Further feisty observations on Evolution from a reader:
Let’s make a simplified projection based on those two coexisting and interdependent groups (while acknowledging there are other groups and factors at play):
- One group, those on modest working incomes have chosen not to have children (or as a group to have fewer children) because of economic constraints.
- The other group, those on welfare, see their economic circumstances improve as they have more children and evidence shows they make the equally rational decision to have more children.
The former dwindling group contribute to a large degree to the welfare payments of the latter growing group and it will not be long, as you say, before the whole giant Ponzi scheme collapses into a stinking heap.
The government (and by extension the voters who voted for them) have decided they value the latter group more than the former group and want more of them as, from an evolutionary perspective, those having the desirable characteristic will increase in number within the population while those without the desirable characteristic will decrease within the population over time…
Hard not to see the force of this? Although maybe in fact it takes many generations for it all to work through like that, if it ever does? And there is also a possibly contrary Darwin Awards Effect going on, whereby numbers of totally stupid people tend to kill themselves and usefully improve the human gene pool.
Another way of looking at it is this. We appear to be not to far from a situation in which those who Get in net terms from the state exceed those who Contribute, hence are in a position to vote for More since (in the short term) they appear to have nothing to lose themselves.
When those who Contribute die out or rebel or escape or down tools, an utter mess will ensue: see Atlas Shrugged, passim.
On the other hand, slowly but surely there does seem to be a deeper questioning of the basic Tax Deal. Those without children somehow pay towards those who do have them, just as non-smokers pay towards the NHS to treat smokers or non-drivers pay towards those who drive. We all pay for idiotic development assistance which props up poor regimes. Is this necessarily the optimal way of allocating resources?
Unscrambling all that is now technically possible, in real time. We could all mark on our tax form what we wanted our tax payments to go to (or not). For those looking for more impenetrable words, this means as Dizzy explains hypothecated taxes of different sorts.
But would the consequent chaos (or at least many years of uncertainty as a new way of looking at taxes bedded down) make us any happier?
