Ah, so by 'base amount of tax paid' you mean averaged across the population? A rebate generally implies a refund of prior payment, so I found your summary confusing.

I’m not sure how to construe your analogy.

That just because something has a purpose does not imply it is a net good. In general I think high concentrations of wealth are bad on a systemic level, like too much sugar leading to diabetes. So I'm not sure that the capital allocation performed by hedge funds is a necessity for an economy to operate sustainably.