Kurt Wickman is having trouble posting, and asked me to forward this tot he Armchair list.
----- Forwarded message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 11:04:11 +0200 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Laffer Curve Robert, Thanks for mail. For some reason the armchair-list doesn't allow me to send mail to the entire group, so maybe you can relay. I think the free-rider argument against a "Wicksell tax" goes some way, but is nevertheless basically irrelevant, in the meaning that it is a second-order argument. I think it is easier to see this if you redefine public services to some kind of "club goods". If "tax constituencies" are small, a kind of benevolent social control is possible, which will make everyone willing to pay for what he gets: in short, you have a club type of organization. In such a setting the moral rule "don't expect something for nothing" will be effective. "Free riding" activities will be well known and "free riders" socially ostracized - a kind of sanction well known in clubs. And, I must add, also in a real tax system: in the small Swedish town where I grew up in the 50s the tax system was Wicksell-sanctioned and everyone paid the tax in the same way they paid other types of bills. The system worked well up until the 60s, when it collapsed. All the best to you Kurt Wickman Ph D tel +46-26-648972 ----- End of forwarded message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----
