My answer is that if instead of killing a fat man we were levying taxes, the tax probably incrementally harms a lot of people enough to cause at least one death when summed up over the whole tax base.
That seems iffy, money is fungible in a way that organs are not, and taxes are usually set up to be progressive. If you take a few more dollars from someone, they don’t avoid a life saving surgery to save money, they purchase one less starbucks latte or the like.
Its possible someone is spending 100% of their income on life-sustaining needs, but not that plausible.
It still works at the margins. There are people below some boundary who can’t afford some operation. There are also people above the boundary. With a large population, there must also be people at the boundary. Saying “they can just spend less on frivolous items” is equivalent to saying “there’s nobody at the boundary”, and there is.
Not to mention that even if nobody just cancels an operation because of a $50 tax bill, they might postpone a doctor’s visit a week, leading to an 0.1% greater chance of death, or postpone a car repair with the same result, or decide to buy the slightly more rickety ladder because their balance between price and safety comes at a slightly different point, etc. Over a large enough population someone will fall victim to that 0.1% chance and die.
Only if there are people who are spending less than the tax increase on leisure goods, this seems unlikely to me.
Not to mention that even if nobody just cancels an operation because of a $50 tax bill, they might postpone a doctor’s visit a week, leading to an 0.1% greater chance of death, or postpone a car repair with the same result, or decide to buy the slightly more rickety ladder because their balance between price and safety comes at a slightly different point, etc
But now cause is weaker- if people have less money they may choose to be riskier, sure. But now they are choosing the risk, which is a very different case then killing the man for his organs.
Only if there are people who are spending less than the tax increase on leisure goods, this seems unlikely to me.
The point is that there are people who aren’t spending anything at all. If there’s a gradation between people who aren’t spending anything at all and people who are spending a small amount, there have to be people in the middle who are just spending a tiny amount.
By your reasoning, even a large tax couldn’t possibly have this effect. Just divide the large tax increase into a series of smaller taxes and argue that each individual small increase has no effect. In fact, the smaller taxes will have an effect at some point, after you’ve added enough of them and the next one goes over some limit. Now, consider that there already are taxes—there will be people for which this new tax is the one that sends them over the limit.
if people have less money they may choose to be riskier, sure
If people have less money, then choosing a riskier option may be the rational thing to do. If it wouldn’t have been a rational thing to do if you hadn’t taken away their money, then the increase in risk is your fault. You can’t launder the effect of taking the money by saying that they chose to take the risk—you’re the one who changed the balance to favor a higher risk.
That seems iffy, money is fungible in a way that organs are not, and taxes are usually set up to be progressive. If you take a few more dollars from someone, they don’t avoid a life saving surgery to save money, they purchase one less starbucks latte or the like.
Its possible someone is spending 100% of their income on life-sustaining needs, but not that plausible.
It still works at the margins. There are people below some boundary who can’t afford some operation. There are also people above the boundary. With a large population, there must also be people at the boundary. Saying “they can just spend less on frivolous items” is equivalent to saying “there’s nobody at the boundary”, and there is.
Not to mention that even if nobody just cancels an operation because of a $50 tax bill, they might postpone a doctor’s visit a week, leading to an 0.1% greater chance of death, or postpone a car repair with the same result, or decide to buy the slightly more rickety ladder because their balance between price and safety comes at a slightly different point, etc. Over a large enough population someone will fall victim to that 0.1% chance and die.
Only if there are people who are spending less than the tax increase on leisure goods, this seems unlikely to me.
But now cause is weaker- if people have less money they may choose to be riskier, sure. But now they are choosing the risk, which is a very different case then killing the man for his organs.
The point is that there are people who aren’t spending anything at all. If there’s a gradation between people who aren’t spending anything at all and people who are spending a small amount, there have to be people in the middle who are just spending a tiny amount.
By your reasoning, even a large tax couldn’t possibly have this effect. Just divide the large tax increase into a series of smaller taxes and argue that each individual small increase has no effect. In fact, the smaller taxes will have an effect at some point, after you’ve added enough of them and the next one goes over some limit. Now, consider that there already are taxes—there will be people for which this new tax is the one that sends them over the limit.
If people have less money, then choosing a riskier option may be the rational thing to do. If it wouldn’t have been a rational thing to do if you hadn’t taken away their money, then the increase in risk is your fault. You can’t launder the effect of taking the money by saying that they chose to take the risk—you’re the one who changed the balance to favor a higher risk.