you'll get no argument from me. But that's NOT what was said at the outset.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. People in favor of higher taxes want to achieve certain goals through increased government spending, and they're willing to pay higher taxes themselves* in order to achieve those goals. Of course, they can't achieve those goals unless everyone else pays higher taxes, too.
It's true that most people who support higher taxes aren't willing to pay higher taxes unilaterally because the effect on the goals they wish to achieve are negligible. But as little love as I have for the left, this doesn't strike me as an interesting point or meaningful criticism. People aren't willing to pay large sums of money for little benefit--so what? Why is this interesting?
*Well, in most cases they're actually not, since most leftists only support tax increases on the tax brackets they'll never reach. There's a legitimate criticism to be made here, but I don't think it's the one you're making.
Jack:
I guess this stands if you are talking about raising taxes out of some moral obligation--i.e. if one believes it is a good in and of itself that the rich become less so, regardless of what the money is spent on (coughezracough). But that's been the conservative/libertarian strawman since time immemorial.
It's not a strawman at all. The hand-wringing over rising inequality fueled entirely by the rich getting richer (and not by the poor getting poorer) makes it clear that there are a great many people on the left who consider making the rich poorer a good in and of itself, even if it confers no material benefits at all on the poor.
I think people are confusing the two areas of government expenses here. The first one is for public goods (roads, etc.). For these good it's obviously not sensible to give up more money voluntarily. The government would have to give you about 300 million to 1 in extra value for your dollar for it to be worth the expense since you're sharing the received goods with 300 million others. You'd be lucky if the government gave you 1 to 1. For these, waiting for a tax increase is by far your best bet.
But the other thing the government buys - and specifically, the thing it buys with rich people's "extra" money - is redistribution. And there is no sharing component to redistribution. Every dollar given buys $1 of "aid" to the poor. This is why people do voluntarily give to charities (and conversely, why you need to have bake sales - vs donations - to raise money for shared goods like schools).
Megan's said this before, but it's worth spelling out clearly since so many people seem to be arguing a point that only applies to the first type of expense.
Are liberals no longer interested in deficit reduction? Each extra dollar contributed is a dollar subtracted from the deficit. No mysterious collective-action multipliers needed!
Josh,
Did the tax-me-more fund (which was the example the thread started with) have the provision that the money would go to redistribution?
A better question is, did MM's posts dealing with this topic over the last few days tell us that?
As for charities, I wouldn't tend to give to huge charities with several different kinds of missions. But if a charity showed a specific person in a foreign country that needed help, and said 'so and so much' of my money would go to this person, I would think that would be OK.
As for local schools, it also seems that the money can be thought to be going pretty directly to the schools needs.
And this is supposed to compare to redistribution. And maybe it does. It's just not obvious to me, when you get to an organization as large as the state, that administrative costs won't be a hindrance to your dollar actually doing any redistribution. Whereas it seems more warranted to think that 3 million dollars will cover the admin costs and do some actual redistribution. Maybe the concern about admin costs are misplaced, I'm just saying it isn't obvious, and probably isn't obvious to others. Plus, one person's extra amount, when divided up among the population, doesn't seem so effective in curing any social ills.
Also,
Paul Zrimsek,
With deficits in the billions and debt in the trillions, it just doesn't seem like forking over my own extra taxes will do all that much good, as opposed to just spending it at a local bake sale.
So with both arguments, it seems like we're back again to Dan Simon's salient question, which is why don't liberals band together in large groups and try to set up funds to donate to state or national governments?
Or of course we always have the people who think that their own taxes (aside from just the taxes of others, and aside from concerns about how their own small donation won't fund the things they're interested in funding) should be raised. If they think that, then yes, they should just up and donate that money.
But the argument doesn't seem to apply any more broadly than that.
With deficits in the billions and debt in the trillions, it just doesn't seem like forking over my own extra taxes will do all that much good, as opposed to just spending it at a local bake sale.
Then you believe exactly what we selfish conservatives and libertarians believe: that the money's better off where it is, and increasing government's receipts is inefficient at the margin. The only difference is your odd belief that if you were to put together enough of these individually baneful transfers, they'd somehow add up to something good. "Yes, we lose money on every sale-- but we make it up on volume!"
An aside: Anyone reading this thread who accepts Brandon Berg's snarky statement that "most leftists only support tax increases on the tax brackets they'll never reach" is hereby forbidden in perpetuity from ever accepting the very common opposite assertion that most leftists are elitist Chardonnary-sippers from Manhattan and Cambridge.
An aside: Anyone reading this thread who accepts Brandon Berg's snarky statement that "most leftists only support tax increases on the tax brackets they'll never reach" is hereby forbidden in perpetuity from ever accepting the very common opposite assertion that most leftists are elitist Chardonnay-sippers from Manhattan and Cambridge.
An aside: Anyone reading this thread who accepts Brandon Berg's snarky statement that "most leftists only support tax increases on the tax brackets they'll never reach" is hereby forbidden in perpetuity from ever accepting the very common opposite assertion that most leftists are elitist Chardonnay-sippers from Manhattan and Cambridge.
At this point, I am struck less by the failure of so many libertarians to understand what a collective action problem is, and more by how much the libertarians all seem to disagree with each other. What's more peculiar is that none of you seem to have even noticed yet how much each argument, that there is no collective action problem in funding government expenditure, contradicts the others. Given how radically different everyone's misunderstanding of collective action is, I'm beginning to think it would be more interesting if the libertarians all started arguing with each other.
Sigh. I have said, repeatedly, on this and under threads that this is not the way I think(I suppose people like you would try to make me into some sort of 'liberal'.)
Are you calling me a liar? If so, just come out and say it. Don't weasel.[1]
I've got no problem with calling you deliberately, willfully obtuse at this point.
[1]C'mon. We all know this is just an update version of the 90's usenet libertarian inanity, "Statists just want to rob us at gunpoint, with the government pointing the gun."
I'll go you one further, Matt. As a non-libertarian, I'm confused as to why libertarians persist in using programs, infrastructure, resources that they did not pay for.
How can they possibly justify using the roads, for example, when their piddly taxes - what, a few thousand at most - would pave maybe six linear inches of a public road.
Isn't that some sort of theft? Why aren't they practicing what they are preaching?
Paul Zrimsek,
Your argument with me is becoming petty.
First let me say, I am not, in any standard sense, a liberal. If someone wanted to pick and choose my stances, they could make me look like a liberal if they wanted.
But taken as a whole, I would probably most accurately be described as a Third Way Democrat or a old fashioned Rockefeller or New England Republican.
I argue with all kinds of people, and find myself arguing with the hard left quite often.
People may be making assumptions about me based on what I've said in this thread, but I've tried to make arguments that could be made if I just got here from Mars and didn't have a dog in the fight.
As for your statement that I agree with Libertarians, I do agree with Libertarians on quite a bit. But I also don't sign on to arguments I don't agree with, no matter where they come from, even if I agree with a background point or with a general thrust behind the argument. If the argument makes claims that can't be backed up, I don't sign on to it, even if it's from a person who agrees with my general world view. This makes life hard for me from time to time, but I'm the one who has to look myself in the mirror, so I'm the one who holds myself to the standards I do. And part of that is not acting as if agreement is present when it's not.
I find left-wing arguments on many economic issues to be mostly hasty and ill-conceived. Minimum wage, trade, price controls, etc are a few examples where I part company with the left. So maybe any assumptions about my perspective would be hasty too.
That being said, you're right about me in one sense: I do think there is reason to oppose things at the margins, but support them over longer or bigger averages. We don't have to get into examples, since the abstract idea is intuitive enough.
But I don't think this would immediately strike most economists as obviously odd, as it has you.
Got to get back to cleaning the garage, have a good day.
Jay,
I'm done with you. The argument has been explained to you numerous times, by a number of posters, and you still keep responding with digressions and irrelevancies. If you still don't get it, never mind.
Brandon Berg,
You also seem to be confused. It is obviously not necessarily true that "they can't achieve those goals unless everyone else pays higher taxes, too." Few if any goals would require "everyone" to pay higher taxes, and collective action to achieve some goal does not necessarily require higher taxes, anyway. As Dan Simon said, people who think their taxes are too low can simply band together voluntarily and make a group donation to the government equal to the sum total of whatever additional amounts each individual thinks he should be paying in taxes. No legal compulsion is necessary.
But the idea that the action has to be collective rather than unilateral is also nonsense. People make all kinds of unilateral, individual contributions and sacrifices in support of goals they support, even though their individual contribution is small and there is no guarantee that others will join in. Voting for your preferred candidate to help him get elected. Buying a hybrid car to help the environment. Donating money to NPR to help keep it on the air. Writing a check to a medical charity to help fund AIDS research. And so on. These are all unilateral, individual acts in support of some goal. There is no guarantee that lots of other people, let alone "everyone," will act in the same way. So the argument that it would only make sense for people who think their taxes are too low to voluntarily pay extra to the government as part of some collective effort, rather than as a unilateral act, is just nonsensical. They may choose to band together and act as a group, just as I may choose to organize people who share my appreciation of NPR to make a group donation to the organization, but it is certainly not necessary to do so. I can just write NPR a check on my own, like millions of other people do. And likewise, people who think their taxes are too low can write a check to the government. No collective action is necessary.
OK Mixner,
You haven't read or comprehended either MM's argument or mine carefully enough to know what you're talking about now, but whatever, and have a good day...
Mixner, the reason no one gets your "explanations" is that they aren't explanations. They are assertions. And they don't evince any real understanding of what the concepts of collective action and interdependence of choice mean. At best, you are simplifying our arguments to the point where they have no meaning ("If you think the government should have more pencils, then why not give your local DMV employee a pencil!?!? HUH?" Okay, but what if I think my DMV should have ten additional employees?) At worst, you have no idea what you are talking about.
