The way wealth is structured definitely shapes how opportunity flows. It’s worth having thoughtful conversations about tax policy and fairness without turning it into pure outrage—systems matter.
Everyone hates it. That’s all I ever learned from years of work on the issue. Even the people who would benefit from it, hate it.
People really really like unfair tax policies, because they imagine themselves on the unfair side of it benefiting from it. They love loopholes because it makes them feel ‘smart’, etc. Our politicians are aware of this. They know that fairer tax code reforms are unpopular. People very much adore the system we have of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and they generally want more of that because emotionally that is what they regard as ‘fair’.
There is a major gap between what people say they want, and what they actually want. Everyone says they want ‘fairness’ but what they want… is a system they feel they can exploit to their own advantage. They want the appearance of fairness, but the don’t want to pay taxes, especially taxes that come due as separate payments once a year.
I won’t even go into the other problem that ‘fair’ taxation would be incredible intrusive.
You can see this effect in other areas too. JC Penny tried to stop deceptive pricing tactics and just offered the lowest price they could. It almost bankrupted them.
I saw it a bunch in retail too. We had a few items in the store that would never go down in price. Our price was lower than the competition’s sale price because they were loss leaders.
People would have the item in their cart, ask me if it was on sale, I’d give them the above statement, and every time they’d put it back and walk away. I’d even comparison shop for them.
The psychology of pricing is powerful stuff. People would rather get ripped off thinking they got a deal, then pay full price, even if the full price is lower.
The way wealth is structured definitely shapes how opportunity flows. It’s worth having thoughtful conversations about tax policy and fairness without turning it into pure outrage—systems matter.
I used to work in fair tax policy. It exists.
Everyone hates it. That’s all I ever learned from years of work on the issue. Even the people who would benefit from it, hate it.
People really really like unfair tax policies, because they imagine themselves on the unfair side of it benefiting from it. They love loopholes because it makes them feel ‘smart’, etc. Our politicians are aware of this. They know that fairer tax code reforms are unpopular. People very much adore the system we have of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and they generally want more of that because emotionally that is what they regard as ‘fair’.
There is a major gap between what people say they want, and what they actually want. Everyone says they want ‘fairness’ but what they want… is a system they feel they can exploit to their own advantage. They want the appearance of fairness, but the don’t want to pay taxes, especially taxes that come due as separate payments once a year.
I won’t even go into the other problem that ‘fair’ taxation would be incredible intrusive.
You can see this effect in other areas too. JC Penny tried to stop deceptive pricing tactics and just offered the lowest price they could. It almost bankrupted them.
I saw it a bunch in retail too. We had a few items in the store that would never go down in price. Our price was lower than the competition’s sale price because they were loss leaders.
People would have the item in their cart, ask me if it was on sale, I’d give them the above statement, and every time they’d put it back and walk away. I’d even comparison shop for them.
Yeah that’s a great point.
The psychology of pricing is powerful stuff. People would rather get ripped off thinking they got a deal, then pay full price, even if the full price is lower.
“Ferengi workers don’t want to stop the exploitation. We want to find a way to become the exploiters.” – Rom, DS9, S4E16
Oh no, AI on Lemmy. It’s joever :(
Capitalist apologia AI, of course