In general: this seems to indicate that economics is less a science than its supporters admit – these decisions are highly political not theoretical.

“why would only ‘income’ be a status good, but not ‘leisure’… there’s no reason to think that one particular effect must dominate the other – as it is usually assumed”

Well, it’s not usually ‘assumed’. It’s widely recognised that for the argument from status effects to even get off the ground, such effects have to operate more strongly in respect of some goods than others – which is why people have been trying to test these ideas empirically rather than just making assumptions. There is actually evidence that people don’t seem to treat, say, the number of weeks holiday they get as a status good in the same way that they do income. (And FWIW, the evidence for the latter doesn’t seem to me to be confined to idiosyncratic goods and groups at all. It tends to turn up on income for nationally representative samples in a variety of countries. Those that don’t fit this pattern seem to be the exception rather than the rule. There are reasons to be careful here, but that’s really not one of them.)

There are perhaps some definitional issues here about what counts as leisure and what counts as consumption, but your example of people bragging about where they went on holiday doesn’t seem to support your point terribly well, given that bragging rights are likely to be pretty strongly linked to how expensive a place is to visit and consequently to income. I agree that this whole issue becomes more complicated if there are multiple positional goods. But if many, or most of those goods are linked to income, then that tends to reduce the complexity rather a lot. Whether they are is something of an open question, but as far as I can tell, it’s not quite as open as you seem to think, and contrary to your assertions, those you’re criticising are hardly unaware of this issue.

I’m going to refrain from speculating as to your motives for not liking the argument. I’d suggest you extend the same charity to those who disagree with you. There seems to me to be very little reason to suspect they’re more biased than you are.

I would tend to apply this more narrowly: I agree there’s value in making it difficult to pass laws that discriminate between people in particular ways. However, I’d depart from your blanket position in a number of ways. First, I think the value of making-things-difficult is instrumental rather than fundamental. It’s an institutional strategy for achieving good outcomes, not a good outcome in and of itself. Second, I’m inclined to think absolute prohibitions aren’t typically necessary.* Sometimes the expected benefits will far outweigh the risk of getting it wrong (and any risk of setting off on a slippery slope). The best solution seems to me to instead focus on requiring a higher burden of proof when governments try to do things that are in some sense “suspect”.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly here, I think that we should make-things-difficult in response to specific, identified biases in either voters themselves, or majoritarian decision-making more generally. It’s seems difficult to motivate the “equality before the law” constraint on the basis of a general distrust of governments and voters: that would seem to suggest far stronger restrictions on government doing anything at all, not just on it doing “discriminatory” things. On the other hand, if you’re looking to respond to specific, identified biases, then the “equality before the law” constraint seems unnecessarily broad. In this case, for example, I see very little danger of any such biases operating in favour of something like the height tax (If anything, they would seem to militate against the tax, but that’s a more contentious position not crucial to my point.) There’s consequently no need to put obstacles in the way of it’s imposition.

In fact, this is (sort of) what the courts’ application of the equal protection clause does: puts higher hurdles in the way of measures that distinguish between people on particular grounds that they think are likely to be suspect; and lower hurdles or none at all in the way of measures that distinguish on other grounds. I don’t necessarily think they do it that well, or coherently, but you can see something of this sort of reasoning behind their practice.

* Actually, I’m inclined to think that an general prohibition on government discriminating would be incoherent rather than merely unnecessary, certainly without specifying more precisely “between whom?” and “in respect of what outcomes?” But the argument for this position is too involved to go into here, so I won’t expect you to buy it. A good account can be found in Peter Western’s “The Empty Idea of Equality”.

“Your concept of fairness has more to do with everyone winding up equal rather than everyone being treated as equal by the government.”

Actually, the sort of equality that I’m committed to doesn’t correspond to either of these formulations very well. I’m probably something like a capability prioritarian.

What I meant about the height becoming a suspect category was, that it *doesn’t* *matter* what lawyers think about it. The public would hate it and the courts would come around to the public’s point of view eventually.

I think our basic disagreement comes down to this: I don’t want to live in a society where things like tall taxes get passed because someone thinks it will be more economically efficient, even if they’re right. I think the laws should be simple and non-discriminatory. I’m very skeptical of any excuses for why they shouldn’t be, because I don’t trust governments and I don’t trust voters. I think there is value in living in a society where tall taxes are taboo, and I wouldn’t trade that value for a little more efficiency in the economy. I value equality under the law more than I value equality of outcomes.

You don’t mind the government tweaking and poking at the economy as long as they do it right. Your concept of fairness has more to do with everyone winding up equal rather than everyone being treated as equal by the government. You are more willing to let the government take a bigger role. Am I wrong?

Our disagreement is one of values more than one of facts.