You are, however, correct that voting, NPR, giving to charities, etc. are all in some way similar to the funding of government programs. They are all examples of collective action, and thus are all cases in which a collective action problem needs to be solved. The fact that a solution exists in the examples you provide does not imply that the problem does not, only that it has been solved in these cases. That it has been solved in these cases does not imply that a solution is easy, nor does it imply that the same solution will apply in other cases.
Finally, I'd like to once again suggest that we jettison all of this nonsense about fairness and justice. I think the conservatives and libertarians out there have become so accustomed to liberals arguing about fairness, that they think (erroneously) that when someone argues against them they must necessarily be talking about what is and isn't fair. The collective action problem, as it was developed by Olson, (Garrett and Russell) Hardin, et. al., has nothing to do with fairness. It is based entirely on the belief that human beings are rational utility maximizers, wholly unconcerned with fairness.
To note that Megan's assertion -- that people's unwillingness to pay higher taxes unless they know everyone else is also paying higher taxes -- misunderstands the interdependence of choice is NOT NECESSARILY to note that people are concerned with fairness (though they may very well be). It is ALSO to note that there are completely reasonable reasons that people may want to be assured that they are not the only ones contributing before digging into their wallets. A single pebble does little to raise the level of a lake.
In the not-too-distant past, I derived a figure from a given ratio and a given first figure, both of which everyone agreed was accurate. Mixner said I couldn't do this, because I didn't know how the ratio was arrived at (never mind that we had all agreed that it was accurate.) I asked him to give me scenario where one has the same ratio and the same initial figure, but one gets a different second figure that depends on the way the ratio was determined.
He has, obviously, not been able to come up with such a scenario. But my choosing not to respond to him dates to that day.
Some people you've just got to put in the category of 'pointless to engage'.
Dan Simon, at least, has the courage to admit that he doesn't even believe in the collective action problem. Presumably, he also does not believe in rational actors, and will thus advocate we handily throw away all of the economic theory from Ricardo to Friedman upon which libertarian philosophy is based.
Mattc,
Mixner, the reason no one gets your "explanations" is that they aren't explanations.
I'm sorry if you don't "get" my explanations, but that's a failing on your part, not mine.
You are, however, correct that voting, NPR, giving to charities, etc. are all in some way similar to the funding of government programs. They are all examples of collective action, and thus are all cases in which a collective action problem needs to be solved.
Congratulations. Perhaps you have a glimmer of understanding after all. People can obviously act collectively in making voluntary donations to either a private charity or to the government, but most voluntary donations are made individually, not collectively. You could write a personal check to the government to help fund its activities, just as you could write a personal check to NPR or to a medical charity or to Planned Parenthood to help fund theirs. If you think your taxes are too low, you should write a check to the government for the extra money you think you should be paying. If you like, you can band together with other citizens who also think their taxes are too low and write one big check to the government for the combined amounts of extra money each of you thinks he should be paying. But it is not necessary to do so, any more it is necessary to band together with other NPR listeners to write a check to that organization.
The bottom line is that people who claim to believe that their taxes are too low but who refuse to pay the extra money they think they owe the government are flaming hypocrites who deserve to be humiliated for refusing to put their money where their mouth is. Unless and until they start acting in accordance with their stated beliefs, no one need take them seriously.
Huh? Are you responding to what I actually wrote or to what you wish I wrote?
Because (to be clear) if it's the former, then you should really work on the whole reading comprehension thing.
Yeah, I try to keep notions like 'fairness' out of discussions as much as possible. You can't change what people think is fair, generally. But you can discuss internal consistency, matters of fact, quasi game-theoretic concepts like utility-maximizing, etc.
Nevertheless, if you disagree with a libertarian, it must be because you're a 'liberal'.
That's a thought, has anyone, anywhere, at any time, ever disagreed with a libertarian and been accused of being a moderate?
Mixner, (to be REALLY clear this time) the reason I don't "get" (why are we using scare quotes?) your explanation is that you haven't offered one. You know, a logically valid argument based on reasonable first principles. The fun thing about arguing with libertarians like Megan is that they are usually very good at that sort of thing. It makes for an honest, intellectually engaging debate where both sides can actually learn something. The fun thing about arguing with you is...
Actually, it isn't fun arguing with you.
mattc,
It is ALSO to note that there are completely reasonable reasons that people may want to be assured that they are not the only ones contributing before digging into their wallets.
It is obviously not necessary to legally compel other people to dig into their wallets in order to be assured that you will not be the only one doing so. No one is legally compelled to write a check to NPR or Planned Parenthood. I am nevertheless pretty sure that when I write my $50 check to them, I'm not the only one sending them money.
If this is truly your concern, you may open a bank account and invite everyone who shares your belief that they are paying too little in taxes to write checks to that account for the extra money they think they should be paying to the government. As soon as anyone has contributed to the account, you will be assured that you are not the only one digging into his wallet, and you may add your own check to the account. Then you can write one big check to the government for all the money in the account, and start again. By the way, just how much more in taxes do you think you should be paying?
Mixner, (to be REALLY clear this time) the reason I don't "get" (why are we using scare quotes?) your explanation is that you haven't offered one.
No, the reason you don't "get" my explanation, if that really is the case, is that your reading and/or thinking skills are deficient.
I agree that there need not be a legal compulsion, but there nonetheless needs to be some compulsion. In the absence of an organic, cultural, or otherwise non-legal form of compulsion, a legal compulsion is a pretty darned good solution to a collective action problem like financing public services. The results of the "tax me" fund that began this whole conversation seem to provide pretty decent evidence that there is not a non-legal compulsion in this case.
As to how much more in taxes I should be paying... If we're still talking about making the lines at the DMV shorter, I guess I should be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000 dollars a year, by your logic.
No, yours are! Nanny nanny boo boo.
mattc,
I agree that there need not be a legal compulsion, but there nonetheless needs to be some compulsion.
Nonsense. Americans donate billions of dollars a year to charities and non-profit organizations in support of causes and goals they believe in, without any compulsion whatsoever. If they were compelled, it wouldn't be a donation.
I suggest you have a "My Taxes Are Too Low!" party at your house next weekend. Call up all your friends, if you have any, explain the purpose of the party and invite them to come over with their checkbooks. Spread the word in the paleoliberal blogosphere, and encourage others around the country to have similar parties. When your guests arrive, ask each of them write a check to the government for whatever additional amount of money they think they should be paying to it. Then bundle up all the checks and send them to the government. Before you know it, you may have created a new mass movement, and generated millions or billions of dollars in additional revenues for the government. Think of all the good it could do!
Let us know how it goes.
The collective action problem, as it was developed by Olson, (Garrett and Russell) Hardin, et. al., has nothing to do with fairness. It is based entirely on the belief that human beings are rational utility maximizers, wholly unconcerned with fairness.
Then why does anyone think it worth their while to contest the proposition that what they really want is higher taxes on other people? That's precisely what you'd expect rational utility-maximizers to favor!
Chuckle. Be it known forevermore that Paul Z. wants higher taxes on other people. As well as trying to find safe ways to call other people liars.
Mixner, you are thinking of the word "compulsion" too narrowly. Believe it or not, the government is not the only entity capable of compelling people to do things.
Paul, I'm not exactly contesting that proposition. I am suggesting that yours is not the only logically valid explanation of the behavior of NJ tax-payers, and that mine is in some ways better. First, it is more consistent with empirical evidence from studies by political scientists and behavioral economists (such as those cited by HF over at Crooked Timber). Second, it is based on a more clearly articulated social mechanism (collective action, prisoner's dilemma, tragedy of the commons, whatever you want to call it) than "revealed preferences," the latter of which makes the usually rather difficult to justify assumption that individual choices are not interdependent.
Mixner wrote: It is obviously not necessary to legally compel other people to dig into their wallets in order to be assured that you will not be the only one doing so. No one is legally compelled to write a check to NPR or Planned Parenthood. I am nevertheless pretty sure that when I write my $50 check to them, I'm not the only one sending them money.
...and thus your argument trucks onward in blithe ignorance of the scaling problem. Entities like the ones you cite are compartively small and focused in scope, and a donation will make a direct and meaningful difference in the operations because there is a short and narrow path between the donor and the final recipient of the benefits.
Also, in the case of NPR or any other consumer-supported media outlet, there is a specific effort made to overcome the collective action problem by drawing the donors into a managed community atmosphere: "As of this hour, supportive listeners like you have already contributed 'X', which will keep us on the air through March, and we need just 'Y' to make it to our next milestone. Even your small gift of 'Z' is important, please call now if you want the quality programming you enjoy to continue in the next year..."
None of these things are functional elements of large-scale government programs, whether focused upon services or redistribution. Subtract administrative costs and divide the result by several million, and the additional benefit of your isolated donation asympototes to zero.
Can I ask a pointed question? Have any of the commenters still insisting that choices are not interdependent and that the collective action problem is irrelevant actually read Mancur Olson? Or Douglass North? Or Margaret Levi? Or Russel Hardin? That is, are you actually familiar with the ideas you (think you are) arguing against?
I would say that it is not so much that 'revealed preferences' are wrong in this case. The revealed preference here is that people don't want to willy-nilly give money to the state.
What is wrong, and willfully so imnsho, is the interpretation being placed on this observation. What is doubly wrong is that those making this interpretation are making no attempt to justify it.
Mixner wrote: No, the reason you don't "get" my explanation, if that really is the case, is that your reading and/or thinking skills are deficient.
That also indicts me and several other people here, it would seem. Perhaps you can start teaching a night class on Remedial Mixner 101. After all, it would be a pity if an output as prodigious as yours went uncomprehended for want of education in the audience, right?
anony,
...and thus your argument trucks onward in blithe ignorance of the scaling problem. Entities like the ones you cite are compartively small and focused in scope, and a donation will make a direct and meaningful difference in the operations because there is a short and narrow path between the donor and the final recipient of the benefits.
