Should taxes be utilized to modify behavior?

In summary: If it's for the well being of society then it's a good thing but I think it would be better if it was a flat tax instead of all these different rates.
  • #36
WhoWee said:
I'm not sure what would be accomplished by discouraging people from driving - the cost of smoking and the benefits of not smoking are quite evident. Use of gasoline in and of itself is not addictive nor is an accident predictable.

I think driving still has the popularity-legitimizing effect that smoking once did. If mobility culture was widely divided between driving and other forms of transit, driving could appear generally dangerous to those who were completely alienated from it. Think of how dangerous the cultures of weaponry we hear about in Iraq/Afganistan/etc. seem to people who are accustomed to only police carrying firearms. Many Europeans have a similar view of the US, as if the streets are filled with gun-carrying vigilantes ready to shoot at the slightest conflict. The question is not whether popular usage contributes to abuse and damage but whether responsible users of tobacco, cars, or guns should be penalized for the culture of abuse that evolves from their popularity. Is the cost to responsible users worth the benefit to those who are less responsible or simply victims of cultural pressures that arise from popularity.
 
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  • #37
brainstorm said:
I think driving still has the popularity-legitimizing effect that smoking once did. If mobility culture was widely divided between driving and other forms of transit, driving could appear generally dangerous to those who were completely alienated from it. Think of how dangerous the cultures of weaponry we hear about in Iraq/Afganistan/etc. seem to people who are accustomed to only police carrying firearms. Many Europeans have a similar view of the US, as if the streets are filled with gun-carrying vigilantes ready to shoot at the slightest conflict. The question is not whether popular usage contributes to abuse and damage but whether responsible users of tobacco, cars, or guns should be penalized for the culture of abuse that evolves from their popularity. Is the cost to responsible users worth the benefit to those who are less responsible or simply victims of cultural pressures that arise from popularity.

I read an article yesterday about an electric car with approx. 800 hp and a top speed over 300 mph. Even if gasoline were obsolete - driving will (apparently) continue.
 
  • #40
WhoWee said:
I read an article yesterday about an electric car with approx. 800 hp and a top speed over 300 mph. Even if gasoline were obsolete - driving will (apparently) continue.
Well then maybe there should be a list of non-harmful modes of transit and shipping and those should be exempt from a general distance-travelled tax. Maybe these things shouldn't be done by taxation but by laws. Either way, it's unlikely that any kind of legal control of popular culture will ever be implemented until sufficient public support is garnered - and by that time lots of people have decided to self-govern anyway and any formal laws become just bullying of social-cultural minorities.
 
  • #41
brainstorm said:
Well then maybe there should be a list of non-harmful modes of transit and shipping and those should be exempt from a general distance-travelled tax. Maybe these things shouldn't be done by taxation but by laws. Either way, it's unlikely that any kind of legal control of popular culture will ever be implemented until sufficient public support is garnered - and by that time lots of people have decided to self-govern anyway and any formal laws become just bullying of social-cultural minorities.

How many of the accidents cited (in earlier posts) involved alcohol or illegal substances?
 

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