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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday July 15 2017, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the status-quo dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Human beings largely object to income inequality and are willing to correct injustice—unless, of course, it rattles their status quo.

That's the conclusion of a recent study looking at how far people would go to redistribute resources between the haves and have nots. Participants fiercely objected to "when winners become losers and losers become winners," researchers note in the paper, published in the latest issue of Nature Human Behaviour.

Researchers initially recruited Indian, American, and Chinese participants take part in an experimental game they called "the redistribution game." The gist of the game was simple: Participants were given a number of scenarios that would redistribute a fixed sum from a richer person to someone poorer. Participants were told the original standing of wealth was assigned randomly.

In the first scenario, participants had to decide if they wanted to transfer two coins from person A (who already had four coins) to person B (who had one). Researchers note the "transfer would reduce inequality," (as there's less of a gap between them), but person B would end up one coin richer than person A, reversing their status.

In the second version of game, participants were asked whether they'd transfer one coin to person B (where person A ended up with three coins and person B with two coins). Researchers ran a third and fourth scenario that allowed participants to transfer coins from person A to B, where the outcome still left person A with significantly more coins.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 17 2017, @03:22AM (5 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 17 2017, @03:22AM (#540151)

    So, are you proposing taxing static wealth holdings? Property taxes are some of the most unpopular, and most likely to drive the wealthy overseas - the smaller tax havens make a point of not taxing property, or income, only consumption, specifically to attract the wealthy to their jurisdictions.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @04:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @04:00AM (#540168)

    That certainly does sound a lot like what Athanasius is proposing.

    And property taxes, by the way, tend to work out to be wickedly regressive. It doesn't look that way at first, and if you're only looking down Broadway, it wouldn't be - but it's not. They take effect out in rural areas, where the vast majority of people range between scraping by, broke and broker. There's a lot of detail to understand, but property taxes are one reason that Washington (the pacific state, not the swamp) has the most regressive taxes in the nation.

  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 17 2017, @04:36AM (3 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 17 2017, @04:36AM (#540177) Journal

    Sheesh -- do I have to do all the thinking for everyone? No, I'm not proposing increasing property taxes or proposing anything else for that matter as I stated quite clearly at the end of my first post. I'm just noting that there's a significant chuck of the pie concentrated in the "rich," so even if they are a small fraction of the population, the "ROI" in taxing them is not insignificant.

    For the record, the top 1% also have something like 22% of total annual income in the U.S. too. Do some research before assuming a bunch of things I didn't even say.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:17AM (#540189)

      The 22% number is substantially disputed. Not in terms of order of magnitude, but in terms of a substantial proportion. If I remember correctly, Piketty came up with that number, along with fellow researchers, but made some rather aggressive assumptions when doing so. Other numbers I've seen are below 20%.

      That aside, what you DID say was "the idea that the rich are a relatively insignificant portion for tax purposes just isn't true."

      In the context of where to put taxes, it does raise the question of what taxes to demand of whom - and since those were options on the table, guessing at what you are advocating seems reasonable.

      But aside from that, your observation by itself isn't that helpful anyhow. It doesn't address questions such as the people who earn nothing (like babies, the indigent, college students living off loans rather than jobs) and it leaves the question of households a little open. It also takes no account whatsoever of living circumstances. If you're in the 1% of household income, and you're in rural Mississippi, you're doing just great! If you're living in Manhattan, you're ... kind of doing OK. There's a massive difference.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 17 2017, @12:11PM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 17 2017, @12:11PM (#540264)

      Getting closer to reality - and I agree with Warren Buffet, it's not only unfair but also insane that his receptionist pays a higher percentage of her income as tax than he does.

      But, you're talking about "attacking" capital gains, and all the other sacred cows that have been elevated to protected status in the last 30 years. That 22% number is including more than just what gets reported on 1099s and W2s.

      In the early 70s, the rich were supposed to be paying >50% of income as taxes, though the loopholes rebates and incentives were legion. In a sense, I think they were right: the tax laws were essentially dictating to the rich a limited number of options of what to do with their money unless they wanted to give over half of it to the general fund, and that's insulting. I'd much rather tax the rich at 40% flat, no loopholes, rather than 60% with various incentives that can bring that down to 20 if they invest as they are told to by the government.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:46PM (#540351)

        For the record, Warren's chief gripe related to more than just the income tax structure in general, but also things like capital gains tax rules.

        The 22% number was arrived at by ignoring things like transfers - at which point vast segments of the population earn a big, fat 0. This is not a reasonable way of calculating where we are now, because it doesn't reflect things like - well, even as prosaic as the humble food stamp.

        I find it amusing that what you're recommending is so close, in spirit, to what the Reagan-era congress achieved, by dropping top rates like a rock, but also killing a lot of tax exemptions. Financial big bosses found themselves paying more tax because their favourite tax dodges had vanished.

        The real problem is that taxes have a couple of roles, the most obvious of which is stuffing the government's coffers, and the next most obvious of which is social engineering. Hence, sin taxes on cigarettes and so on.

        The government can hardly resist the temptation to socially engineer - but that means that the most compliant people can get their tax bills greatly reduced as long as they're inclined to play the government's game.

        Flat taxes means that the government is giving away power, and they hate that.