Er, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets $400,000,000 a year from the federal government alone. My $50 annual donation won't keep it on the air for a nanosecond. So how is my donation "a direct and meaningful difference in the operations" of the CPB? Or is it your position that it is foolish for individuals to make small donations to public broadcasting, and to any other large charity or non-profit, on the grounds that their contributions do not make "a direct and meaningful difference in the operations?"
mattc,
Mixner, you are thinking of the word "compulsion" too narrowly. Believe it or not, the government is not the only entity capable of compelling people to do things.
You're statements are getting increasingly bizarre. What definition of "compulsion" do you propose? Like millions of other Americans, I donate money to various charities and non-profits I support. Nothing compels me to do this. I freely choose to make these donations. That's why they're called "donations."
Have you started making arrangements for your "My Taxes Are Too Low!" party yet?
No. Have you figured out what the collective action problem is yet?
anony,
Also, in the case of NPR or any other consumer-supported media outlet, there is a specific effort made to overcome the collective action problem by drawing the donors into a managed community atmosphere
So what? Obviously, similar efforts could be made by those who think their taxes are too low to organize collective action by groups of like-minded individuals to accumulate voluntary donations of money and send it to the government. I just proposed one such idea to mattc.
People who think they should be paying more to the government are no less capable of organizing themselves and acting collectively than are people who support any other cause.
By the way, you seem to be suggesting now that you behave irrationally and in a manner inconsistent with utility maximization. I'm sure other commenters will find this revelation useful when arguing with you in the future.
Mixner wrote: Er, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets $400,000,000 a year from the federal government alone. My $50 annual donation won't keep it on the air for a nanosecond.
You must mean the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that splits money between television, radio, and specific educational projects. I can assure you right now that the first one is by far the most expensive of the three, so if your interest is in supporting NPR, your $50 is not being pitted against anything close to $400M (assuming for now that number is accurate).
Now, to the extent that this counterpoint might be valid in spite of that error, please go back and read my comments about the ways that NPR (and similar) work against the collective action problem by promoting a community understanding of support.
So what? Obviously, similar efforts could be made by those who think their taxes are too low to organize collective action by groups of like-minded individuals to accumulate voluntary donations of money and send it to the government. I just proposed one such idea to mattc.
You're essentially proposing they organize a peculiar type of charity, except that it would be one where they really have no ability to specify the direction in which the funds are spent. How does this advance the argument against people who want to see a tax increase in order to achieve a particular purpose?
Oh, I just thought of a much better zing: We already started a "My Taxes Are Too Low!" party. They're called Democrats. Coming soon to a White House near you. Ho ho ho.
Anyone reading this thread who accepts Brandon Berg's snarky statement that "most leftists only support tax increases on the tax brackets they'll never reach" is hereby forbidden in perpetuity from ever accepting the very common opposite assertion that most leftists are elitist Chardonnary-sippers from Manhattan and Cambridge.
Of course. About a third of the population leans to the left, while only about 5-10% make enough money to be affected by most of the tax hikes proposed by the Democrats, so even if all people affected by the proposed tax hikes were leftists, most leftists still would not be affected. Besides, the exit polls from any recent election confirm that people in the higher tax brackets tend to vote Republican.
Also, isn't chardonnay a relatively low-class wine? I don't care much for wine myself, but I've gathered that most wine snobs tend to hold white wines in low regard.
I think, Brandon, that by the criteria that is routinely used here, about 60% of the population 'leans to the left'.
That is precisely why elections are conducted as they are, as a matter of fact.
Mixner, since you're done with me, I guess this post is "to whom it may concern,"
First, on rational obligation. If we want to get technical, one morality is as rationally "justified" as another. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a moral skeptic, but I think morality is just much too sublime and subtle to be amenable to rational discourse, or said another way, disagreements over values will not be solved empirically or logically. So I agree with Milton Friedman when he says about disagreements over values, that they are,
"differences about which men can ultimately only fight."
So I try to use the word "consistent" when discussing what most people think of "rational obligation." But I do see that if someone literally thinks that their personal taxes are too low, aside from concerns about government not having sufficient funds, then yes, they would be inconsistent in not paying more to the government, over and above what they're taxed.
It's just that I've never met anyone like this. The people I know who tend to wish taxes were higher, think this because they wish government had more money. But not just a LITTLE more money, but enough to fund projects they wish were there, or existing projects that need to be better. If taxes aren't raised, then why would they just give their own money, as an individual, since that won't make the government any more able to do what my leftist friends want them to?
You're right I guess, they "can" still give their money, but the point is, they're under no rational obligation, or put another way, they are not inconsistent by failing to send their money in. They "can" still send their money in, and there's nothing wrong with it if they do. But there is no reason for them to be considered inconsistent.
The reason that Dan Simon's question is a different and better question is that perhaps they should, in order to be consistent, seek ways to give the government more money in mass. That is, if people think the government should have more money, then maybe they should come together in large numbers and give more (or of course they could just vote Democrats [or especially Greens] in, either way).
But that is DIFFERENT than thinking that individuals should send their own money in just because they wish the government had sufficient funds to pay for the services they think are lacking or in need of improvement or saving.
When the question is Dan Simon's, the discussion would be different. But when the question is ambiguous enough to apply to unassembled individuals, then the only way for it to apply is for a person to be able to say something like,
"In the abstract, my taxes should be higher. Not as a matter of funding the government projects I like, but just out of principle, I think me as an individual, my taxes should be higher."
Then it works.
But MM seems to have gotten this crossed a few times over the course of the last few days or so in making posts on this topic. I won't even get into the comments section, where MM's basic message went even further down hill. For example, a couple or so posts ago Megan said,
"People who say they want higher taxes on themselves generally think the government does not have enough money to do the things it is already doing; as long as you think the government has a better (in some moral sense) use for the money than you do, then you have a moral obligation to send it in."
But see this is silly. If people say they want higher taxes on themselves because they think the government does not have enough money to do the things it is already doing, then it is likely that their desire to have higher taxes on themselves is based on the desire to better fund government, which won't happen just by them, all by their lonesome, giving more money to the government. So it is likely that they want higher taxes on everyone like them, in their tax range, so that enough money can be raised to adequately (in their eyes) fund government projects.
So at least the people MM discussed in the above quote, who want their own taxes to be higher, aren't likely in the camp of people who, like, in a vacuum, want their taxes to be higher.
In another spot, Megan says,
"Gotcha! You cry. My money alone won't make a difference! Sorry, but if that were true then you'd be morally justified in cheating on your taxes. The small sum you send them is spent on something you presumably think we need more of."
Again, this is silly. We don't all base our morality on a Kantian sense of obligation. Some of us think living with integrity, all other things equal, is an inherent good, or virtue. You don't have to agree with that, but we're in value land here, so the way I see it is as justified as thinking we are obliged to do this or that.
If it were ONLY based on society as a whole needing MY money, then I suppose cheating on my taxes would be fine (at least in my case, just trust me).
Now, I have stated that in order for MM's argument to work, it has to apply to people who believe that their taxes are too high in the abstract, aside from concerns about government funding. You have said that there are such people. You and Mega don't see eye to eye on this one. Here's her view:
"No, I simply cannot grant that people really believe that they pay too little in taxes. It seems more like they think the government has a better use for everyone else's money, and should therefore take it. They believe this so strongly that if they have to pay some of their own money to rectify the situation, they will do so. In other words, they don't so much want higher taxes on themselves, as to purchase the good "State coercion of other affluent people". That is not the same moral intuition as "I have too much money, and the government should take it away", however much nicer it would be if that were true."
First, it seems impossible to tell which direction people's desires go in, (in other words, maybe people really do want to give their own money, [for better government funding] but want to make sure that enough people chip in so that funding is sufficient, or maybe people really do just want everyone else to pay, and they're willing to pay to make that happen. Either way, the information doesn't deductively lead us to Megan's conclusion, necessarily).
But the real meat of the problem is that Megan already provide a justification for why many people wish for their own taxes to be higher, and that's so that government can be adequately funded to carry on with their programs. If that's the way she sees it, then it doesn't mean that anyone who wants higher government revenues is inconsistent because they fail to give the government money over and above their taxes.
Dan Simon's question, once again, avoids some fo the pitfalls, but that's not what the issue has centered around from the beginning.
In order for Megan's argument to work, it must be applied to people who want their OWN individual taxes raised, not necessarily because of concerns over the governments' coffers, but just because. The have to want higher taxes in the abstract, in a vacuum.
Insofar as there are people like this, then yes, in order to remain consistent, they need to send more money to the government, over and above their taxes, in order to remain consistent.
But it doesn't apply to people who want their taxes raised because they think government needs to have enough money to carry out its duties, (and these types were brought up by Megan as an example) since those people likely want not only THEIR OWN taxes to be raised, but a very large number of other people's taxes to be raised (like people in their tax bracket) so that enough money will be raised to adequately (in their eyes) fund government.
(first time poster, please forgive me if I get some of the etiquette wrong)
Let's try a thought experiment: Suppose a country A with 10 rational inhabitants (A'ans), each having wealth of $1,000 and a simple linear utility curve. If there were no taxes, each A'an has a starting utility of 1,000 (aggregate utility: 10,000). Each tax dollar, at the margin, costs 1 in utility. (I realize this is not realistic, but the argument works as well under more realistic assumptions)
The A'ans now consider starting a government to provide public goods. Each dollar spent on a public good provides 0.5 in utility for everyone. If each A'an gives $2 to the government, $20 would be spent on public goods, providing 10 utility for everyone. This would improve the situation of all A'ans: they go from 1,000 to 998 (in private goods) + 10 (in public goods) = 1,008. The aggregate wealth goes to 10,080.
However, if the A'ans cannot be forced to pay taxes, it is irrational for each of them to pay even a penny in taxes, as they would be worse off.
