This post does a good job of highlighting the harms from alcohol.
However, I’m strongly suspicious of the implicit framing:
If you talk either about crime policy or drug policy, that’s got to be the number 1 recommendation — just because it’s so easy. It doesn’t cost you anything. You don’t have to kick in anybody’s door. You just have to change a number in the tax code and crime goes down.
This is a quote—rather than the author—but I think the article does the same thing.
Namely, that it takes a very naive view of the subject by focusing on the immediate harms/ tangible harms whilst ignoring the more diffuse and harder to articulate benefits.
The argument could ultimately be correct, but this style of reasoning makes me very nervous, it’s like you’re setting yourself up for a fall. “It doesn’t cost you anything!”—oh, not in monetary terms it doesn’t, not in monetary terms!
That’s a good point in general, but I’m less worried about this in the context of an increased tax. The potential magnitude of the loss of benefit is limited by the ability to pay the tax and continue at current levels of consumption ~ in that case, the loss to the drinker is limited to the amount of the tax increase. So I don’t think we have to worry as much about calculating the “more diffuse and harder to articulate benefits” as precisely as we would under a ban.
Moreover, you could pair an alcohol tax hike with a decrease in some other consumption tax in a way that makes the whole package ~cost-neutral for moderate drinkers.
On the contrary, I think we should be very careful about imposing morality taxes. I’m not going to say we should never impose them, but not even attempting to think through the unintended consequences is the height of arrogance. I see this bad both from the perspect of leading to bad policy and also bad from the perspective of class relations.
Good point. If rulers worry about the consequences for social life, for instance, they could reduce taxes on some other good that is important to bar and restaurant operations, or even reduce taxes on low alcohol% beverage options while raising taxes on stiffer blends
One can also imagine monetary costs being inflicted on families whose drunk adults now have less money leftover from their binge for picking up takeout or groceries
I think Chris is pointing to the idea that the benefits of alcohol (and other targets of ‘this style of reasoning’) might be real, even if they aren’t monetary. e.g. for alcohol, imagine there is major positive effect where alcohol leads to more socialising. This isn’t easy to represent monetarily, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The style of reasoning he is pointing to is one where you’ve already measured the downside, and then wave away the upside.
This post does a good job of highlighting the harms from alcohol.
However, I’m strongly suspicious of the implicit framing:
This is a quote—rather than the author—but I think the article does the same thing.
Namely, that it takes a very naive view of the subject by focusing on the immediate harms/ tangible harms whilst ignoring the more diffuse and harder to articulate benefits.
The argument could ultimately be correct, but this style of reasoning makes me very nervous, it’s like you’re setting yourself up for a fall. “It doesn’t cost you anything!”—oh, not in monetary terms it doesn’t, not in monetary terms!
That’s a good point in general, but I’m less worried about this in the context of an increased tax. The potential magnitude of the loss of benefit is limited by the ability to pay the tax and continue at current levels of consumption ~ in that case, the loss to the drinker is limited to the amount of the tax increase. So I don’t think we have to worry as much about calculating the “more diffuse and harder to articulate benefits” as precisely as we would under a ban.
Moreover, you could pair an alcohol tax hike with a decrease in some other consumption tax in a way that makes the whole package ~cost-neutral for moderate drinkers.
On the contrary, I think we should be very careful about imposing morality taxes. I’m not going to say we should never impose them, but not even attempting to think through the unintended consequences is the height of arrogance. I see this bad both from the perspect of leading to bad policy and also bad from the perspective of class relations.
Good point. If rulers worry about the consequences for social life, for instance, they could reduce taxes on some other good that is important to bar and restaurant operations, or even reduce taxes on low alcohol% beverage options while raising taxes on stiffer blends
One can also imagine monetary costs being inflicted on families whose drunk adults now have less money leftover from their binge for picking up takeout or groceries
I’m curious to understand what you mean by this. I don’t know if the implication is meant to be self-evident, but I have trouble getting it.
I think Chris is pointing to the idea that the benefits of alcohol (and other targets of ‘this style of reasoning’) might be real, even if they aren’t monetary.
e.g. for alcohol, imagine there is major positive effect where alcohol leads to more socialising. This isn’t easy to represent monetarily, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The style of reasoning he is pointing to is one where you’ve already measured the downside, and then wave away the upside.
Exactly!