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Elizabeth comments on The Trolley Problem: Dodging moral questions - Less Wrong
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The top 10% of humanity accumulates 30% of the worlds wealth. 20% of the humanity dies from preventable, premature death (and suffers horribly)
The proposition...
In this scenario 1% of people are forced to live modestly in order to save up to 20% of humanity. No-one need to kill or be killed.
It would probably be reasonable to say the top 20% of earners would be against this proposal. The majority of the bottom 40% would be in favour. If your reading this you are likely on of the other 40% of humankind who can choose to support or reject the proposal. What would you say?
I am aware there are many holes in the proposition (unintended consequences etc) however this is a hypothetical that is based on a real situation that exists now that we are all contributing to in one way or another.
There is a major flaw in your proposal: the bottom 40% would not be in favor. Some of them would be, but there is a demonstrable bias which causes people to be irrationally optimistic about their own future wealth. This bias is a major factor in the Republicans maintaining much of their base, among other things.
However, to answer your question, while I would not favor your proposal, I would favor a tax on all of that top ten percent which would garner the same revenue as your proposal.
an increase in tax would only create an increase in product prices as the wealthy try to recoup their losses. This would adversely affect the very people you would be trying to help. The middle class whose support you wold require would also be affected negarive and the proposal would be then over turned.
Increasing taxes would not work.
Huh? You're going to have to explain how increasing the tax (on the wealthy) would lead to increased product prices. They might try to recoup their losses. (Or they might decide it's not worth working as hard for less reward -- this is the usual assumption in Economics) But what's the mechanism that leads from that to raised prices? There is an optimal price to set to maximize profit. Raising prices past that point isn't going to increase profits, because the volume sold will be lower.
I guess I was thinking of necessities like food, water, electricity, medicine etc which the lack of is causinG the preventable premature deaths . Passing the costs of production on to consumers (including increases in tax) in order to maintain or grow profit margins is at the heart of our economic reality.
'Not worth working as hard for less reward" is the reason for the lottery for the top 10% of earners. Most of these kind of individuals would have the belief that this would be a lottery they would not win and therefore continue to work as they would. An increase for all the top 10% (tax) would only modify their behaviour and at least some proportion of the cost would enievitably be passed on to all consumers.