Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Should individual "sponsorship" be allowed of community

[David Mandel (dlmandel]

Do you also object to the principle of progressive income tax? It was
instituted early in the 20th century in the belly of the world's leading
capitalist beast. So even here we purport to have a system that says social
needs should be funded by citizens relative to their ability to pay: Not
only do more well off taxpayers pay proportionately more, their incomes are
also assessed at a higher rate -- for social goods and services that in
theory, anyway, benefit everyone equally.
Never mind for the moment that the rich have found many other ways to shift
the balance the other way (other regressive taxes, inferior services in
poorer communities, corporate welfare, etc.). The principle of progressive
taxation is well established, anyway, so far managing to weather the
blistering ideological attack that has been launched by the far right
lately.
Yet for you, the only "fair" way would be for every taxpayer to contribute
equally.
As a wise observer once noted, the law in its egalitarian majesty declares
it illegal to sleep under bridges and punishes rich and poor alike if they
transgress.

Finally, even all principles of progressivism aside, your preferred way
seems a likely recipe for paralysis if you operate on any kind of honest
consensus system. Those who can't afford their "fair share" can simply block
an assessment decision. Or perhaps they'd be too embarrassed to do that and
instead would risk credit card bankruptcy -- or more likely, move out.
David Mandel
>
> Not for everything.  But for paying for a capital improvement where we
> each own, by legal deeds, an exactly equal share of the resulting asset,
> and can sell that share (along with our unit) when we leave, then yes,
> I believe we should all pay equally.  Anything else is asking some members
> to directly donate wealth to other members.  I'm not particularly fond
> of kleptocracy no matter how it's disguised.
>
> > and then conclude it's inevitable that the less well off will hold
> > things up.
>
> I never claimed inevitability.  I said it was possible, because I've
> seen it happen, here in my community.  And I asked whether other people
> thought that was a price worth paying.  Or what other options there
> might be.
>
> > The answer for us has been to [create]
> > a pool of funds available for capital improvements.
>
> We have one of those too.  But our basement will take about $75K to
> finish off and we're putting something like $1-2K per year into the
> fund.  You do the math.
>
> > We assess a monthly fee for this purpose that is steeply
> > scaled according to ability to pay.
>
> I object to this for reasons explained above.  Let's say we have 34
> households and we build a capital improvement worth $34K that is equally
> owned by all households.  If household A pays $2000 towards this and
> household B pays nothing, and then a few years later they both sell
> their units and leave, the net effect is that the value of each property
> was increased by around $1000, so household A has lost $1000 and B has
> gained the same amount.  This is no different in principal from just
asking
> household A to write a check for $1000 to household B.  (This could be
made
> fair by placing a lien on property B for $1000 that had to be paid when
> they sold their unit, but no one except me ever proposes that or even sees
> it as acceptable.)
>
> We have members in the community whose "ability to pay" depends partly on
> how much they choose to work (as a consultant, I fall in this category
> as well!).  If someone chooses not to work (as much) in order to have a
> more relaxed lifestyle or (say) donate more of their time to charitable
> work, does that obligate others to subsidize them?  If they choose
> to work more in order to gain financial security, does that obligate
> them to subsidize others?  I see "ability to pay" as a somewhat squishy
> concept which is often strongly influenced by voluntary personal choices
> (whether to go to college, what career to choose, how frugal to be,
> how many children to have, eat out or cook at home, ...).
>
> Howard A. Landman
> River Rock Commons
> Fort Collins, CO
>
> "There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite
> so important, as living within your means." - Calvin Coolidge
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