Envy Drives the Income Tax
Ever wonder why many who favor the creation of a Tennessee state income tax try hard to convince you to support it because while you might pay a little more, "the rich" will pay a LOT more? Why would they think you would be motivated to give up a little of your own money in order to help make someone else poorer? Why do they attempt to make you so envious of people wealthier than you that you'd be willing the give up more of your own hard-earned money?

Consider this story from Reason that reports on a study by a pair of British economists that suggests envy comes naturally. The data indicates that envy drives socialistic economics, which includes redistributionist tax policies such as the income tax.

The research by economists Daniel Zizzo of Oxford University and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University found that people are willing to pay money to reduce other people's incomes. They set up an experiment in which groups of four subjects were given nearly equal amounts of money to play a computerized gambling game. During the game, two of the players were given extra cash, and all players knew it. When the gambling game ended, each player was offered the chance to spend his own money to anonymously "burn" some of the cash won by his fellow participants. Lowering someone else's cash stash didn't make a player richer - in fact, it cost money to reduce someone else's holdings.

The shocking finding: nearly two-thirds of players "happily paid for the privilege of impoverishing their fellow participants." The economists say the data is "strong evidence" of envy-driven thinking.

Comments Reason: "Apparently, it matters a great deal whether people believe that others deserve their good fortune. If they don’t believe they do, then less well-off people will further impoverish themselves to bring the rich bastards down a peg or two. Perhaps the opposition in the Senate to eliminating the death tax on estates over $625,000 can be traced to the sense that trust fund heirs are undeserving.

"Socialists often claim that capitalism is based on humanity’s worst impulses, greed and selfishness, despite the fact that people who live in societies that participate in markets tend to be more generous and cooperative than those who don’t. Oswald and Zizzo’s research suggests that socialists who believe that their ideology appeals to humanity’s better instincts have it backwards. Envy is behind the leveling spirit of socialism."

Undeniably, it is also a prime motivation for the proponents of the income tax.