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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I notice that a lot of people on this site seem to be both utilitarian and right wing. This makes me confused, as the utilitarian case for a strong welfare state seems extremely strong on its face. By "strong welfare state" I mean something akin to the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) in which the necessities of life (healthcare, housing, minimum subsistence) are essentially guaranteed, while maintaining a market economy.

Premise #1: We want to maximize pleasure (utility) and minimize pain (disutility).

Premise #2: Within the unit of people we care about, we care about everyone equally.

Premise #3: Central planning doesn't work very well, so we want to maintain a market economy.

Premise #4: We already have a fairly industrialized, advanced capitalist economy.

ARGUMENT:

  1. Being in poverty is extremely bad for people's wellbeing, both in terms of physical and psychological health. It is extremely unpleasant for people to be homeless or hungry, or having to make decisions like choosing between heat in the winter, medicine, or food. Poverty sucks -- it is painful not being able to afford the essentials of life.

  2. Being afraid of falling into poverty is also bad for people's wellbeing -- it is a major source of worry and concern because everyone knows that being impoverished sucks and is painful. So the existence of poverty is a cause of pain for a much larger group than those actually impoverished. Fear of poverty also leads people to refuse to take risks to avoid the pain of poverty, which leads to less pleasure.

  3. Diminishing marginal utility. At a certain point, another yacht for the ultrawealthy rich guy is not going to make him significantly happier. Money can't buy love, you can't take it with you, etc. etc. However, charging that guy more in taxes and using those resources to eliminate poverty will make the groups mentioned in #1 and #2 significantly more happy.

  4. We should be OK with high taxes in exchange for eliminating poverty by directly providing the necessities of life for those who cannot afford them. The pain avoided by eliminating poverty outweighs the pain imposed by the taxes (or the pleasure that is lost for the wealthy) because of the principle of diminishing marginal utility. Poverty causes more unhappiness than luxuries cause happiness.

Responses to obvious objections:

a. "Eliminating poverty will cause more pain in the long run because the economy will collapse or at the very least growth will slow, leading to a decline in living standards for everyone." Response: This doesn't seem to have happened in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries have been strong welfare states for a long time and are still very wealthy countries, among the wealthiest in the world. They haven't had their economies collapse from having too many layabouts and such.

b. "Charging me high taxes on wealth I created infringes on my liberties/freedom". Response: This may be a coherent objection, but it's not a utilitarian objection, it's a rights-based objection.

c. "The Scandinavian countries only could do this because they are ethnically homogenous, tightly knit societies. Look at Sweden right now, it's falling apart as they let in more immigrants." Response: This goes more to the political problem with instituting this system rather than the desirability of the system itself. The fact that present-day social democrats are pro immigration does not make immigration a necessary part of a social democracy. One can easily imagine a social democracy with Japan-style immigration restrictions.

d. "I only care about those who are deserving to not be in poverty; I don't care about everyone, I'm fine with people being in poverty if they do nothing to better themselves, or if they are in the outgroup." Response: This is also not really a utilitarian objection. Who "deserves" what is a question of justice, of deontology. But here, we are trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. This is difficult enough, boiling down all of human experience into two buckets, "pleasure" and "pain". If you add a whole 'nother set of buckets, "good people", "medium people", "bad people"... then you've really abandoned the exercise and are just doing deontology with extra steps. The pain someone experiences from not having housing or food or heat during the winter is plainly real and sincerely felt, even if you believe that that person should have done something different to avoid being in that state.

To be a true utilitarian, one should consider all tools available, whether they be aligned with one’s ideology or not. One should also consider how long the effects of the intended goal is planned to last; simply doing something to have done it, regardless of how quickly the effect fades, is surface-level utilitarianism, practically a strawman version.

To that end, if the goal is human happiness, the tool used to get there shouldn’t be one which has caused misery whenever used. Before we commit to a “welfare state,” it must be a type which does not fail, which doesn’t grow to consume all capital while simply maintaining the status quo.

Here’s one better tool:

The FairTax proposal would turn the American tax revenue system (which is part of the current half-hearted welfare state) from a foot on the brake of the economy to a foot on the accelerator. It wouldn’t aim to eliminate poverty, but it would tear down some of the fences between impoverishment and prosperity, and make the cost of government no burden to the poor. It would automation-proof government revenue, preventing one aspect of the automationpocalypse. It would remove tax hassle, tax favoritism, and some of the class war’s acrimony. It would even lay the pipes for an eventual universal welfare program.

Would you like to hear more?

FairTax continues to be a large sales tax, no?

Nordic welfare states collect a huge part of their revenue through a value-added tax, so it doesn't really conflict with a welfare state. Of course they also have other taxes, but then again, there's nothing preventing that, either.

FairTax continues to be a large gross receipts tax, yes, the rate calculated to completely replace the personal + corporate income tax + investment taxes, with a monthly rebate which is calculated to be more progressive than the regressiveness of the sales tax.

It has some aspects each of the main political ideologies say they want from tax reform, but the main thing it does is reduce the power the federal government has over the individual, assuming cash (anonymous money) is still in use by the time it’s implemented. In that, it’s a libertarian, market-based reform, which is the third wing of the bird.

The right-wing/left-wing dichotomy is so intuitive that it naturally comes to mind when discussing politics, yet it is so flawed that it makes hash out of OP’s question. The political spectrum is more properly visualized as a triangular gamut, not a two-dimensional spectrum. The three points are the three basic methods of organizing a society of people who don’t always agree:

  1. Hierarchical Authoritarianism: whoever’s in charge decides, often considered right-wing.

  2. Collective Socialism: the collective will decides, often considered left-wing.

  3. Market Libertarianism: people make bargains and contracts so each can decide, either considered centrism or extreme right wing.

America is largely already market libertarianism with some collectivist and some authoritarian characteristics. As a libertarian Republican, I believe that generally the more such characteristics we add, the worse the situation will get for the poor and the weak. Every fiber of my being would tell me to reject authoritarian or collectivist policies which compromise that libertarian character of America, because any positive effect would be outweighed by eventual negative consequences.

So, I am bound by my moral goals to fulfill the core societal improvement which is envisioned by a welfare state by reducing collectivism or authoritarianism. That means some level of volunteerism or market action.