There is also the issue of administration and evasion -i.e. polluters moving to locations where pollution is not taxed, but that problem is hardly germane to pollution. It pertains to any form of pollution control to an even greater extent. If a polluter moves to a country that does not tax pollution, you can still levy a tax on them if they want to sell their product in your country, but in case of administrative prohibitions you can basically kiss their sweet ass goodbye if they go elsewhere.
As to the supposed regressive effect - I think that claims of income redistribution through taxation is bollocks. At best, it is a half ass measure in lieu of a more effective redistribution i.e. through nationalization or adequate provision of public goods. However, I have an impression that it is often a ruse, an act of red-washing pro-business interests, if you will. Saying that emission tax supposedly hurts "the people" carries a different weight than saying that its hurts wealthy businessmen.
Wojtek
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 11:08 AM, James Heartfield
<Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> On Carbon Tax, I believe that the argument is that the price mechanism is not a good way to address the problem that the carbon tax addresses.
>
> Myself, I recall leftists used to say that all taxes on goods (rather than on incomes) were regressive, because they hurt the poor the same (which is relatively speaking, more) than they do the rich.
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