To pick one specific realm: anywhere from 0% to 100% of a person’s income could be allocated for redistribution to even things out.
For me, it is also important to know how exactly that money will be used. I wouldn’t mind paying 50% or more of my income if I believed that they will be used for causes I consider good (if their use resembled my extrapolated volition). In a perfect situation, it would be equivalent to me and every other member of society giving half of their income to the best causes, except that each of us does not have to do the related research alone.
On the other hand, if I believe that the money is wasted, then even 10% of my income would be too much. Money can be wasted by stealing, by spending on projects that rationally don’t make sense, and even worse, by spending on actively harmful projects. In my opinion my country is probably more close to this end of the scale, so paying 50% of my income (tax + mandatory insurance) is rather painful.
So the position from 0% to 100% does not reflect the most important parts. In a rational society I would be willing to give up more, and on the other hand I think a rational society would either cost less, or it would accomplish much better projects.
Without information how exactly the money will be use, one can consistently argue only for 0% or 100%, because those extremes do not depend on details. But for me, those details are very important.
Without information how exactly the money will be use, one can consistently argue only for 0% or 100%, because those extremes do not depend on details.
Even if I’m uncertain about how the money would be used, my expected utility as a function of redistribution could still peak somewhere between 0% and 100%.
Assuming that you are super rational and you know the prior probabilities of the possible uses of money, then yes, you could calculate that e.g. a 42% taxation brings the highest expected utility.
I just don’t expect a human to do this correctly, or even approximately correctly. So even if a group of humans will use the same reasoning, they will get widely different results (because their prior probability distributions will be different, their knowledge imperfect, and their calculations incorrect).
What should I have said instead is that only those kinds of reasoning which always give you result 0% or 100% (such as saying that any tax is unacceptably evil theft; or that humans are unable to live without a society, so they owe everything to society) will cause a group of humans that use the same reasoning to consistently produce the same numbers. Also, that kind of reasoning is more simple, and more attractive, so more people will do it. Though, there are also other attractive kinds of reasoning, such as: the same as yesterday; a little more than yesterday; a little less than yesterday.
For me, it is also important to know how exactly that money will be used. I wouldn’t mind paying 50% or more of my income if I believed that they will be used for causes I consider good (if their use resembled my extrapolated volition). In a perfect situation, it would be equivalent to me and every other member of society giving half of their income to the best causes, except that each of us does not have to do the related research alone.
On the other hand, if I believe that the money is wasted, then even 10% of my income would be too much. Money can be wasted by stealing, by spending on projects that rationally don’t make sense, and even worse, by spending on actively harmful projects. In my opinion my country is probably more close to this end of the scale, so paying 50% of my income (tax + mandatory insurance) is rather painful.
So the position from 0% to 100% does not reflect the most important parts. In a rational society I would be willing to give up more, and on the other hand I think a rational society would either cost less, or it would accomplish much better projects.
Without information how exactly the money will be use, one can consistently argue only for 0% or 100%, because those extremes do not depend on details. But for me, those details are very important.
Even if I’m uncertain about how the money would be used, my expected utility as a function of redistribution could still peak somewhere between 0% and 100%.
Assuming that you are super rational and you know the prior probabilities of the possible uses of money, then yes, you could calculate that e.g. a 42% taxation brings the highest expected utility.
I just don’t expect a human to do this correctly, or even approximately correctly. So even if a group of humans will use the same reasoning, they will get widely different results (because their prior probability distributions will be different, their knowledge imperfect, and their calculations incorrect).
What should I have said instead is that only those kinds of reasoning which always give you result 0% or 100% (such as saying that any tax is unacceptably evil theft; or that humans are unable to live without a society, so they owe everything to society) will cause a group of humans that use the same reasoning to consistently produce the same numbers. Also, that kind of reasoning is more simple, and more attractive, so more people will do it. Though, there are also other attractive kinds of reasoning, such as: the same as yesterday; a little more than yesterday; a little less than yesterday.