Indeed, if one person voluntarily gives $2 to the government, her new utility is 998 (from private goods) + 1 (from public goods) = 999 instead of 1,000. Note that the country as a whole is better off: the aggregate utility is now 10,008.
Does anyone disagree that this is also the reason why the Tax-Me-More fund is not a success?
Mixner: the compulsory nature of taxes is neither here nor there. Taxes are compulsory no matter what level they're at. In this sense, any conversation about taxes of any sort would always be primarily "about forcing other people to do" ya di da.
The problem is simple: you, as a libertarian, lack a conceptual vocabulary for treating human beings as social entities who decide together on rules governing their behavior, and then expect both themselves and others to follow those rules. You cannot conceive of "society". This cripples your ability to understand government, society, culture, or human behavior in general.
anony,
You must mean the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that splits money between television, radio, and specific educational projects. I can assure you right now that the first one is by far the most expensive of the three, so if your interest is in supporting NPR, your $50 is not being pitted against anything close to $400M (assuming for now that number is accurate).
More irrelevance. My $50 chcek is a drop in the ocean whether it's spent on television, radio or split between them. It obviously doesn't meet your standard of making "a direct and meaningful difference in the operations" of public broadcasting. No small donation to a typical charity or non-profit meets your standard, because their budgets are typically in the millions of dollars or higher. So, by your argument, no one should make small donations of this kind. If people were to follow your advice, most charities and non-profits would lose most of their income.
You're anti-abortion, right? So to apply your argument to a type of charity or non-profit closer to your heart, your argument is that all those hundreds of thousands or millions of people who send in checks for $20 or $30 to help fund the National Right to Life Committee and other large charities and non-profits working to reduce abortion and promote alternatives to abortion should stop sending in those checks. That's really your position, is it?
anony,
You're essentially proposing they organize a peculiar type of charity,
You could call it a type of charity, yes.
except that it would be one where they really have no ability to specify the direction in which the funds are spent.
They have no less ability to specify the direction in which the funds are spent if those funds are donated voluntarily than they do if the funds are collected involuntarily as taxes. So if this is a valid reason to oppose sending in extra money to the government as voluntary donations, it's a valid reason to oppose sending in extra money as involuntary taxes too. And yet they seek to raise taxes, so they obviously don't think their lack of control over how the money is spent is a valid reason not to provide it. So this is yet another bogus argument.
mattc,
Oh, I just thought of a much better zing: We already started a "My Taxes Are Too Low!" party. They're called Democrats.
No, Democrats are the "Your Taxes Are Too Low!" Party.
Still waiting for you to explain why you're not organizing a "My Taxes Are Too Low!" party, or some other type of collective action by people who share your belief that their taxes are too low, to send extra money to the government as voluntary donations. Your previous objections that your individual voluntary contribution would be too small to make a difference, and that you would not be assured that anyone else would make a voluntary donation of their own, are irrelevant if you band together with others and act collectively. If even just a few million people, out of our total national population of 300 million, share your view that they should be paying more in taxes, you could raise millions or billions of dollars in extra revenues for the government through voluntary collective action of this kind. Think of all the good it could do! Paying down the national debt. Providing more money for public health care programs. Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor. Funding more research into clean energy sources, or an AIDS vaccine. There are a million left-liberal Big Government wet dreams you could be helping to fund with voluntary contributions in lieu of the higher taxes you claim to believe you should be paying. But you're not doing it, because you're just such an enormous hypocrite.
brooksfoe,
Mixner: the compulsory nature of taxes is neither here nor there.
Brilliant. If the compulsory nature of taxes is neither here nor there, then non-compulsory alternatives will do just as well. So why do you want to raise taxes?
Mixner: In my previous post, I addressed the reason why people shouldn't rationally donate money to the government, but could rationally be in favor of higher taxes.
The difference between donating money to the government and to charity is that donating money to charity has a value in and of itself. You don't get any material goods in return for your donation (as opposed to taxes), but you do derive some utility from it, e.g., it makes you feel good about yourself. In this sense, donating money to charity is the same as buying "conscience points" in the free market.
Expanding the example from my previous post, a person would derive utility of 1.5 from donating $1. This means that people can improve their utility from 1,000 to 1,001 by giving $2 to charity.
Laurens,
Mixner: In my previous post, I addressed the reason why people shouldn't rationally donate money to the government, but could rationally be in favor of higher taxes.
Your post is stupid. You make all sorts of unstated and implausible assumptions, and you just make up numbers out of thin air. Substituting a different set of made-up numbers for your own set of made-up numbers would suggest a different conclusion even under your own assumptions.
The difference between donating money to the government and to charity is that donating money to charity has a value in and of itself. You don't get any material goods in return for your donation (as opposed to taxes),
More nonsense. First, a donor to charity may obviously receive a benefit ("value") from his donation in the form of "material goods." A donation to a medical charity, for example, may help fund the development of a cure for some disease that may one day save the donor's life. Second, he may receive a benefit from his donation of some kind other than "material goods." But most importantly, an increase in his taxes wouldn't necessarily provide him with any benefit, either as "material goods" or in some other form. Both taxes and voluntary donations may or may not produce benefits to the person who pays them, and those benefits may or may not include "material goods." It all depends on what the money is used for, and the circumstances of the payer.
but you do derive some utility from it, e.g., it makes you feel good about yourself.
And donating extra money to the government may obviously also "make you feel good about yourself," especially if the money is used for some purpose you support.
Seriously, Mixner, no one can read a book for you. You're going to have to do it yourself. I would suggest The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson. It's actually an easy read, though the ideas are somewhat subtle. Once you actually know what a collective action problem is, you will be able to be a participant in this conversation. Until then, you are just having a very strange conversation with yourself about ideas you don't understand, while imagining (incorrectly, in case that isn't clear) that you are responding to other people's arguments.
Expanding the example from my previous post, a person would derive utility of 1.5 from donating $1. This means that people can improve their utility from 1,000 to 1,001 by giving $2 to charity.
But, using your "example," people could improve their utility much more by acting collectively and each giving that $2 to the government. The utility cost of the donation is $2 each. But under your "each dollar spent on a public good provides 0.5 in utility for everyone" premise, each of them would receive a utility benefit of $10 ($2 * 10 * 0.5). So the net gain in utility for each person would be $8, and everyone's utility would increase from 1,000 to 1,008. Everyone's a winner! Even if just three of them got together and each donated $2 to the government, everyone's utility would increase. The three donors would each get an extra $1 in utility, and the rest would each get an extra $3 in utility. Again, everyone's a winner. So why aren't you arguing that people who think their taxes are too low should band together and send extra money to the government voluntarily? According to your own "example," it's irrational for them not to.
mattc,
I don't know who you think you're kidding. Chanting "The collective action problem! The collective action problem!" over and over again is not an argument.
The "arguments" you have made to try and excuse your failure to voluntarily pay the government the extra money you think you should be paying (that your individual payment would be meaninglessly small, and that you are not assured that anyone else would make a payment) are utterly specious. Both objections are rendered irrelevant if you band together with other people who also believe that their taxes are too low, and you all make one big collective payment to the government for the total amount of extra money you think you should be paying in taxes.
You know this, and you have no answer to it, so you just keep flailing around chanting "the collective action problem!" and hoping no one will notice that you don't have an actual argument to justify your rank hypocrisy.
Mixner: I agree that my assumptions are not realistic (in fact, I stated this explicitly in my post). I made up these numbers to give you a simple illustration of the collective action problem. However, this theory also holds under more realistic assumptions. If you insist, I can prove that it always holds as long as a dollar spent on a public good provides less utility to each person than a dollar spent on a private good (an assumption you will not argue with, I suppose).
Let's say that there are only two goods available in the market: private gardens and public parks (if you want to have an abstract proof: private goods and public goods), that each cost $p per square foot. At the margin, I derive x utility per square foot of garden, and y utility per square foot of park, with y
Mixner,
You seem to think little of the argument of your interlocutors, so I find it odd that you brushed me aside when I'm actually more sympathetic to your overall position than the last several posters you've responded to.
I happen to think your argument in this particular thread however, seeing how it was based on MM's, has been sloppy and hard to defend, but...
You seem to have latched onto to Dan Simon's question, which is a different one than the one this whole argument started with.
You were also resistant to the idea that Dan Simon's question made a difference in the argument, and you asserted that the lack of a large scale collective effort didn't stop liberals from donating more money, because they "can."
Of course no one denies that they "can" still give just their own personal money, but the point is that they're not inconsistent if they don't. Especially since the original argument MM put forward presumably applied to individuals. When it's applied to disassembled individuals, it makes no sense, particularly because Megan acknowledged early on that those who think their taxes are too low think that the government does not have enough money. If THAT'S the reason why they want their taxes increased, then they essentially want taxes on allot of other people increased as well, so that enough money can be raised to adequately (in their eyes) fund the government. And all by their lonesome, their own tax dollars are unlikely to make a difference.
So why don't you go ahead and acknowledge that Megan's original argument was either ill-conceived or poorly presented, and explicitly change the subject. I mean, you've changed the subject already, from MM's question to Dan Simon's, so let's just be explicit.
A token of good faith would be to acknowledge that as it was presented, Megan's argument was vulnerable to Henry Farrell's objection.
I'm not sure what the left-wing answer would be to Dan Simon's question, but so long as it's unclear as to whether you're arguing his point or Megan's, we'll never get an answer.
Laurens,
Large sums of money have been raised before without an enforcement mechanism, yes?
I would grant that having such a mechanism would be preferable to not having one, in the case of alleviating collective actions problems, but, in times when the GOP lowers taxes to the point that people on the left think that taxes are insufficiently high, then presumably they could organize and donate right?
It just seems like the large sums of money raised in areas without enforcement mechanisms causes one to think it's possible...or even likely that large sums of money could be raised through voluntary associations of large groups of people.
