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As usual, the motte assumes this will be used for the culture war. Realistically, it’s going to be used for dividing assets up in divorce and assessing child support. Maybe some other financial applications.
That is an interesting example of a slippery slope. Divorce has been legal in Christian countries for what? Around a hundred years? Longer in some places (America), a more recent development in others (Southern Ireland).
I think it came in on the basis that maybe 1% of marriages were wretchedly bad. Let them be dissolved and the sum of human happiness would rise, with no unexpected consequences to follow. But divorce became more common. Rich middle aged men took to trading in their middle aged wife that they had married when young, and starting a second family with a new, younger wife. That was understood as an abuse, and was tackled with alimony laws that were generous to the old wife. Those generous payments encouraged wives to divorce their boring middle-aged husbands, in the hope of a more exciting sex life, as an independently wealthy women. Divorce rates soared towards 50%. That in turn soured men on marriage. Men are reluctant to marry, and some countries (Canada?) have tackled this problem with marriages of adhesion (usually called common law marriages). Live too long with your girlfriend and bam, married.
Slipping further down the slippery slope, we are eradicating financial privacy to tackle the problem of men hiding their assets from ex-wives. Ponder how strange that would have seemed in the early days of divorce, when the idea was that the husband was perhaps an abusive drunk, probably unable to hold a job. Of course we want the woman to be able to escape and start a family with a hard working, good provider husband. Imagine if the early divorce law reforms had including the full range of legal changes. People who doubted that permitting divorce at all was wise, would have been confronted with the idea that the husband might be rich, and financial secrecy would have to go so that the ex-wife could be guaranteed her big share of the dosh. I think that people would never have started down the road of permitting divorce.
If we assume the role of a designer, or at least guide, of social norms, is there anything wrong with this specifically? Assume the children of the first marriage are already 18+, so it doesn't materially disadvantage the children so much. Society ends up with marginally more children, with marginally better genes (due to being rich).
I don't think this happened?
Financial privacy is being eradicated because it's universally useful the state, and large companies, to know your financial history. Useful both to the state, for taxation, incentive schemes, and enforcing the law. But also useful to you! You can pay taxes more efficiently, participate in government programs with less hassle, and e.g. get better terms on loans because the bank knows you better. I don't think men hiding their assets is a central reason for this.
If early Christian reformers had known that they were part of a long trend towards atheism, they might not have started down the road. Atheism is still correct though.
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I wonder how much of that was also due to decreasing prevalence of disease death and maternal mortality. In 1820 a drunkard or shit tier husband might be convinced to shape up by the woman's male relatives, or by community pressure, or something like that. If he didn't, he might or might not meet an unfortunate accident or get sick, and healthy men got sick from disease a lot. Or the woman just died in childbirth. In 1920, disease and childbirth death weren't as common and so covert homicide was a bit more difficult. Also people were a little bit more atomized especially in large cities.
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Well yeah, but I'm assuming that tax evasion cases already have access to this kind of information.
I've heard of South Dakota trusts spoken of in similar tones.
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Do you have statistics how often motte is wrong on those assumptions? So far we have seen bank accounts closed, paypal and similar frozen and payment processors dropping people and businesses over culture war issues. The more financial regulation there is the easier it is to weaponise and unfortunately right now it seems my adversaries control the institutions.
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