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Many people would dispute elements of your "necessary" lists, especially Austrian economist and Objectivists (I'm in the latter camp). Also, many people have p

Many people would dispute elements of your "necessary" lists, especially Austrian economist and Objectivists (I'm in the latter camp). Also, many people have proposed alternatives for funding legitimate Government functions without coercion, and relying on charity for the rest (like education) in cases where people can't afford them.

toss1 8y ago
"Many people"... OK. Sure the "Austrian economics" crowd is out there. Yes, they have a point about avoiding hyperinflation, but also often oversimplify. In what country has a modern complex society been actually run without actual coersive tax? In what society have complex and costly ventures like an entire modern education, defense road system been done with it? Any real, hard examples? Abstract ideology is lovely, but is not a practical govt that manages to build the basis for an advanced and advancing society
- duncan_bayne 8y ago
  Consider where this logic would take you if you applied it to all spheres of life. There would never be experimentation, innovation, or in fact development of any kind. Coming back to the Objectivist angle, there's a great passage from Atlas Shrugged that covers this: ===== "Then what on earth do you know about Rearden Metal?" "That it's the greatest thing ever put on the market." "Why?" "Because it's tougher than steel, cheaper than steel and will outlast any hunk of metal in existence." "But who says so?" "Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them." "What did you see?" "Rearden's formula and the tests he showed me." "Well, if it were any good, somebody would have used it, and nobody has." He saw the flash of anger, and went on nervously: "How can you know it's good? How can you be sure? How can you decide?" "Somebody decides such things, Jim. Who?" "Well, I don't see why we have to be the first ones. I don't see it at all." "Do you want to save the Rio Norte Line or not?" He did not answer, "If the road could afford it, I would scrap every piece of rail over the whole system and replace it with Rearden Metal. All of it needs replacing. None of it will last much longer. But we can't afford it. We have to get out of a bad hole, first. Do you want us to pull through or not?" "We're still the best railroad in the country. The others are doing much worse." ==== In general this feels like a class of logical fallacy, of the form "no-one has attempted to achieve X, so X must be undesirable" but I can't find it in any lists. edit: To make it clearer, take your post, and substitute slavery for coercive taxation. Your argument immediately appears specious, because with the benefit of hindsight we know that large, complex, modern societies did just fine after abandoning slavery. But people argued against emancipation in just that way at the time.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    People arguing about slavery in the US did have the ability to observe that other societies had abolished it and been successful. And we today have the ability to observe other societies that don't have a stable monopoly of force and taxing power and see them in perpetual chaos, where competing groups with different sources of revenue struggle to become governments. It doesn't make any sense to say nobody has ever tried anarchy, because (a) it's all over the place, and manifestly involves poverty and misery, and (b) it was the original state of humankind, so we know it is possible and that government as we know it develops from it.
    - duncan_bayne 8y ago
      Sorry if I wasn't clear; I'm not arguing for anarchy, I'm arguing for small Government tasked solely with protecting the rights of its citizens, funded by voluntary taxation.
      - toss1 8y ago
        The same argument still applies. It is NOT impossible for people to make progress. It just takes more than a set of half-baked ideas. The ideas must be fully thought through to their consequences, with second- and third-order consequences, adjusted so that they will actually work with real human nature factored in, tested, adjusted, then rolled out. In this sense, although I am strongly attracted to Libertarianism and often use it as my default starting point, I recognize that it is like Communism in that it is completely impractical and won't happen in a real world (actually, communism has a better chance with modern tech solcing central planning, blockchain micropayments, smart contracts allocating resources, LOL, bs...).
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        If government funded by "voluntary taxation" isn't anarchy, I'm not sure what else it could be. It seems to me obvious that either there is a monopoly on coercive power or there is not, and "voluntary taxation" means there is not. Which means you have multiple gangs or insurgencies.
  - 8y ago

toss1 8y ago

"Many people"... OK. Sure the "Austrian economics" crowd is out there. Yes, they have a point about avoiding hyperinflation, but also often oversimplify. In what country has a modern complex society been actually run without actual coersive tax? In what society have complex and costly ventures like an entire modern education, defense road system been done with it? Any real, hard examples? Abstract ideology is lovely, but is not a practical govt that manages to build the basis for an advanced and advancing society

duncan_bayne 8y ago
Consider where this logic would take you if you applied it to all spheres of life. There would never be experimentation, innovation, or in fact development of any kind. Coming back to the Objectivist angle, there's a great passage from Atlas Shrugged that covers this: ===== "Then what on earth do you know about Rearden Metal?" "That it's the greatest thing ever put on the market." "Why?" "Because it's tougher than steel, cheaper than steel and will outlast any hunk of metal in existence." "But who says so?" "Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them." "What did you see?" "Rearden's formula and the tests he showed me." "Well, if it were any good, somebody would have used it, and nobody has." He saw the flash of anger, and went on nervously: "How can you know it's good? How can you be sure? How can you decide?" "Somebody decides such things, Jim. Who?" "Well, I don't see why we have to be the first ones. I don't see it at all." "Do you want to save the Rio Norte Line or not?" He did not answer, "If the road could afford it, I would scrap every piece of rail over the whole system and replace it with Rearden Metal. All of it needs replacing. None of it will last much longer. But we can't afford it. We have to get out of a bad hole, first. Do you want us to pull through or not?" "We're still the best railroad in the country. The others are doing much worse." ==== In general this feels like a class of logical fallacy, of the form "no-one has attempted to achieve X, so X must be undesirable" but I can't find it in any lists. edit: To make it clearer, take your post, and substitute slavery for coercive taxation. Your argument immediately appears specious, because with the benefit of hindsight we know that large, complex, modern societies did just fine after abandoning slavery. But people argued against emancipation in just that way at the time.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  People arguing about slavery in the US did have the ability to observe that other societies had abolished it and been successful. And we today have the ability to observe other societies that don't have a stable monopoly of force and taxing power and see them in perpetual chaos, where competing groups with different sources of revenue struggle to become governments. It doesn't make any sense to say nobody has ever tried anarchy, because (a) it's all over the place, and manifestly involves poverty and misery, and (b) it was the original state of humankind, so we know it is possible and that government as we know it develops from it.
  - duncan_bayne 8y ago
    Sorry if I wasn't clear; I'm not arguing for anarchy, I'm arguing for small Government tasked solely with protecting the rights of its citizens, funded by voluntary taxation.
    - toss1 8y ago
      The same argument still applies. It is NOT impossible for people to make progress. It just takes more than a set of half-baked ideas. The ideas must be fully thought through to their consequences, with second- and third-order consequences, adjusted so that they will actually work with real human nature factored in, tested, adjusted, then rolled out. In this sense, although I am strongly attracted to Libertarianism and often use it as my default starting point, I recognize that it is like Communism in that it is completely impractical and won't happen in a real world (actually, communism has a better chance with modern tech solcing central planning, blockchain micropayments, smart contracts allocating resources, LOL, bs...).
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      If government funded by "voluntary taxation" isn't anarchy, I'm not sure what else it could be. It seems to me obvious that either there is a monopoly on coercive power or there is not, and "voluntary taxation" means there is not. Which means you have multiple gangs or insurgencies.
- 8y ago