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Capitalism is way out of control. No corporation should be able to strong arm the government to get out of taxes. At least not until I can pit states against ea

• jeffreyrogers 9y ago
  > At least not until I can pit states against each other to get out of my income tax. You can by moving to any of Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, or Wyoming.
  • hashkb 9y ago
    Apples to oranges. Amazon is getting its own special deals.
  • cosmie 9y ago
    Tennessee should be on that list, too.
• vinceguidry 9y ago
  Capitalism doesn't really work unless it can fight on equal footing with the state. If the state can just clamp down however it wants on private enterprise, then eventually all private enterprise becomes state enterprise. See China. And there are US states with 0 income tax. And countries with very low income tax. Russia has 13% income tax, the state gets most of its income from its fascinating system of tributary taxation. (1) It's certainly possible to vote with your feet for the system of government that fits your wishes best. 1. https://www.quora.com/Will-Russia-abandon-the-tributary-taxation-system-in-the-future-or-is-this-clan-like-system-a-permanent-part-of-Russian-society/answer/Dima-Vorobiev https://www.quora.com/Will-Russia-abandon-the-tributary-taxa...
  • toomuchtodo 9y ago
    The state’s role is to enable the level of capitalism it desires. Capitalism doesn’t compete against the state, as the state can always control it.
    • vinceguidry 9y ago
      This is a very Anglo point of view. In other parts of the world the relationship is much more antagonistic than you would expect. The state has to get its money from somewhere, and the locals rarely have much of it. The state is often heavily intertwined with industry, through massive regulation and, too often, good old-fashioned corruption. If the state thinks it can get away with nationalizing a vital industry concern, it will without a pause. Usually though it can't because it knows that bureaucrats make horrible managers.
      • toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Not sure it's an Anglo view. The State has a monopoly on force and regulation, allowing for the governing of degrees of Capitalism. Capitalism has no such control over the State.
        • hashkb 9y ago
          Except look at this situation... Amazon clearly does.
          • toomuchtodo 9y ago
            Amazon is asking for a hand out, it does not have control. We could always nationalize Amazon if we decided to, the State never loses that control. All it takes is political regime change.
        • vinceguidry 9y ago
          The English innovated on this with a strong legal system protecting the nobles from the depredations of the State. This was only possible because the English was separated from the rest of the continent so it wasn't ever seriously threatened. Every other country in Europe progressed without these innovations and as such they're always only a few steps away from fascism / dictatorship. Except the Dutch. The Dutch were reasonably well protected and they also created a commercial empire. The US Constitution is modeled after the Dutch one. The difference is that the English weren't able to build their commercial empire until after the legal reforms took place, while the Dutch couldn't make their legal reforms until after they built their commercial empire. No such legal reforms exist in other nations. These laws are instrumental in allowing a class structure other than ruling class-peasants. Other countries can vary in the amount of wealth they can spread amongst their peasants, but the peasants don't really participate in the governing. The big caveat here is France. The French mechanism for making demands on the ruling class is social unrest. Nothing like a good French riot. The spectre of a second French Revolution scares the everloving crap out of the rulers and that forces them to the negotiating table. This has the unfortunate effect of making them uniquely vulnerable to fascism. But enterprise in France is just as state-intertwined as it is everywhere else, because there aren't any strong institutions there to counteract it. Only in Anglo countries can industry and state compete as equals. When industry bands together and cooperates, as we used to call monopoly / cartel, only a coordinated state response can check it. This is enshrined in law and a bedrock feature that our capitalistic society relies on for its competitiveness.
  • 1_player 9y ago
    Bullshit and hyperbole. There are various degrees of capitalism, and saying that if the state doesn't put corporations at its same level, eventually it'll become more or less like China, is pushing a certain type of agenda. Have a look at Europe, there's fully privatised states, and some that might be regarded wrongly, from an American point of view, as socialist, yet still actually capitalist in economic philosophy.
    • vinceguidry 9y ago
      I don't see it as a struggle between state and industry per se, but rather as the difference between one type of aristocracy over another. I'm not sure what you mean by "fully privatised states." Privatization effectively does two things. It exposes the health of the organization to the market, and it takes the control out of the hands of the ruling class. It is unclear how you could do that to an entire state. If you remove from it the ability to collect taxes, that would do the trick, but also effectively destroy the ability of the state to govern, making it no longer a state. The closest analogue to this may be Somalia, which is effectively a medieval feudal regime that persisted into the 21st century. Somalia's national government has no real control over the country and can only cajole, never force. Somalia's federal government is playing a 'fake it til you make it game' which apparent when you see that their actual collected taxes is only 30% of what they say should be being collected. Customs were 68% of the entire government revenue in 2016. Another "private government" is the Vatican, which sustains itself largely on donations from Catholics throughout the world. As there is nothing compelling Christians to donate, the Vatican is much more market-oriented than most states. I have already gone over Russia's system of tributary taxation, but that's a voluntary system as well that the Russian state could not survive without in it's current form. It's estimated that by midcentury, the system will be replaced with a more conventional one. Putin's successor won't be as capable as he is in keeping the current order humming.
  • lightbyte 9y ago
    > If the state can just clamp down however it wants on private enterprise, then eventually all private enterprise becomes state enterprise. See China. The leap you just made from cities not being able to be extorted by corporations for tax cuts to all private enterprise becoming state enterprise is so massive I have no idea how you even did it.
  • hashkb 9y ago
    Amazon isn't going to the state with the most favorable existing taxes. It's staging a competition to get its own special tax breaks. I can't do that, and I don't want to move to Alaska.
  • adrianN 9y ago
    So unless capitalism can run completely unrestrained you automatically get China brand communism? That doesn't sound right.