my opinion is that the people who have resources should not give those resources to people who won’t make good use of them.
When widely applied, this principle tends to lead to trouble. It’s a very small intuitive step from this to “people who aren’t making good use of their own resources should have them taken away and given to someone who will make better use of them” and that is, in turn, a very small step away from “resources shouldn’t be wasted on anyone too elderly to be employed”.
Now, I’m not saying that’s where you’re going with this. It’s just that that’s close enough to what you said that it’s probably something you’d want to specifically avoid.
It’s a very small intuitive step from this to “people who aren’t making good use of their own resources should have them taken away and given to someone who will make better use of them”
That step doesn’t look small to me, specifically because it leaps over the rather large concept of property.
We pretty much do this already (outside of a few nations like New Zealand), and it doesn’t lead to trouble at all, although some people complain about it (although if they recognized exactly what was going on, the number of people complaining about it would probably rise dramatically).
Property taxes rise with land values, which are proportional to the value of resources. If you’re not making good use of your resources, you can’t cover property taxes, and you have to sell the property. The only people who will buy it are those who think they can make sufficient use of the resources to cover the sale price, in addition to property taxes going forward.
Not quite. Imposing some cost to own certain things is not the same as “should have them taken away”.
Yes, I understand that you can construct a continuous spectrum from a small fee to “it’s cheaper for you to give it away rather than pay the tax”, but I feel that in practice the distance is great.
When widely applied, this principle tends to lead to trouble. It’s a very small intuitive step from this to “people who aren’t making good use of their own resources should have them taken away and given to someone who will make better use of them” and that is, in turn, a very small step away from “resources shouldn’t be wasted on anyone too elderly to be employed”.
Now, I’m not saying that’s where you’re going with this. It’s just that that’s close enough to what you said that it’s probably something you’d want to specifically avoid.
That step doesn’t look small to me, specifically because it leaps over the rather large concept of property.
We pretty much do this already (outside of a few nations like New Zealand), and it doesn’t lead to trouble at all, although some people complain about it (although if they recognized exactly what was going on, the number of people complaining about it would probably rise dramatically).
Property taxes rise with land values, which are proportional to the value of resources. If you’re not making good use of your resources, you can’t cover property taxes, and you have to sell the property. The only people who will buy it are those who think they can make sufficient use of the resources to cover the sale price, in addition to property taxes going forward.
Not quite. Imposing some cost to own certain things is not the same as “should have them taken away”.
Yes, I understand that you can construct a continuous spectrum from a small fee to “it’s cheaper for you to give it away rather than pay the tax”, but I feel that in practice the distance is great.