News Mondays - Jérémie Bongiovanni
Yesterday, the Swiss-German Sunday press reported the results of a survey conducted by HCM International. According to the survey, 57% of Swiss would be in favor of raising taxes on high incomes. With the Young Socialists' 99% initiative to increase capital taxation looming, animosity towards the wealthy is running high. There's a pressing need to challenge an all-too-established intuition about taxing the richest.
The taxation of the highest incomes and the remuneration of corporate executives are regularly criticized in the political arena. The general public is also highly skeptical of these privileged strata of society - financially at least. The survey revealed by NZZ am Sonntag, according to which 57% of Swiss would be in favor of higher taxes on high incomes, confirms that this resentment is deeply rooted in the collective mind.
Many now invoke social justice - an idea often imported from Anglo-Saxon «social justice» - to justify higher taxation of the wealthiest. The self-proclaimed defenders of social justice are thus claiming moral superiority in order to defend what may in fact be the exact opposite. The very people who defend justice are preventing an honest debate from taking place in the first place, which is the only way to achieve a fairer situation than if it had not taken place.
The injustice of solutionsThe Rawls experiment
To define a situation as just or unjust, the 20th-century American philosopherth century John Rawls developed a theory known as the veil of ignorance. This intellectual construct is designed to enable us to judge whether a situation is fair by anticipating it from behind a veil of ignorance, i.e. from a position in which the subject has no prior knowledge of which family he or she will be born into, what social status he or she will have, what sex he or she will be, or any other criterion that might influence his or her objective judgment.
Applying it to taxation, and putting myself personally behind this veil of ignorance, I'm not convinced that higher taxation of the wealthiest is a matter of social justice. Placed behind the veil of ignorance and considering the possibility of becoming a person affected by these higher taxes, I don't see any justice in it. The tax increase I will have to pay will be defined arbitrarily by politicians who are unfortunately, for many, probably more in search of re-election than a philosophical ideal of justice. This measure would make me pay disproportionately for my efforts to acquire more wealth.
However, this stage of thinking does not mean that one person's wealth cannot be made available to others in need. The problem is using the state apparatus to distribute this wealth arbitrarily. Every individual can be generous, as illustrated by the many personalities active in philanthropy. Philanthropy definitely does more good for humanity than the supposed distribution of Venezuelan wealth.
What would convince me to support such a tax on the richest behind the veil of ignorance would be the fact that they represent a minority, and that the probability of my being affected by such a measure is therefore infinitesimal. The moral value of freerider is, however, limited. This theory can hardly be applied to other minorities. Furthermore, it should be pointed out here that the benefit I would derive as a modest person from the higher taxation of a wealthier individual would probably be less than the latter's loss.
The contradictions of the guarantors of social justice
Quite often, those who wish to see the richest pay more taxes are the same ones who defend all other minorities with remarkable zeal. Regrettably, the fact that the richest are also a minority seems to escape them. The wealthiest, like every minority, are threatened in their fundamental rights, in this case that of private property, which nothing can justify.
Read also | We'll all go to tax heaven...
Finally, those who rail against the wealth of a part of the population seem to give a disproportionate importance to money. Switzerland is a country in which current structures are largely designed to meet the primary needs of each individual. Everyone then has the opportunity to develop their sporting, cultural and professional potential. This is John Rawls' theory: a society cannot be egalitarian, but it must be open, allow for social mobility on the basis of merit, and thus be fair. So, those who want even more distribution seem to see money as the ultimate key to salvation and happiness. Paradoxical!
Reflecting on themes such as taxation is central to maintaining a balanced social contract in our societies. Intuition can sometimes guide us towards subtle injustices which, in the long term, can lead to the disintegration of society and the confrontation of various strata - as the yellow vests episode illustrated - yet called upon to collaborate.
Write to the author: jeremie.bongiovanni@leregardlibre.com
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