We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day The solution to envy is not to tax the rich but to tax the envious…It’s envy which imposes an externality on the rich. Make the envious pay for their ugly preferences.
– Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution fame.
On the whole, I am not a huge fan of using taxation to eradicate any kind of human behaviour, irrespective of whether it is levied upon the rich or the envious. And this is obviously a frivolous prescription. However, I like the quote for two reasons. Not only is it a worthy inversion of the status quo; it also spots the principal (yet unspoken) justification for our “progressive” taxation structures in the minds of statists – envy.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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What is envy? Isn’t it the dark twin of admiration? As lust is the dark image of desire, or jealousy the dark mirror of love, isn’t envy admiration stripped of all the attributes that we condone in the latter?
Suppose you are a primitive man, living in a small, hunter/gatherer clan of related families. You try to fashion spears and other tools as your fathers taught you, but yours never seem to come out as well as you would like.
Then there is your cousin. He always seems to find the straightest, strongest poles, to fashion the sharpest cutters, the deadliest spears. All acknowledge him as the leader in the hunt. His advice is listened to, and his hunts are the most successful in the clan.
You look at him and wish you could be so skilled, so successful, so admired among the people.
And now, the divergent paths you might take—
If you truly admire this cousin, and wish to emulate his success, you approach him with genuine respect, asking that he show you how to find the best materials, how to cure the wood, how to sharpen and fashion tools and weapons of a superior quality.
You accept that this man has achieved, and the way to match that achievement is through disciplined study, respectful attention, careful practice, honest effort. All this you do, and so honor your cousin by showing others how well you can now make a spear, how sharp your cutter is, acknowledging his advice and help, paying the only dues the teacher really wants—the open willingness to learn and improve.
When the next hunt comes, you realize that your cousin now gives you an important place, he expects you will be ready, spears sharp and strong, he extends his confidence, his acknowledgement of your work and effort—he pays you the most valuable token a teacher can give, the recognition that you are now an equal.
But what if you take a different path. You feel only a sick hatred when the hunt ends, and your cousin is congratulated. You boast of your own accomplishments, and belittle his, even when others know your account to be suspect, your stories inflated and dubious.
Whenever you have a chance, you try to steal one of his spears or cutters, you watch where he goes and what he does, but always from concealment.
In the evening, at the fire, after the meal your cousin provided by his leadership and skill, you hint that he has used magic, possibly evil spells, to achieve his many kills. Always, always, you attribute all good or bad results to luck, good fortune or the lack of it, and, just possibly, evil spirits.
And every second of every minute of every day you burn with the terrible injustice of it all—that you do not get the accolades you are sure you deserve, while your cousin gathers honors and support in all important matters through luck and witchcraft.
To success you give only hatred and suspicion. In return you receive derision and contempt. Thus is the coin of admiration debased, and the reward for true creative effort denied.
Envy is, as most true sins, an abscence, a lack, a black hole which consumes those positive elements that would dignify the holder, instead turning the sun into darkness, the evening of rest into an agony of hatred and regret.
Those who envy do not only seek “a piece of the action”, but the destruction of all that they cannot do and understand.
It is not the motivator, merely the expression. What lies beneath is a hatred for all that is the best that humans can, and could, be. It is hatred of life itself, the wish that all could be diminished somehow, made smaller, just like the wisher is, deep down inside.
When you see true envy, run. Run fast. You are in the presence of death.
Veryretired, I strongly urge you to read Envy, by Helmut Schoeck. Very under-rated book and a wonderful study. Still available at Amazon if you are interested.
Jon,
Thank you for the tip.
It strikes me that the alternative to taxing envy is to tax ambition. And what you tax you get less of.
Oh, Robert, just so.
What you get is less ambition to create, and more ambition to control.
In Australia it is not “taxing rich” but taxing those who are trying to become rich. There are practically no asset-based taxes. So this taxation satisfies insecure rather then envious