Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
pqtyw | on: Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
Well off people do not allocate capital in a way that's socially or economically (on a national level) optimal. So the government has to do that for them (even if those who the majority of taxes personally benefit less from that than if they were allowed to keep that money).

I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. After all there are hardly any personal incentives for individuals to invest into infrastructure, education or healthcare of people who can't afford it and plenty of other areas even if that's what allowed them to accumulate a significant proportion of not the overwhelming majority of their wealth over the long term.

mothballed | parent
If there's hardly any individual desire, as you say, to fund the development of the poor then taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people (even if only roughly a majority or their representatives).

Given that most taxation done with the the advertised goal of helping the poor in Australia does happen with popular assent of individuals, I would theorize your position is false and that people do have some individual incentives to develop services offered to the poor -- for profit, humanitarian / charitable reasons, and a variety of other considerations.

pqtyw | root | parent
> have some individual incentives to develop services offered to the poor

I never said that wasn't the case but historically that "some" was never sufficient. On average people are rational and selfish to a larger extent than they are altruistic.

> taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people

Well the whole concept of an organized society falls apart if individuals can personally freely chose which laws to obey and which taxes to pay. You have to have a balance based on a reasonable consensus, otherwise you end up with totalitarianism or anarchy (and in that case the people who have the means and resources to do that will establish alternative power structures and will end up subjugating those who do not AND also outcompete those how have the means but are unwilling to do the same).

mothballed | root | parent
No, I'm not talking about picking and choosing for a voted tax. I'm saying it can't be true most people don't want to help fund the poor if the majority are voting to tax themselves to fund the poor. Clearly under anything remotely resembling the Australian representation of what they claim their representative democracy is, the majority of people already decided they individually are incentivized to help the poor develop infrastructure.

It can't simultaneously be true that most don't want to help the poor at their own cost while also the tax has been legitimized by the majority wanting to help the poor at their own cost. Only individuals or representatives elected by individuals can vote and if their incentive was to not help the poor then they'd vote not to and that would be that.

loading story #48906051