Governments are always looking around for new ways of raising taxes, so here is a new one, a gene tax. It will be greeted with howls of rage, but then so is every new tax proposal. Those with genetic advantages should be taxed proportionately, as they will be so much more successful in later life. This should also be a spur to those few who do not make full use of their abilities for the public good, but are content to be free loaders. At the other end, many have genetic disorders causing chronic distress and poverty, and they should be correspondingly compensated.
"There is nothing surprising about the discovery that more than 80 per cent of the most powerful people in the United States attended elite universities...
No doubt it is unjust that some are born with high IQs and strong work motivation, just as it is unjust that some men are born tall, dark and handsome and some women are born beautiful. But these are injustices for which there is no cure. We live in an unjust world."
I agree with Lynn's formulation of the (non)problem, but with modern technology whilst there is still no cure there is now a way of adjusting for this injustice. Handicapping works well in the horse-racing world.
A "gene tax" ignores the simple truth that all human endeavors require both "nature and nurture" for optimal outcomes. A gene tax would make sense only in a world in which there were no structural or institutional barriers to human development. As Gordon's quote of Lynn clearly indicates, 80% of the most powerful did not get to that position by virtue of their genetic makeup alone, it was the elite university environment that provided the context for their power base.
"it's simply not feasible."
But it soon will be. Polygenic risk scores are beginning to account for meaningful amounts of variance for complex traits. And there are two sides to this idea, compensating those with deleterious genes as well as handicapping or taxing those with successful ones. It does not have to be a perfect solution, just better than the present genetic inequality.
Up till now, society has been in denial about genetic prediction, and has instructed the insurance industry to ignore it. But once polygenic risk scores become significantly predictive, the insurance industry will collapse into chaos, and we need to be thinking of new solutions to the economics of disease and social problems..
Interesting concept Anthony. I agree that optimal outcomes require both nature and nurture. We know there are people with natural (I would say God given) talent and abilities which due to some circumstance never develop those abilities. And we all know people who try and try to develop abilities which are naturally lacking but can only achieve moderate success in doing so.
The real interesting issue I see here is the foundational concept that difference is by default unjust. The idea that because we are not all born with the same abilities the world in which we live is therefore unjust. More so that idea that this 'injustice' must be somehow manipulated or adjusted to correct a deemed unjust natural occurrence. I would suggest that this is not an injustice at all, but the natural way of things. The concept of injustice is one of our making and design, not one naturally occurring.
Any attempt to take from the 'haves' in order to give to the 'have nots' as a mechanism by which we can force equality or compensation for inequality is divisive and I suggest doomed to failure on that basis even if technology made it possible.
"The real interesting issue I see here is the foundational concept that difference is by default unjust."
I think difference is inherently unjust, but that does not mean we could or should do any thing about it. However, our whole political debate in the UK at present is dominated by the concept of inequality, which can lead to divisive and nonsensical policies, especially when it ignores sound scientific data.
"A predictor that accounts for 80% of the variance - which is very, very high - will still be wrong 20% of the time - an unacceptably high error rate for any high stakes purpose."
I don't see why any predictor has to be completely accurate, just better than the alternatives. Incidentally, what is the error rate for a very high stakes outcome, death penalty verdicts in US courts?
"why not just have more tax on wealth, regardless of how it was obtained? Why link it to some measure of genetic endowment? "
Earned wealth depends on ability and effort, so taxing this wealth provides a disincentive for initiative, which to some extent is modifiable by incentives.
"In principal there is no genetic determinism, an idea that belongs to a by gone era... Taxing a hypothesized relative concept called "genetic ability" (or advantage) is going backwards to the era of eugenics!
See my RG question on Genetic Determinism. I have gone back to the era of eugenics, and still have not found anyone who was a genetic determinist. I doubt there was even anyone who supported the concept of genetic ability. The old eugenicists did at least understand statistics and probability.
The tax should be used for the balance and welfare of the community. Part of the welfare of each country is dependent on the tax power and, in the other part, it has been used for tax purposes.
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