Jay J (and Mixner): I don't disagree with your assertion that it is possible for groups of people to come together and donate their money to a cause or the government. However, you must recognize that it is not rational for them to do so, unless they derive some utility from the act of donating or there is some enforcement mechanism.
As I have indicated, it is clear that some people derive utility from making donations, e.g. by feeling generous or by "donating" their way into certain social circles.
Enforcement mechanisms include the government, but also social pressure and similar "soft" enforcement.
For obvious reasons, it is very unlikely that donating to the government will ever be the charity of choice for a significant number of citizens.
Laurens,
Mixner: I agree that my assumptions are not realistic (in fact, I stated this explicitly in my post). I made up these numbers to give you a simple illustration of the collective action problem.
As I explained, under your own numbers, it is rational for people who think their taxes are too low to band together and voluntarily donate to the government the extra money they think they should be paying. Under your numbers, everyone would come out a winner if they did. So why aren't you encouraging them to do so?
I mention the collective action problem, because it is a very good explanation of why it is often difficult for people to "band together" and "make one big collective payment." It furthermore explains why someone may be unwilling to make a contribution to the public good without assurance that others will make such a contribution as well. It is an explanation that libertarians who actually have a sophisticated understanding of social and economic behavior, such as Will Wilkinson and Alex Tabarrok, understand and accept. It is not a trick invented by liberals to excuse their own hypocricy, but a genuine result derived from the assumption, that human beings are rational utility maximizers, that underlies all of modern economic theory.
I have not, by the way, made any attempt to excuse my hypocricy, because I have not actually comitted any of the acts of hypocricy you have accused me of. What act have you observed me comitting that evinces hypocricy?
Laurens,
Jay J (and Mixner): I don't disagree with your assertion that it is possible for groups of people to come together and donate their money to a cause or the government. However, you must recognize that it is not rational for them to do so, unless they derive some utility from the act of donating or there is some enforcement mechanism.
Also false. Under your own "example" it is rational for them to come together and voluntarily donate money to the goverment, and irrational for them not to do so. If they do donate the money, everyone comes out ahead, including the donors themselves. If they don't, no one comes out ahead.
Hi Laurens,
I appreciate the reply. First, I just want to make clear that much of what Mixner has been arguing in this thread is bunk, IMHO.
I just don't see why Dan Simon's question, now picked up by Mixner, is still vulnerable to Henry Farrell's objection.
I mean, presumable there are things that the government can do that other entities will have a hard time doing right?
If so, why can't people donate (large groups of organizationally assembled people that is) to the government the way they do to charity.
I see that charity carries some intangible benefit, but we're granting in the argument that some people think the government needs more money.
I see that unassembled individuals who think that the government needs more money aren't irrational for failing to make a donation as an individual, without knowing who else is making the donation.
But if there are people who think that taxes should be higher so that government would then have an adequate amount of money, and since large sums of money have been raised in the past without enforcement mechanisms, presumably this could happen with government.
I just don't see what's left out when the argument is presented that way (which is much different than it was presented originally, BTW).
Mixner wrote: More irrelevance.
That would have been a good place to stop, since it constitutes the bulk of substance in your arguments so far. Perhaps we shall meet again after you have read a few more books on the topics you enjoy debating.
mattc,
I mention the collective action problem, because it is a very good explanation of why it is often difficult for people to "band together" and "make one big collective payment." It furthermore explains why someone may be unwilling to make a contribution to the public good without assurance that others will make such a contribution as well.
You're repeating the same nonsense I have already rebutted. There is nothing preventing you from organizing a "My Taxes Are Too Low!" party, or from encouraging others to do so, or from participating in such an event, in order to collect donations from people who share your belief that their taxes are too low, and then send those donations to the government. The only thing that's stopping you is your hypocrisy.
I guess I'm just going to have to second anony-mouse, then.
Mattc,
and whoever else is arguing with Mixner,
please don't associate me with his dismissive ignorance. I understand why MM's argument, as originally stated, fails.
But people ban together all the time right?
People have raised large sums of money before, without enforcement mechanisms. I understand there are some theoretical problems with this, since people can't be sure others will give without an enforcement mechanism.
But if it's happened in practice, we shouldn't let the theory stop us right?
The lack of enforcement mechanisms doesn't stop large amounts of money from being raised in other areas, so if there are people who think the government needs more money, presumably it could work there too, right?
Mixner: I agree that, under certain circumstances, it can be rational for people to come together and agree to donate money to the government. However, it is also rational for each of them to back out of the agreement once the others have done the actual donating.
(this is similar to the prisoners' dilemma: it is rational for the suspects to agree in advance not to betray each other; but it is equally rational for them to betray each other once they are actually questioned).
Jay J: Why would I donate to the government, if I could use the same money to donate to a charity of my choice? Suppose that I believe that taxes should be higher, so that the government could build more schools. Why would I organize people to donate to the government, if I could just as well organize people to donate directly to a charity that builds schools?
(in more abstract terms: If government has to compete with charities for donations, the charities will always win because they are more focused).
Jay,
I see that unassembled individuals who think that the government needs more money aren't irrational for failing to make a donation as an individual, without knowing who else is making the donation.
They are unless they would also refuse to donate to a charity without "knowing" who else is making a donation. They are unless would also refuse to vote without "knowing" who else is voting. They are unless they would also refuse to buy a hybrid car without "knowing" who else is buying one. These are all examples of acts by individuals in which the individual act itself contributes only a very small amount to the intended goal, in which there is no assurance that the intended goal will be reached, and in which the actors have no way of knowing how many others will act in the same way. And yet Americans engage in millions of such acts every year, from writing a small check to a charity to voting for a blue candidate in a red state. You're simply trying to make excuses for hypocrisy.
In any case, as several people have patiently explained to you, to the extent that this objection has any merit at all, it is addressed by the fact that individuals can band together and act collectively to donate money. It would be trivial for people who think their taxes are too low to found a new "charity" or non-profit organization whose purpose was to collect donations in lieu of higher taxes and forward those donations to the government. The organization could obviously make its accounting publicly available, so no potential contributor need fear that he would be "the only one" contributing.
Mixner: I agree that, under certain circumstances, it can be rational for people to come together and agree to donate money to the government.
As I have already explained, your own "example" supports the rationality of people coming together and donating money to the government. Under your "example," it would be irrational for them not to do so.
However, it is also rational for each of them to back out of the agreement once the others have done the actual donating.
I don't understand this at all. Exactly what is "backing out of the agreement" supposed to mean? Once they've donated the money, that's it. They can no more "back out" of it than if they had donated the money to some other charity or non-profit organization instead of to the "My Taxes Are Too Low!" charity.
Laurens,
Why would I donate to the government, if I could use the same money to donate to a charity of my choice? Suppose that I believe that taxes should be higher, so that the government could build more schools. Why would I organize people to donate to the government, if I could just as well organize people to donate directly to a charity that builds schools?
Presumably, because you think the government would do a better job at building schools than a charity. If you don't believe that, why are you trying to raise your taxes so the government can get additional money from you to build more schools instead of just giving the money to a charity instead?
Mixner: "backing out of the agreement" means that my friends and I come together and agree to each give $1,000 to the government. The next day, we all go to the bank; my friends each give $1,000. I have been standing at the end of the line and now it's my turn. Question: do I still give $1,000 or not? If I am rational, I don't. Now, you will say, But your friends will make you! But this is exactly what I meant with an enforcement mechanism. Without an enforcement mechanism, there is no reason for me to give any money to the government.
The difference with giving to charity: making a donation to charity makes me happy. Making a donation to the government does not.
Laurens,
Your answer makes sense, but I was assuming that people on the left who think that the government needs more money to do x, y, or z, think that government does certain things better, or that certain functions are the proper province of the government.
If a charity is more focused, then why is their EVER a good reason for government to be the preferred instrument of schooling, welfare, etc?
Laurens,
Mixner: "backing out of the agreement" means that my friends and I come together and agree to each give $1,000 to the government. The next day, we all go to the bank; my friends each give $1,000. I have been standing at the end of the line and now it's my turn. Question: do I still give $1,000 or not? If I am rational, I don't.
Huh? You're contradicting your own "example." The more people who contribute, the greater the benefit to all. By your own earlier argument, if you're "rational" you'll give the $1,000.
Your "examples" seem to be getting more and more detached from reality. If the con game you describe above really were "rational," and people acted in accordance with this conception of "rational" behavior, then charities wouldn't work. Everyone would be trying to con their friends into donating, so they could "back out of the agreement," and no one would actually donate anything. Obviously, this isn't how people actually behave in the real world.
If each A'an gives $2 to the government, $20 would be spent on public goods, providing 10 utility for everyone.
Laurens, this is a good description of government spending on defense - including a 50% waste of the funding. (I've served in the military and worked for a defense contractor, and about 50% wastage is the best you can hope for). That's because a well-defended country is a public good enjoyed by every resident equally. (And anything that provides it will be indistinguishable from "government".)
But nowadays most government spending is on things that only part of the people use, or that you only use part of. E.g., we all use the roads (even shut-ins benefit from the road that lets the delivery service get to their house), but no one uses all the roads, so no one is getting 100% of the benefit of road building. I think it's still a net benefit to most of us, but roads are a very tiny portion of the overall budget.
OTOH, there are many programs that only benefit a small part of the population. Not to pick particularly on welfare, but it's in this class, and it doesn't require a long explanation. To most of us, it's just a dead loss. Even for those receiving it, it's questionable whether it is beneficial in the long run - I've known several families living on it over the years, and it encourages behavior that keeps them poor and dependent. It's only clearly good for the few who are truly to disabled to be self-supporting, and for the social workers and bureaucrats that get a secure job lording it over others.
Lauren, how do you justify forcing others to contribute to that?
Jay J, Mixner: We are now back at square one. Please see my posts of 1:47 AM and 6:36 PM for the reason why taxes can be superior to charitable donations to ensure the production of public goods.
