site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26876 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Someone who spends their money by buying stuff gets hit by sales taxes, while someone who "spends" their money to make more money gets hit with capgains taxes.

And then gets hits by sales taxes anyway when he spends his money in the future.

Taxes on investment income distort the trade-off between present and future consumption in a way that neither taxes on consumption nor taxes on wage income do.

There's a superficial appearance of symmetry here, where it seems like taxes on investment income discourage investment and taxes on consumption discourage consumption, but the illusion goes away if you work through the math. The tax system really is set up in a way that penalizes saving and investing.

All taxes are distortionary. A few like carbon taxes or cigarette taxes distort in good ways, while most distort in bad ways. Taxing labor income is almost exclusively bad, since it promotes sloth and working less, while taxing capital gains is a mix. There's the bad aspect of discouraging investment along with the positive aspect of reducing inequality. The author is saying the current privileged mix of taxing investments less than labor income isn't good enough, that we should institute massive taxes on labor to reduce all taxes from investments to 0.

Taxing capital gains is not a way of avoiding taxing labour. The capital gain is a return on an initial investment that was earned with labour. Taxing it is taxing labour, just in a way that creates a deadweight loss by taxing someone who saves more than someone who spends. You get all of the deadweight loss of taxing labour and then some.

In my third link, Scott Sumner directly addresses the point about inequality. Taxing capital gains doesn't reduce inequality. The two brothers in his example are equally wealthy. But one chooses to invest his wealth and the other chooses to spend it. The fact that the one who invests it earns a capital gain does not mean he is wealthier. His brother had the same opportunity and didn't take it because he valued earlier consumption over later consumption. Claiming there is a difference in equality is just like claiming there is a difference inequality between someone who bought watermelon and someone who bought blueberries.

The author is saying the current privileged mix of taxing investments less than labor income isn't good enough, that we should institute massive taxes on labor to reduce all taxes from investments to 0.

He's not saying that at all. You've completely misunderstood. You should read the articles more carefully because he directly addresses this kind of argument.

All taxes are distortionary.

Hate to be that guy, but land value taxation (or really taxes on anything that's inelastic in supply) doesn't have that problem. Probably the most compelling argument for it (plenty of arguments against it, as well).

And then gets hits by sales taxes anyway when he spends his money in the future.

I have occasionally mused that a truly-progressive sales tax could be interesting: tax total expenditures up to, say, the median cost of living at one rate, and marginal expenditures above at a higher rate. This would probably need some allowance for amortization on bigger purchases. The idea being to tax the wealth when it's spent, and intentionally incentivising capital investments rather than conspicuous expenditures.

But it's a very wonkish policy proposal that would be hard to sell to the broader public, I think. And probably has quite a few details that would need ironing out.

It seems like a progressive sales would inherently require tying your identity to every purchase, which seems like a huge inconvenience and a tough sell from a privacy perspective.

Flat sales tax with a rebate partially solves it, although in practice you would need a horrible VAT system to stop people living off their employer tax-free (like the tech companies already do to some extent)

Here is another proposal: https://www.themoneyillusion.com/tax-luxury-not-wealth-or-income/

Possibly. I think you might be able to track net cash outflows, rather than purchases directly, to cover most of it, but that admittedly only works for people that use banks and would have trouble with people who get paid and pay in primarily cash. But the existing income tax system has those problems too.

You could also tax different products at different rates, depending on the income range that purchases them. Used clothes, lower rate; Teslas, higher rate; organic produce, higher rate; frozen veggies, lower rate. In theory you could kind of approximate the same effect. The biggest issue would be all the jockeying different industries would go for to be classified into the lower rate (why, of course this Hermes bag is purchased mostly by lower income people!)

I guess a corresponding benefit could be dramatically reducing the overhead of a small business. But only in a fantasy world where all state taxes followed suit.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats