Is it really equality to perfectly equalize decision-making while completely slanting the resulting the burden-taking?
I realize how dangerous/potentially harmful a "taxpayer contribution === influence" is. But I think it doesn't have to be a binary. Perhaps a "three house" style system would be an improvement for representative democracy here:
One house for representatives of each state
One house for representatives of vote by population
One house for representatives of taxpayers by net tax burden carried
In case you were looking for the literal answer, it is because a society is the aggregate of every individual in it. It follows that a society's preferences are defined by the aggregate of the preferences of each individual in it.
Therefore if one wants to know what the society's preferences are, that data must be collected in such a way the each individual's preferences are included in the data set.
We might still apply a weighting function at aggregation time, depending on why we're looking at society's preferences in that instance. There are certain group's of opinions that we don't value as much for answers to some questions, but we should like to be deliberate about those choices instead of applying an implicit weighting function during collection.
I worked at a chain retail store once upon a time. There was a self-proclaimed nazi (he was proud of it of course) that came in daily and stole a lot of merchandise. Company policy was to do nothing, essentially.
The nazi also had a criminal record for raping a young boy.
The parent put it this way:
> If a person is disabled or uneducated and can’t hold a job, that person should still get an equal say in society’s preferences even though they have no money with which to express their preferences
Morally and rationally the nazi child rapist should not have equal say in society's preferences. Any society - any culture - that is stupid enough to place that person's preferences at a level of equality, deserves and will have earned its inevitable collapse. And there are far worse monsters roaming about than the nazi child rapist. While my specific example is an outlier (on purpose), the premise is far more expansive in principle.
It's also why a Constitutional Republic is vastly superior to actual Democracy.
13of40|3 years ago
jkeddo|3 years ago
I realize how dangerous/potentially harmful a "taxpayer contribution === influence" is. But I think it doesn't have to be a binary. Perhaps a "three house" style system would be an improvement for representative democracy here:
One house for representatives of each state One house for representatives of vote by population One house for representatives of taxpayers by net tax burden carried
reaperducer|3 years ago
Because as a society, we decided long ago that everyone should be treated as equally as possible.
We don't throw people into the garbage dump because they're not as good at certain things as others.
We've encoded this into our laws, our norms, our education, and our society as a whole. We've even fought world wars because of it.
That you could even ask the question makes me think that you're just being provocative.
Throwawayaerlei|3 years ago
That we have a progressive instead of flat personal tax rate system shows this is a pretty lie.
MontagFTB|3 years ago
alpos|3 years ago
Therefore if one wants to know what the society's preferences are, that data must be collected in such a way the each individual's preferences are included in the data set.
We might still apply a weighting function at aggregation time, depending on why we're looking at society's preferences in that instance. There are certain group's of opinions that we don't value as much for answers to some questions, but we should like to be deliberate about those choices instead of applying an implicit weighting function during collection.
adventured|3 years ago
The nazi also had a criminal record for raping a young boy.
The parent put it this way:
> If a person is disabled or uneducated and can’t hold a job, that person should still get an equal say in society’s preferences even though they have no money with which to express their preferences
Morally and rationally the nazi child rapist should not have equal say in society's preferences. Any society - any culture - that is stupid enough to place that person's preferences at a level of equality, deserves and will have earned its inevitable collapse. And there are far worse monsters roaming about than the nazi child rapist. While my specific example is an outlier (on purpose), the premise is far more expansive in principle.
It's also why a Constitutional Republic is vastly superior to actual Democracy.