Mixner: Your last post clearly illustrates the collective action problem. Yes, everyone would be better off if we all donated. But I would be better off if everyone but me donated. I have explained at length why this problem doesn't apply to charity -- see my posts of 4:39 PM and 6:59 PM.
Mixner, once again, if your objection is to the fact that taxes are compulsory, then any conversation about taxation is about "forcing other people" to do something. If I say we should eliminate sales taxes, and you say no, then it's not that you think you ought to be paying sales taxes; you think everyone else should be paying sales taxes. If I say we should eliminate the income tax, and you say, no, that wouldn't be wise, then it's not that you think you should pay income tax; you think everyone else should pay income tax. Indeed, I believe I've seen you argue for a national sales tax. Clearly, you don't actually think you should pay tax on the things you buy, since nothing is preventing you from sending 5% to the USG every time you buy something; no, you think everyone else should have to. And I think you're also in favor of a carbon tax. Once again, you obviously don't believe you should have to pay it, since nothing is preventing you from sending an extra dollar to Uncle Sam every time you buy a gallon of gas; instead, you think everyone else should have to pay a carbon tax.
You have already repeatedly refused to understand what's boneheaded about this argument, and I believe you've now dug yourself so deep that you're unlikely to concede that the hole wasn't such a good idea in the first place, but one can always hope.
a well-defended country is a public good enjoyed by every resident equally
Yeah. David Rockefeller, who owns half of Manhattan, and Bud McAllister, who rents a room in an SRO in Flatbush, profit equally from the fact that their country is well defended from Mexican invasion.
I guess you could make the argument that 90% of the benefits of defense spending are shared equally by all Americans, in the sense that 90% of defense spending is completely worthless and thus brings no benefit to anyone.
Laurens,
Please see my posts of 1:47 AM and 6:36 PM for the reason why taxes can be superior to charitable donations to ensure the production of public goods.
That's not the issue. Yes, taxes can be superior. It's possible. But the question is why people who think their taxes are too low shouldn't send the extra money they think they owe the government as a voluntary donation. Since you've already agreed that under "certain circumstances" (that you have not described) "it can be rational for people to come together and agree to donate money to the government," I'm not sure what relevance you think this "taxes can be superior" assertion has to the point.
Mixner: Your last post clearly illustrates the collective action problem. Yes, everyone would be better off if we all donated. But I would be better off if everyone but me donated.
I seem to have to keep repeating everything I've already explained to you. If everyone would be better off if everyone but themselves donated, then charities wouldn't work, because everyone would be trying to con everyone else into donating instead of donating themselves. Your conceptions of the meaning of "utility," being "better off" and acting "rationally" obviously aren't consistent with real-world human values and behavior. The free-rider problem is pervasive in our society, but it doesn't stop people from engaging in all sorts of voluntary acts from which others get a "free ride," from paying extra for a hybrid car to sending money to NPR. The free-rider problem isn't an argument against making a donation to the government in lieu of higher taxes any more than it's an argument against sending money to a charity that builds homeless shelters or funds research into a cure for breast cancer.
Laurens,
I really do think I understand your argument.
The problem I'm having is that the possibility of others backing out seems to be present in non-profit giving as well, and yet, Barack Obama's campaign can raise $32 Millions in one month.
I understand that you get a good feeling from giving to charity that isn't there when you give to the government.
But if the hypothetical people we're talking about think, as a moral matter, that the federal government should have more money, why should they assume that the collective action problem is an insurmountable barrier when it doesn't seem to be for Barack Obama and many charities get many more donations than any "tax-me-more" fund?
I read the posts you said I should, and perhaps I'm missing something, but the only thing which seemed to answer my question was the thing about enforcement mechanisms.
The problem is, charities don't have enforcement mechanisms either, but some of them rake in allot of money in donations.
If the reply is that people get a good feeling from donating to charities but not to governments, then whoever these people are, they don't seem to be like our hypothetical people we started with, which are people who think that the government needs more money to do its thing, and that this is a moral imperative. Presumably taking action to alleviate injustice should carry the same emotional payoff, whether it was done to alleviate the injustice of the government not having enough money to do their jobs, or some other injustice remedied through a non-profit.
brooksfoe,
Mixner, once again, if your objection is to the fact that taxes are compulsory, then any conversation about taxation is about "forcing other people" to do something.
Of course. Were you seriously under the impression that I don't believe taxes are compulsory? I'm still mystified by your bizarre claim that "the compulsory nature of taxes is neither here nor there." If the compulsory nature of taxes is "neither here nor there," why not use a non-compulsory funding mechanism instead?
If I say we should eliminate sales taxes, and you say no, then it's not that you think you ought to be paying sales taxes; you think everyone else should be paying sales taxes. If I say we should eliminate the income tax, and you say, no, that wouldn't be wise, then it's not that you think you should pay income tax; you think everyone else should pay income tax.
No, I think I and everyone else should be paying sales and income taxes. I have no idea why you think I think I should be exempt from those taxes. But then, that weird diatribe in your last post tells that you have some very strange ideas about what I believe.
Indeed, I believe I've seen you argue for a national sales tax.
I don't recall ever arguing for a national sales tax, although I'm not opposed to it on principle.
Clearly, you don't actually think you should pay tax on the things you buy, since nothing is preventing you from sending 5% to the USG every time you buy something; no, you think everyone else should have to.
You're really outdoing yourself in incoherence this time, brooks. Perhaps you could explain how you think your conclusion that I don't think I should pay taxes on the things I buy (by which I assume you mean sales tax) follows from your premise that nothing is preventing me sending money to the federal government every time I buy something (whether it's 5% of the price, or any other figure). Your statements just get more and more bizarre.
The problem I'm having is that the possibility of others backing out seems to be present in non-profit giving as well, and yet, Barack Obama's campaign can raise $32 Millions in one month.
The problem Laurens is trying to describe with this "backing out" business is generally referred to as the "free-rider problem." The basic idea is that unless we force everyone to pay their "fair" share for a public good such as helping the poor, funding medical research, cleaning up the environment, or whaetver else it may be, some people will get a "free ride" on the backs of others. Some people will pay less than their "fair" share, and others more. Dan Simon mentioned a classic example: public broadcasting. I think I read that NPR estimates that for every listener who makes a donation, there are 10 who don't. All those non-donating leeches are getting a "free ride" from the kind souls who send in their checks during pledge week.
The point is that "free riding" is already pervasive in all public goods we fund through voluntary mechanisms. It doesn't mean we should stop providing those public goods, or stop funding them voluntarily. And it doesn't mean people who think their taxes are too low should fail to voluntarily increase their funding of the government, either. Yes, some people will get a free ride at their expense, but so what? The same is true every time they send a check to NPR or Planned Parenthood or the ACLU or the Red Cross or whatever other charities and non-profits they support.
Mixner,
Yea I see Laurens' point. But it doesn't seem to prevent large sums of money being raised in circumstances without enforcement mechanisms. If the concern is that others won't pay, and then the government won't have enough money, and the person would have been better off using their money on something else, then large scale action would seem to remedy that. The free rider thing seems to be less of a concern than the possibility that one's money will be wasted since others won't give that much. If it's only a free rider thing, then that sounds like, well, not that important to me.
And I still believe that if someone thinks their taxes are too low, and the explanation for that, as Megan gave, is that they wish for the government to have more money to do what it needs to do, then these people aren't rationally obligated to, like, arbitrarily send their money in, since that probably won't alleviate the perceived problem, which is why they wanted their taxes to be higher to being with.
The question of why people who feel this way don't ban together and start large scale pledge drives is a different one, and I don't thing saying "The money might not be raised" is a good argument. I certainly don't think concerns about free riders is a good response. And if people get a better feeling donating to charity than government, then they don't seem to be the people we started otu considering, who happen to believe, quite specifically, that they government lacks to resources to carry out its duties, which include protecting us from attack, educating our children, funding college for those who can't afford it, etc.
Those are seen as moral imperatives by many of the left, so why wouldn't donating to that give you the warms fuzzies too?
I don't think I can keep up with the thread any more.
But let me take a stab at a solution:
MM's original argument was silly. Dan Simon came along and refined it, which made for a better discussion.
The arguments that "warm fuzzies" are relevant at all isn't persuasive, since our hypothetical people see the government's coffers as a moral matter, so giving to the government ought to give them the warm fuzzies too.
If the response is that one's charitable donations go directly to something you want, and that you don't have to worry about it, and that government may squander it, well that does seem to fall right into the Libertarian argument since that's why so many of them don't like taxes.
So we're clear, we're no longer talking about why unassembled individuals should just arbitrarily giver more money to the government, which seems to be what the silly argument was at the beginning.
No, now we're talking about why liberals don't ban together and donate money to the government. The problem of people backing out is present in giving to charity as well, but this generally doesn't stop anyone from giving.
Once again, the fact that people derive a good feeling out of giving to charity doesn't seem relevant because the hypothetical people we started with ought to get warm fuzzies from giving to the government as well (in large assembled groups that is) since this is, after all, a moral matter.
So there's been some superfluous stuff on both sides, and the original argument was so sloppy as to have caused some confusion.
But after trying to cut down some of the weeds, I think 'Laurens et all' have won the debate. Here's why:
It's true that IF leftists could ban together and significantly increase the amount of money the government had to carry out it's duties, and that this activity would be just as (or more) efficient than giving to an already established charity, then liberals who felt that the government had insufficient funds to carry out its duties, and that it was a moral imperative that this change, would be inconsistent if they failed to ban together in mass and donate more money to the government.
The problem is, it's NOT as efficient. From the perspective of the leftist, times when centrist Democrats or particularly times when Republicans are in charge, can be seen as the "lean years."
