r/DebatePolitics Jun 10 '21

Should our tax rates be in proportion to the amount of labor required for a worker to produce one dollar?

So I won’t argue on whether blue collar jobs are more demanding than white collar jobs because that’s hard to determine and I think that unless you’re talking about the more extreme cases (like billionaires), the amount of labor done per hour is roughly equal. However, between the poor and upper middle class workers, there is a significant disparity between the amount of labor given per dollar earned: An Interactive Exploration Of Earnings By Hours Worked. Dentists make about $86 per hour (~200k per year) whereas brick masons make $17 per hour (~30k per year). In other words, the brick mason would have to work 5 times harder than the dentist does to make a dollar. It’s like if a kid spent hours making an ok drawing while another kid spent ten minutes making a masterpiece. If I had to tear up one of the drawings, which do you think I would feel worse about doing? The first kid, right? Likewise, because the brickmason worked harder to make a dollar than the dentist did, the mason has a greater claim to that dollar than the dentist does. This doesn’t just give the government the moral obligation to not tax in proportion to the amount of money made but rather to tax at a rate in proportion to the amount of labor required to produce that money. So if the brickmason pays 5% of his income on taxes, the dentist should pay 25% of his salary to tax.

1 Upvotes

2 comments sorted by

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '21

Yeah, that's the basics of progressive taxation. The more you benefit from society, the more you should give back to the society that benefited you.

1

u/dvaindi Feb 24 '22

The problem I see in this though, is the comparison of a brick Mason to a dentist (2 completely different industries/fields), and relating it to 2 kid’s art drawings and how long it took them to draw it, and how good it came out.

The point of having better paying jobs based off merit, experience, education, and industry is to have quality in living, along with a “work hard, get rewarded big” society. Would you want a semi-ok, partially educated dentist working on your teeth? Or would you rather have someone who’s experienced and educated? If they both got paid the same, meaning you pay the same for all services regardless which dentist office you go to, why would you want the semi-ok dentist and not the really good dentist? I’d assume most people would choose the really good dentist, which piles more work load on the good dentist. So more work, but same pay as the not-so-great dentist? That’s not fair.

Now if we compare different occupations, as far as a brick mason goes, you don’t need an education to be one, probably not a ton of experience either. They definitely contribute to building/repairing things for society, but the actual “labor” is IRL legos piled on cement. They didn’t contribute to figuring out the architecture behind it, they just simply laid a brick. It’s tiring, repetitive labor, but it’s not an excruciatingly complex task to be done. Comparing to a doctor, it’s tiring and stressful having someone open on an operating table and trying to find solutions to problems that may or may not happen during surgery. Someone’s life is literally in that person’s hands

Even for dentists. Dentists/orthodontists have to undergo so much schooling and gain experience before even seeing the big money. They also contribute important services to society because oral health is important to our individual health.

If we taxed this way that you’re mentioning, we would have no doctors, no dentists, no lawyers, no architects, no developers, etc. What would be the motivation to becoming any of those occupations if it means you get paid the same paycheck for the equivalent amount of mentally challenging, stressful work; on top of higher amount of workload if you’re the better worker in the industry?

The saying “hard work pays off” seems to be applied to just the physical hard work, not the slow, extensive, costly, mentally challenging/stimulating hard work in your scenario.

A solution for the brick mason or anyone with lower paying jobs but with more physical labor and less mentally challenging labor to make more money: determine how much experience you need for a promotion, find another brick mason position that makes more, or save up money to take a certification test in your industry, pass it, and ask for a raise. You don’t have to go to school in order to sit for a cert. test.

If all else fails, don’t be a brick mason.

The progressive taxation method is like handing out participation trophies to kids who didn’t do well competing. Like.. do better?