system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Fines should be proportional to a person's wealth

When someone gets, for example (but not exclusively) a parking fine, the amount they have to pay should change depending on how much money they earn. This is because the fine is not a payment for an item, it's supposed to be a punishment and a deterrent. If someone with no income has to pay a £50 fine, versus someone with millions in the bank, the amount of punishment they're experiencing will be vastly different, even though they've done the same thing. I think in this situation it makes more sense to balance the level of punishment, than to have the same arbitrary cash amount.

I'm sure I've just shown how little I understand the way the law and/or economics works, and I welcome anyone to fill me in.

Edit: I'd like to clarify on what sort of system I'm envisioning - although I'm sure this has a few thousand issues itself. I picture it working similarly to tax brackets, so there's a base fine of X, and as the brackets go up people have a proportionately higher fine to pay.

Edit2: I'd also like to thank everyone for commenting, this has been really, really interesting, and I have mostly changed my mind about this.
gpt
The problem is that it's still unfair, even with fines being a proportion of your income.

What does a 5% fine matter to someone who makes 1 mil a month? Cool, they pay 50k now. That looks like a big number, but they still have 950k to work with, which means they don't lose ANY quality of life and don't even have to think about it.

Compare that to someone who only makes 1000 and has to pay 50 bucks. If you live paycheck to paycheck, 50 bucks of unexpected expenditure can FUCK you.

So even though the proportion is the same, the way that the fine affects these two people is still different. The rich person isn't inconvenienced by it even though he pays a lot. The poor person might not have enough money left to eat this month and the fine might be an existential threat.

That's the thing. Even proportional fines are only a fair punishment when everyone is financially stable and can afford to pay. As long as that isn't the case, they will always hurt the most vulnerable members of our society the most. You're right that making it proportional is a step in the right direction, but it still doesn't solve the problem.