Arquitectura y Base de Datos de Moodle Características específicas e importantes en la

The first challenge to the holistic approach is that considering the overall nature of the tax and benefit system requires us to combine together insurance decisions that should be separate. This is the idea that taxes should be hypothecated529 such that the income from a particular tax should correspond to the expenditure on a related issue. For example, Dworkin considers insurance against bad market luck in the labour market

separately from insurance for bad social-luck. Regarding the latter, Dworkin writes that in ‘a more nearly equal world, people would be able to insure against bad inheritance luck,’530 and would purchase insurance against the fear of being relatively worse off than others. Thus, people would want to insure ex ante against ‘occupying a low tier in

526

Ibid. at 117-8. I will discuss the tax-base in chapter seven, and the option of lifetime averaging in both of the final chapters (sections 6.2 and 7.7).

527

I will discuss the related tax-bases in section 7.2.

528 _{See footnote 28.} 529

Hypothecated taxes are taxes that are ring-fenced for a particular use, usually related to the activity that is taxed. An example might be where taxes on road vehicles are used only to maintain roads, and not spent on other social programmes.

530

194 a class system,’531 and would therefore support highly progressive gift and inheritance taxation. Dworkin assumes that hypothetical insurance should proceed in this hypothecated manner. My approach, in contrast, is focused on the whole tax and benefit system and its effects, and I will show that Dworkin’s assumption is unwarranted.

In some respects, Dworkin’s hypothecated approach is the obvious one; we need to consider different forms of fortune separately as thought experiments that will guide our choice between policies. However, this does not imply that taxes should be hypothecated such that taxes that are related to one form of good fortune should be used solely to relieve that form of misfortune. I contend instead that there is no need to determine the amount expended upon schemes directly designed to compensate those with poor social luck based solely on social-luck related taxes. As Clayton argues, there is no reason to restrict or expand the expenditure on one type or purpose of policy on the basis of the amount of taxes collected from the corresponding area.532 There are several reasons to take the holistic approach and focus on the overall tax and benefit system rather than limiting options to direct responses. General—indirect— policies will often have several effects which are justified by multiple reasons. For example, subsidised or free education may assist in mitigating social luck as well as ensuring authentically choosing citizens.533 It seems difficult to determine on the hypothecated approach how much of this spending should be attributed to the hypothecated source and how much to other reasons.

Limiting government spending to direct policies may preclude more effective multiple- overlapping-reason policies. For example, one policy may be helpful with regard to many justified reasons but would not be effective enough at responding to any one

531 _{Ibid. at 348.}

532 _{Clayton, 'Equal Inheritance: An Anti-Perfectionist View', at Section 2.3.} 533

195 issue alone. Considering the whole package would allow such policies while the hypothecated approach would not, an inefficient use of resources. Such inefficiencies would make the policy options less attractive, and thus provide less attractive hypothetical insurance options. This would result in lower taxes and less provision as a result of the inefficiencies caused by unnecessary hypothecation. Of course, the same point applies to taxation as well as government spending; taxes may also achieve several ends at once.

Second, hypothecating taxes makes as little practical sense from the perspective of insurers as it does for governments.534 Governments rarely want to expend exactly the amount collected from a particular tax on that particular area of policy—some areas will require more resources and others will cost less than the revenue raised. Furthermore, in practice tax revenues will just go into a central pot, and so the hypothecation is merely a limitation on the ability of government to move tax revenues around in accordance with their most productive use. Hypothetical insurers would therefore not wish to be limited in their tax package options in this arbitrary manner.

While there are advantages in considering hypothetical insurance decisions regarding market talent and social luck separately, this should not restrict us in finding the most effective overall tax system. I will therefore focus on the overall tax system guided by the considerations that people would make in response to the several problems against which they will consider insurance. It will be necessary to remember throughout that decision-making may relate to multiple kinds of relative brute luck, and to various forms of potential disadvantage.