If you want to punish someone equally with fines, you need to fine rich people a higher proportion of their wealth and income, not even just the same percent.
I'm not swimming in money but I earn well above average, and because I do my disposable income is a higher multiple of the average persons disposable income than my income is. To be fined even, say, a few days income for me is at most a minor nuisance. Maybe I'll feel bad enough to eat out at restaurants less that month. Maybe. To be fined 1 days income for someone low paid might mean they'll struggle to cover their bills or eat.
There's nothing equal about even a fixed proportion of income for that reasn. But it's significantly better than a fixed amount that doesn't take income into account at all.
If you truly want to punish people financially the same in the sense of making it hurt the same for the same transgression, you'd have to fine people earning above average not just a higher amount, but a significantly higher percentage of their earnings and wealth.
EDIT: I'm reminded of Marx discussion in Critique of the Gotha Program of the first proposed program for what became the German SPD of the use of the term "equal rights" which, after tearing the term aparts ends with "To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal." That is, if you want equal outcomes, you can't treat people the same, because their situations are not the same.
I'm not swimming in money but I earn well above average, and because I do my disposable income is a higher multiple of the average persons disposable income than my income is. To be fined even, say, a few days income for me is at most a minor nuisance. Maybe I'll feel bad enough to eat out at restaurants less that month. Maybe. To be fined 1 days income for someone low paid might mean they'll struggle to cover their bills or eat.
There's nothing equal about even a fixed proportion of income for that reasn. But it's significantly better than a fixed amount that doesn't take income into account at all.
If you truly want to punish people financially the same in the sense of making it hurt the same for the same transgression, you'd have to fine people earning above average not just a higher amount, but a significantly higher percentage of their earnings and wealth.
EDIT: I'm reminded of Marx discussion in Critique of the Gotha Program of the first proposed program for what became the German SPD of the use of the term "equal rights" which, after tearing the term aparts ends with "To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal." That is, if you want equal outcomes, you can't treat people the same, because their situations are not the same.