If we didn’t have a culturally accepted obligation for charity, we wouldn’t give as much money to inefficient charities and religious institutions, and might be more willing to consent to a higher progressive tax.
And if people didn’t naturally want to have sex, we might be more willing to consent to government-assigned reproduction!
My point was that since our cultural instinct is to give, but in practice this is done inefficiently, [charities are wasteful, people don’t give to charities to optimize utility but rather to charities that they think they like, and a flat percentage is probably worse than a progressive tax], and therefore it would probably be better for society if we didn’t expect charity from people—this seemingly beneficial cultural obligation can be argued to be harmful.
And if people didn’t naturally want to have sex, we might be more willing to consent to government-assigned reproduction!
Yes, that is true as well.
My point was that since our cultural instinct is to give, but in practice this is done inefficiently, [charities are wasteful, people don’t give to charities to optimize utility but rather to charities that they think they like, and a flat percentage is probably worse than a progressive tax], and therefore it would probably be better for society if we didn’t expect charity from people—this seemingly beneficial cultural obligation can be argued to be harmful.