During that time, a leftist has a choice between giving to already-banned-together charities, (with an already proven track record of fund-raising), and giving to candidates who share their view of government, or spending time and resources trying to organize people together to form some sort of large organization which could collect funds to give directly to the government.
True enough, with an enforcement mechanism, more money would be raised, (rather than voluntary funds) so it is more efficient for a leftist to give money to charities which build schools, feed the homeless, put on talk radio, etc, and try to get left-democrats elected. There's really no way for someone to come along and say that a leftist's time would be more rationally spent by trying to donate to government, since it may be better for the groups the leftist is trying help, if the leftist instead spends his/her time just giving to charity and trying to get leftists back in charge of government so enforcement mechanisms (and all the benefits that come with them) can be used again.
Donating to a favorite charity and donating to people who would put tax levels back where you want them (using enforcement mechanisms) certainly seems like a more efficient and rational way to spend your time, as opposed to trying to create some organization large enough to make a real difference to the government's finances.
BTW, the argument started out in a round about way, seeming to talk about leftists, so that's the language I used. And I also thought it would make my posts more real-world or understandable with that type of language.
But I realize that the same logic applies to anyone who feels like our government has insufficient funds, say, like someone who thinks we need more money to fight terror or a minimal-stater in a third world country who wants better roads and enforcement of property rights, etc.
I realize that leftists aren't the only ones subject to criticism over coercive enforcement. The anarchists are the only ones who avoid this critique completely, but they are of course, vulnerable to one or two other critiques, but that's for another day.
1) Just because some revenue is attributed to the "Tax Me More" fund does not mean that there is a fund separate from the General Fund from which government spending is taken. In fact, this is the way much of public and private accounting generally works. The Feds are keeping track of our Social Security and Medicare payments, but the money is still lumped with the General Fund. Don't confuse revenue accounting buckets with spending buckets. Indeed, it is VERY rare for government to actually split spending out. I was personally impressed to learn that my new home is located in a county that actually keeps proffered money for roads in a fund for building roads!
2) It would not be difficult to actually split out revenue and payables according to people's personal preferences. A few more keystrokes in processing, but it could be done. Taxpayers could allocates their remittances to the Feds the same way they allocate their 401(k) contributions. Liberals could be comforted knowing that their taxes are paying for social spending, and conservatives could take comfort in knowing they are paying for national defense. Now, that would be interesting!
Perhaps you could explain how you think your conclusion that I don't think I should pay taxes on the things I buy (by which I assume you mean sales tax) follows from your premise that nothing is preventing me sending money to the federal government every time I buy something (whether it's 5% of the price, or any other figure).
Mixner, this is Megan's argument! What she initially stated was that the fact that people are not availing themselves of the opportunity to send extra money to the government proves that they don't think taxes should be higher; to the extent they say they think so, they only think taxes on other people should be higher, not on themselves. This is precisely analogous to saying that if you do not now voluntarily send a percentage of the price to the federal government every time you purchase something, you are not actually in favor of a national sales tax that would include you, only one that would tax other people; or that if you do not now voluntarily send money to the government every time you use a carbon-based fuel source, you are not actually in favor of a national carbon tax, but only a carbon tax on other people.
I agree that this is a completely absurd argument. If you too think it's absurd, then you disagree with Megan's initial premise.
Christina: you're right, that would indeed be interesting. One of two things would happen. Either the Defense Department and every other branch of government would be slashed to a fraction of its current size and be rendered incapable of undertaking projects with timelines longer than 3 years, due to revenue uncertainty, much like the charitable sector today; or the federal government would deposit receipts into trusts for the voter-allocated goals, then use those trusts as collateral and borrow all the money needed to fund the yearly budget, which it would apportion however it wanted to, using some bookkeeping mechanism to claim that tax revenues were being used for their intended purposes when in fact they were simply being used to pay down a "deficit" which now comprised 100% of the annual budget.
Finally, Jay J is right:
Donating to a favorite charity and donating to people who would put tax levels back where you want them (using enforcement mechanisms) certainly seems like a more efficient and rational way to spend your time, as opposed to trying to create some organization large enough to make a real difference to the government's finances. - Jay J
...but it's necessary to add that when one of Democrats' primary concerns is the structural budget deficit of the federal government, the argument that those who care should simply band together and contribute more money has a basic moral asymmetry, because the cause is precisely that of paying back the money borrowed in our name by the government we all freely elected. This isn't a "free rider" problem; it's a "welcher" problem. We all sat down to dinner together; I ordered the Medicare, you ordered the Iraq invasion; the bill is $60 a head, but you say you're only willing to pay $45. Okay, then, I'm only putting in $45, and not a penny more. When I say we should each be paying $60, but until you agree to pay your share I'm only paying $45, I'm not being hypocritical. I'm just refusing to be your chump.
Brooksfoe,
I'm sure you can guess which outcome I would prefer! Of course, most people, when confronted with such a task as allocating their tax dollars among the myriad of government programs would prefer something akin to the funds developed for targeted retirement dates. So you could have a Democrat allocation, a Republican allocation, and maybe Green and Libertarian allocations, as well as the Standard allocation that would leave the current practice intact, for those who would prefer to let the government decide how best to use their tax dollars.
The best way to proceed with such a plan would be to return to pay-go, because that would be the only way to truly test how much people actually support most programs. The mechanics of subsidizing special interests would be be more difficult because lobbyists would have to make sure that they have support among the general populace, not just a few powerful lawmakers. It would be a fascinating experiment.
1) Every year, every Federal agency submits a budget authorization request specifying their funding needs for the coming year. These agency requests are aggregated into departmental budget authorization bills that are submitted to Congress; those departmental authorization bills are the ones we hear about Congress wrangling over every year.
2) Congress adds "earmarks" to these authorization bills to fund pet projects for their home districts (and to please major fundraisers and lobbyists).
3) New legislation enacting new government programs must assign budget authority to finance the expenses of those programs.
4) Spending also must be specifically authorized to expand existing programs if such expansion is deemed desirable.
In each case, while budget authority may come from a "general fund" or other amorphous bucket of tax dollars, I think it is clear that in fact government spending is very much "split out." Congress does not simply raise taxes on a whim, just to have a big pool of money sitting around in case they might someday think about spending it on something (I'm not aware of any Federal "rainy-day" funds, though many States do have such funds). Taxes are raised to accomplish specified spending priorities, certainly at least initially.
----------------------------------
I missed out on replying to Dan Simon, which is too bad; I hate to miss out on a chance to add my brickbat to the fray (and I confess some degree of schadenfreude seeing Mixner get taken to the woodshed by squeak). Dan's point is well-stated, but my argument remains the same. Let's say I wanted to implement a massive program on same scale as Medicare (say $300 billion/year). In order to fund this through individual contributions, assuming 200 million willing donors, each would have to pony up $1500 to finance my program. This is over and above what they are already paying in taxes, remember.
Let's say my program only appeals to registered Democrats. That's 72 million people, each of whom would have to contribute $4167 to fund this one program; a program that not only would benefit them, but Republicans (who would refuse to pay in) and everyone else as well.
As we go on down the line, it becomes more and more impractical to fund my program through voluntary contributions (it's going to be pretty hard to round up 300,000 people to each kick in $1 million). So by insisting that programs be funded by voluntary contributions instead of taxes, you're basically condemning any expensive project that does not have obvious broad appeal to failure no matter how ultimately beneficial to society that program would be. Instead of having to persuade 270 people that the program is worthwhile (218 Congressmen, 51 Senators, and the President), one has to convince thousands or tens of thousands. Or tens of millions. I can see how a Libertarian would see this as a feature, not a bug, but to me it seems no way to run a society.
That's the reason it's silly to demand that people who want expanded government services should simply donate extra money to the government. The amount I would feel comfortable donating to charity on a whim (say $50) is nowhere near the amount required to finance any worthwhile program. A truly beneficial program would require hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to implement; a small group simply cannot collect that kind of money. It must be done through increased taxation on the people best able to afford it. I'm not saying I won't contribute; I absolutely will. But only when I know that EVERYONE is going to contribute, thus guaranteeing adequate financing. Government is the only institution that can enforce such a thing.
I want to make another point here. There's been a lot of indignation from people about those evil, nasty liberals who only want to increase other people's taxes, not their own. Big hypocrite liberals, so eager to have others pay for their pet projects! Left out of that accusation is the fact that the highest marginal tax rates have been dramatically slashed over the past 30 years or so. Liberals like myself feel that regardless of the notional economic benefits of allowing the wealthy and successful to keep more of their earnings, morally (or "normatively" in Megan's parlance) this has been a fundamentally unfair development. There's quite a bit of room for marginal tax rates to go back up, in the name of recapturing some of that revenue for the general benefit of society. I'm sure we'll disagree on the economic desirability of raising the top marginal tax rates (and re-establishing more brackets at the higher end of the scale), but a lot of our eagerness to raise taxes on the wealthy is knowledge (or at least the perception) of how they have been reduced so much from where they were in the past.
Jay,
And I still believe that if someone thinks their taxes are too low, and the explanation for that, as Megan gave, is that they wish for the government to have more money to do what it needs to do, then these people aren't rationally obligated to, like, arbitrarily send their money in, since that probably won't alleviate the perceived problem, which is why they wanted their taxes to be higher to being with.
How do you know that it "probably won't alleviate the perceived problem?" If you send $25 to NPR, that "alleviates the problem" of keeping NPR on the air. If you send $25 to Planned Parenthood, that "alleviates the problem" of unplanned parenthood. If you send $25 to the Red Cross, that "alleviates the problem" of humanitarian need. And if you send $25 to the government, that "alleviates the problems" that the government addresses by spending its revenues. Yes, in each case your individual donation is a tiny fraction of the total amount of money spent to "alleviate the problem," but that obviously doesn't mean your donation has no effect at all.
You seem to have argued yourself into anonymouse's bizarre position that small donations to large funds are too small to be meaningful and therefore irrational. If people followed your advice, charities and non-profits would lose most of their income, since they really on precisely the kind of small donations that you say are irrational.
