I'm not sure I agree. I could easily imagine a range of carbon taxes applied to vehicles where most, but not all, users would switch to electric. There could easily be people who like taking long trips far from major roads and are willing to pay a large premium to do so.
> Another way to look at it is that bans are fair because they apply to all people equally. Taxes unfairly punish the poor who have less discretionary income. (A $100 tax on cigarettes would drive most of the working and middle classes to quit, but there are certainly a number of rich folks who would keep on lighting up because $100 means little to them.)
That's a fair point, but I'm not sure your example is all that compelling. If a small number of rich people are willing to pay $100 in extra taxes to smoke a cigarette, is that really so bad?
What is the rational to "letting" the rich smoke (replace with activity "X" if desired), but not everyone else?
For the most part, that is what the policy effectively ends up doing, and so enacting it becomes to an implicit approval of that result.
It's obviously not the only way of looking at the situation, but I think it has some merit. Interesting to think about, at least.
Implies everyone is in the same situation. This is never true. For example, in WW2 we had gas rationing. You got a fixed amount of gas, regardless of how much driving you needed to do. The result was a black market in gas, where those who didn't need all their alotment sold it to those who did (at black market prices, of course, since this was illegal).
I like capitalism, but I view it as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Instead of evaluating our moral against what capitalism produces, we should evaluate capitalism by how well it supports our morals.
From that perspective, yeah, I think it is kind of bad. If we are placing a high tax on cigarettes because our society has made a moral choice that cigarettes are bad and people who smoke are bad, then I think that moral choice should apply equally to all people regardless of wealth. My moral code states that power does not excuse sins.
On the other hand, if the tax is a pragmatic one to, say, help pay for universal healthcare and offset the higher medical costs incurred by smokers, then the tax is a reasonable approach.
In reality, the tax/law is probably a combination of the two goals, which is why I think a tax is kind of bad but kind of OK.
For every dollar that is raised from taxing gasoline, is another dollar that can be used paying for social programs or whatever.
Look, for example, at civil seizure in the US. Police agencies are highly incentivized to do it since they get to keep the money, even when doing so is unjust.
In practice, tax-based solutions have pros and cons and you need to think about the incentives and unintended consequences that they lead to on both the enforcement and citizen sides. Law-based solutions do too, of course.
One way to look at that is that you're saying any market-based solution strong enough to be effective is indistinguishable from an outright ban.
We could, for example, discourage smoking by putting a $500 tax on each pack of cigarettes. But at that point, you may as well stop pretending and ban it outright.
Another way to look at it is that bans are fair because they apply to all people equally. Taxes unfairly punish the poor who have less discretionary income. (A $100 tax on cigarettes would drive most of the working and middle classes to quit, but there are certainly a number of rich folks who would keep on lighting up because $100 means little to them.)