3 ms·

I am kinda hoping for things to go the other way. Let anyone (any person, any company) have an account in the central bank and use that directly for payments.

by chvid 11y ago

I am kinda hoping for things to go the other way. Let anyone (any person, any company) have an account in the central bank and use that directly for payments. Let that and only that be "legal tender". Then there would be no need for the government to do costly guarantees for depositors in private banks, no need for cash, no need for a costly blockchain and so on. Taxes could be collected much fairer and efficient. Negative interests rates could be implemented without distortions.

annnnd 11y ago
...and taking one's resources could be done in one swift move.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  SWIFT move, heh.
ptaipale 11y ago
I'm not one of the trolls who oppose all taxation, but statements like "Taxes could be collected much fairer and efficient" scare the hell out of me. One fundamental thing about taxes is that, when enforcement of each and every law is not totally possible, totally unfair taxes are also not possible. What you propose is totalitarianism, or eventually leads to it.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  I oppose compulsory taxation, not all taxation, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a troll :-) What's your objection to my opinion?
  - tomp 11y ago
    Non-compulsory taxation doesn't work, see the "Free rider problem".
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      Doesn't work, or, you don't think it'd work?
      - tomp 11y ago
        Logic dictates that it shouldn't work, anecdata suggests that it probably doesn't work (if it did, tax avoidance wouldn't be a problem), and I'm sure you can find actual well-researched real-world examples that it definitely doesn't work.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
        Hang on. You can't cite tax avoidance as evidence that voluntary taxation wouldn't work - it happens now, with 'compulsory' taxation, with rates orders of magnitude higher than would be required for a minimalist voluntary state. For example when we (the LibertariaNZ) ran the numbers for New Zealand, we estimated the cost of providing Government - not social welfare or foreign intervention - to be $2500 per year per working adult. In the absence of any other form of taxation, do you really think this would be impossible to generate in a voluntary system? I'd argue you're right, though, if you're thinking of the level of taxation necessary for socialism.
        tomp 11y ago
        So your main issue seems to be that you want to pay less taxes, not that you want taxation to be voluntary. I see that as an orthogonal issue. I mean, sure, I don't want to pay taxes that finance the military. And fortunately, the state allows me to actually pay less taxes (in theory, at least; to be able to effectively exploit the loopholes, I would need to be much richer). But by saying, "I'll only pay for what I think is worth paying for", you're just moving democracy from "voting with votes" to "voting with money". I'm not sure why that would be any better than the current system.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
- chvid 11y ago
  No. I am just proposing a less bureaucratic totalitarianism.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    What I'm afraid is less bureaucratic and more efficient totalitarianism. The bureaucracy may actually be a safety mechanism: the government can't go to the extremes because it'd be buried in paper. Whereas in electronic surveillance and control...
tumdum_ 11y ago
Way would you want to force everyone to give up privacy and freedoms to the state?
tomp 11y ago
> Then there would be no need for the government to do costly guarantees for depositors in private banks Why not? As long as banks operate on a fractional reserve basis (i.e. your bank can lend out your money, but you still "have it" in your account), guarantees are still needed, regardless of how money is recorded. > Taxes could be collected much fairer and efficient. Taxes being collected and taxes being fair are two very distinct, and mostly unrelated, concepts. > Negative interests rates could be implemented without distortions. Great, I really want someone to keep stealing my money.
duncan_bayne 11y ago
What distortions do you mean, and why do you think a cashless society would avoid them?
- chvid 11y ago
  Negative interest rates are about fighting deflation; in a deflation the surrounding society needs to produce a positive real return to the holders of the most riskless asset, cash. This is why it is an unhealthy state for an economy to be in. If you are cash less you can avoid this.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    But negative interest rates destroy savings, encouraging malinvestment. I don't understand from your reply how you think saving would work in a cashless environment experiencing negative interest rates.
chvid 11y ago
You can still buy all the gold coins, foreign money and so on you want; they are just not legal tender. I am pretty sure the government can access to my bank statements at will. This setup will make it much more explicit what is (already) going on. Oversight would of course be needed.

by chvid 11y ago

annnnd 11y ago

...and taking one's resources could be done in one swift move.

duncan_bayne 11y ago
SWIFT move, heh.

ptaipale 11y ago

I'm not one of the trolls who oppose all taxation, but statements like "Taxes could be collected much fairer and efficient" scare the hell out of me. One fundamental thing about taxes is that, when enforcement of each and every law is not totally possible, totally unfair taxes are also not possible. What you propose is totalitarianism, or eventually leads to it.

duncan_bayne 11y ago
I oppose compulsory taxation, not all taxation, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a troll :-) What's your objection to my opinion?
- tomp 11y ago
  Non-compulsory taxation doesn't work, see the "Free rider problem".
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Doesn't work, or, you don't think it'd work?
    - tomp 11y ago
      Logic dictates that it shouldn't work, anecdata suggests that it probably doesn't work (if it did, tax avoidance wouldn't be a problem), and I'm sure you can find actual well-researched real-world examples that it definitely doesn't work.
      - duncan_bayne 11y ago
        Hang on. You can't cite tax avoidance as evidence that voluntary taxation wouldn't work - it happens now, with 'compulsory' taxation, with rates orders of magnitude higher than would be required for a minimalist voluntary state. For example when we (the LibertariaNZ) ran the numbers for New Zealand, we estimated the cost of providing Government - not social welfare or foreign intervention - to be $2500 per year per working adult. In the absence of any other form of taxation, do you really think this would be impossible to generate in a voluntary system? I'd argue you're right, though, if you're thinking of the level of taxation necessary for socialism.
        tomp 11y ago
        So your main issue seems to be that you want to pay less taxes, not that you want taxation to be voluntary. I see that as an orthogonal issue. I mean, sure, I don't want to pay taxes that finance the military. And fortunately, the state allows me to actually pay less taxes (in theory, at least; to be able to effectively exploit the loopholes, I would need to be much richer). But by saying, "I'll only pay for what I think is worth paying for", you're just moving democracy from "voting with votes" to "voting with money". I'm not sure why that would be any better than the current system.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
chvid 11y ago
No. I am just proposing a less bureaucratic totalitarianism.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  What I'm afraid is less bureaucratic and more efficient totalitarianism. The bureaucracy may actually be a safety mechanism: the government can't go to the extremes because it'd be buried in paper. Whereas in electronic surveillance and control...

tumdum_ 11y ago

Way would you want to force everyone to give up privacy and freedoms to the state?

tomp 11y ago

> Then there would be no need for the government to do costly guarantees for depositors in private banks Why not? As long as banks operate on a fractional reserve basis (i.e. your bank can lend out your money, but you still "have it" in your account), guarantees are still needed, regardless of how money is recorded. > Taxes could be collected much fairer and efficient. Taxes being collected and taxes being fair are two very distinct, and mostly unrelated, concepts. > Negative interests rates could be implemented without distortions. Great, I really want someone to keep stealing my money.

duncan_bayne 11y ago

What distortions do you mean, and why do you think a cashless society would avoid them?

chvid 11y ago
Negative interest rates are about fighting deflation; in a deflation the surrounding society needs to produce a positive real return to the holders of the most riskless asset, cash. This is why it is an unhealthy state for an economy to be in. If you are cash less you can avoid this.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  But negative interest rates destroy savings, encouraging malinvestment. I don't understand from your reply how you think saving would work in a cashless environment experiencing negative interest rates.

chvid 11y ago

You can still buy all the gold coins, foreign money and so on you want; they are just not legal tender. I am pretty sure the government can access to my bank statements at will. This setup will make it much more explicit what is (already) going on. Oversight would of course be needed.