Another illustration of this is voting. According to you, voting is irrational, because any one person's vote is very unlikely to decide the outcome of an election. Why take the time and effort to vote if your vote is very unlikely to make a difference to the outcome of the election? Again, if everyone followed your advice, democracy would be impossible, because it relies on people enaging in the very type of act you claim is irrational.
liberalrob,
That's the reason it's silly to demand that people who want expanded government services should simply donate extra money to the government. The amount I would feel comfortable donating to charity on a whim (say $50) is nowhere near the amount required to finance any worthwhile program. A truly beneficial program would require hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to implement; a small group simply cannot collect that kind of money. It must be done through increased taxation on the people best able to afford it.
This is just utter nonsense. Numerous charities also have budgets in the millions or billions of dollars. The United Way's budget is almost $4 billion. The American Red Cross's budget is over $3 billion. The American Cancer Society's budget is almost $1 billion. Most of this money is raised through voluntary donations from individuals. It is obviously not necessary for your individual donation to cover the entire budget of either a government program or a charity in order to be beneficial. Your donation is a small contribution to the budget, whether you give it to the government or to a charity. It is obviously not necessary to impose taxes in order to raise sums of money in the millions and billions of dollars. And the millions or billions of dollars that people who think their taxes are too low should be sending to the government as voluntary donations could be used to fund all sorts of new government programs, or could be added to the budgets of existing programs to enhance their benefits.
Mixner: Are you seriously arguing that charitable donations are rational in a strict sense of profit maximalization? Because that would be wrong.
Let's say I give $100 to NPR each year, because I enjoy their programming. If I stopped doing so, NPR would still continue in exactly the same way. I will still be able to enjoy the same programming and now have $100 in my pocket to enjoy a fancy dinner. Hence, it is rational for me to stop donating.
Now let's say I actually gave $1,000,000 to NPR each year. Stopping this donation might make a difference in their programming, but the difference will not be worth $1,000,000 to me, since I can use this money to buy much more enjoyment (like, say, a home cinema with enough DVD's to last the entire year). Hence, it is rational for me to stop donating.
So why do people donate to charity at all? The most convincing explanation to me is that the donating itself has some intrinsic value, i.e. I feel good about being the sort of person who gives money to NPR. As I explained before, it is unlikely that donating to the government has a lower intrinsic value (if any) than donating to charity.
If you disagree with any of this, please indicate which part, because I feel like we are arguing in circles.
Laurens,
Mixner: Are you seriously arguing that charitable donations are rational in a strict sense of profit maximalization?
Unless you explain what you mean by "a strict sense of profits maximalization," I have no idea. Whose "profit?" Charities aren't in the business of making profits.
Let's say I give $100 to NPR each year, because I enjoy their programming. If I stopped doing so, NPR would still continue in exactly the same way. I will still be able to enjoy the same programming and now have $100 in my pocket to enjoy a fancy dinner. Hence, it is rational for me to stop donating.
So why aren't you urging everyone to stop donating to NPR? And to stop donating to every other charity or non-profit? According to you, their act of donating is irrational. Ditto for voting. Since any one person's vote is very, very unlikely to make a difference to the outcome of the election, by your argument it is irrational for them to invest the time and effort to vote. So why aren't you urging people to stop voting?
So why do people donate to charity at all? The most convincing explanation to me is that the donating itself has some intrinsic value, i.e. I feel good about being the sort of person who gives money to NPR.
Why would they feel good simply about "being the sort of person who gives money to NPR?" What "sort of person" is that? Why isn't it also the "sort of person" who would feel good about giving extra money to the government in lieu of the higher taxes they think they ought to be paying?
Mixner: I believe you have said that you donate money to NPR (or some other charity). What do you think NPR would do without your donations? If your answer is, They would not feel the difference, then your donation is irrational (in the sense of strict profits maximalization). You could have saved $10 by donating $10 less.
So the question becomes, Why do you donate to NPR?
Laurens,
I don't believe my donation to NPR is irrational because I don't accept your criteria of rational action.
The question is, since you believe it's irrational for people to donate to NPR, and that it's irrational for them to donate to any other charity or non-profit organization, why aren't you urging them to stop donating? And since voting also fails your test of rational behavior, why aren't you urging people to stop voting?
Mixner: My definition of rationality is the definition of rationality in economics. I am of course willing to accept an alternative definition, but you'll of course have to propose one. Saying that your definition of rationality allows you to rationally donate to NPR is a meaningless statement if it's not backed up by a definition of rationality.
Re: your second point, I have explained several times why people donate to charity, or vote: because it makes them feel good.
Laurens,
Mixner: My definition of rationality is the definition of rationality in economics.
What definition is that? State the definition.
Re: your second point, I have explained several times why people donate to charity, or vote: because it makes them feel good.
I didn't ask you why you think they do it. I asked you why you're not discouraging them from doing it, since you think the behavior is irrational.
I also asked you why you think that, if it "makes them feel good" to engage in these allegedly irrational behaviors of voting and donating to charity, it would not also "make them feel good" to engage in the allegedly irrational behavior of giving extra money to the government in lieu of the higher taxes they think they should be charged.
What are your answers to these questions?
Mixner:
(1) This discussion would be easier if you weren't (pretending to be) unaware of basic concepts of economics. Profit maximalization basically implies that rational actors try to maximalize their wealth.
(2) I don't discourage people from donating or voting precisely because it makes them feel good, which is another way of saying it improves their utility. I'm not sure why this is controversial -- people derive utility from irrational acts all the time.
(3) Now, the final (?) remaining point seems to be: If donating to charity makes people happy, why doesn't donating to the government? It's quite simple really: say you want to get rid of some money you have lying around, and you can either donate it to the government or to charity. Most people would give it to a specific charity, because the good feeling they get from donating is related to the purpose their donation is used for. A donation to a charity more directly advances this purpose than a donation to the government.
Mixner, as Megan said in a recent post,
the pool is just too big for your money to make that much of a difference.
However if you know of an already established charity, and you know of political candidates who pledge to put tax rates at where you like them, then one can conceivably do just as good or better following that route rather than spending their time trying to organize groups of people large enough to make a difference to the government's finances.
This is a problem for Megan's argument, since if there is another way (or even a more effective way) to achieve your goals than banning together and giving more money to the government, then no one is under any rational obligation to actually spend time doing what you and Dan Simon suggest.
CAN they do it? Sure. But no one is made inconsistent, necessarily, for not doing it.
BTW, I never said voting was irrational. Things can be rational for varying reasons, FYI.
Megan's claim is the one we should focus on, which is that people who want higher taxes are under moral obligation to send more money to the government.
If another way is available, that is not obviously less efficient, then Megan's claim is unwarranted.
Do you seriously not realize this? I mean, are you just being stubborn now?
Leftists don't have to PREFER charities to the government, but in times when they feel that taxes are too low, their time may be more rationally spent by contributing to ALREADY ESTABLISHED charities and trying to get more leftists back in power, so they can use the might enforcement mechanisms.
Jay,
(1) This discussion would be easier if you weren't (pretending to be) unaware of basic concepts of economics. Profit maximalization basically implies that rational actors try to maximalize their wealth.
No, rational choice theory does not hold that actors will act to "maximalize" either "wealth" or "profit." What they seek to maximize (not "maximalize") is utility or benefit. If you knew a bit more about economics, perhaps you would be able to express yourself more clearly, and wouldn't keep confusing terms with very different meanings.
(2) I don't discourage people from donating or voting precisely because it makes them feel good, which is another way of saying it improves their utility. I'm not sure why this is controversial -- people derive utility from irrational acts all the time.
If the act increases the actor's utility, by "making him feel good" or in any other way, even if it also causes him a monetary loss, it's not irrational, because rationality is defined in terms of utility, not merely monetary wealth. Again, you and Laurens seem very confused about the meaning of "rationality" in this context.
(3) Now, the final (?) remaining point seems to be: If donating to charity makes people happy, why doesn't donating to the government? It's quite simple really: say you want to get rid of some money you have lying around, and you can either donate it to the government or to charity. Most people would give it to a specific charity, because the good feeling they get from donating is related to the purpose their donation is used for. A donation to a charity more directly advances this purpose than a donation to the government.
Then again, if they think their money would "more directly advance" their purpose if given to a charity than to the government, why do they think they should be paying more to the government in the first place, instead of donating the money to a charity instead? You can't have it both ways. Either they think the money would be better used by the government, or they don't. If they do think that, they should send it to the government. If they don't think it, they shouldn't be complaining that their taxes are too low.
Mixner: The post you were responding to was mine.
(1) and (2): We are apparently in agreement now (note that I distinguished utility from profit maximization -- I apologize for the spelling error). This means that we also agree that donating to the government is irrational, unless it makes you feel good.
(3) People who support higher taxes do not have to make the choice between an equal amount of government spending or charity spending. I support higher taxes because I believe that $1,000,000 for the government (of which I pay $100) is better than $100 for charity (of which I pay $100). This is exactly the difference between donations and taxes.
Laurens,
(1) and (2): We are apparently in agreement now (note that I distinguished utility from profit maximization -- I apologize for the spelling error).
So you're now retracting your earlier claim that voting, and donating money to NPR, are irrational acts? Make up your mind.
This means that we also agree that donating to the government is irrational, unless it makes you feel good.
You have a strange habit of attributing to me positions that are the exact opposite of what I have said. No, I do not agree that "donating to the government is irrational, unless it makes you feel good." The claim is absurd. Obviously, donating money to the government could be rational because it helps to solve a problem, just as donating money to charity could be rational for that reason.
You still haven't explained why donating to the government would not be justified by this benefit, or why the donor would not "feel good" from donating money to the government to solve a problem if he "feels good" from donating money to charity to solve a problem.