Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Veil of Ignorance

Recently, a bunch of us were chatting about the relative merits of taxing consumption (sales tax), income, and wealth (estate tax), and how one would go about designing a new tax code if we were not encumbered by existing laws.

A goal was to keep the system as simple as possible, and then coming up with imaginary cases of people who would be much worse off under the new tax code.

During the discussion, the idea of the veil of ignorance kept popping up.

Here is a quick video explainer of the concept:


And a quick introduction to the man who most recently popularized the role of this concept in designing policies with social justice in mind.


Here is a link to an EconTalk podcast (Rawls, Nozick and Justice) on related issues.

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