The problem with meat is not that we eat it, but that we eat too much of it.
This isn’t how it works. Consuming meat and cheese and butter and other animal products has been made into a conspicuous consumption deal for a long time, it’s a status symbol, obviously important to pastoralist cultures and their industrial descendants (like The West).
You can’t do “low meat” without first attacking the status power of meat.
People would go crazy and riot over reducing it, as it would most likely manifest as:
Rationing of meat (I’ve lived in this, in Romania, a long time ago) - possible, but hard, not really something that works in capitalist market economics.
Raising the prices (which is something that the animal farmers would love) - which would cause all sorts of …“so meat is only for rich people? FUCK THAT!” reactions.
If you don’t do those, it’s just going to be imported.
Yes, the most powerful will always have the most power. It still makes sense to set up some rules.
Pigovian taxes can still be beneficial for society, even if the super rich evade the system. They create incentives for everyone else to move in the desired direction. This includes consumers, producers, investors, researchers. For all those people in their different positions, it will be financial advantageous to consider other options.
But my main point was that you can raise prices without hurting the poor. By returning the tax revenue to the poor.
This isn’t how it works. Consuming meat and cheese and butter and other animal products has been made into a conspicuous consumption deal for a long time, it’s a status symbol, obviously important to pastoralist cultures and their industrial descendants (like The West).
You can’t do “low meat” without first attacking the status power of meat.
People would go crazy and riot over reducing it, as it would most likely manifest as:
If you don’t do those, it’s just going to be imported.
If you ban imports, you’re going to get a meat mafia. Meat bootleggers. The “leather underground” mafia and terrorist organization.
You may actually get to see this, since the prices are destined to shoot up eventually, since it’s so unsustainable.
Solution to #2: Implement as a pigovian tax. Return the tax revenue to the population per capita.
The rich: dodges taxes like the Olympic gold medalists of dodging taxes
Yes, the most powerful will always have the most power. It still makes sense to set up some rules.
Pigovian taxes can still be beneficial for society, even if the super rich evade the system. They create incentives for everyone else to move in the desired direction. This includes consumers, producers, investors, researchers. For all those people in their different positions, it will be financial advantageous to consider other options.
But my main point was that you can raise prices without hurting the poor. By returning the tax revenue to the poor.
Is Inequality Inevitable? | Scientific American