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Concentration of power inevitably leads to abuse - the only question is how long it will take until the taxation burden becomes overwhelming. It appears we're f

Concentration of power inevitably leads to abuse - the only question is how long it will take until the taxation burden becomes overwhelming. It appears we're fast approaching that point and the next decade will break many Western nations while what are currently considered developing or emerging markets will rise to prominence.

oblio 8y ago
1. US had the longest period of high growth when taxation was "overwhelming" (post-war boom). 2. Several developed countries have "overwhelming taxation", yet quite high economic growth and are among the world's top 10 regarding human development. 3. Developing countries will have to increase their taxation. That's how development works: you get a bigger and more effective state that can offer advanced services reliably. 4. Almost all underdeveloped countries, on the contrary, have weak states that can barely collect taxes.
- miscreanity 8y ago
  1. There are numerous cyclical factors that affect the productivity of a population. Growth in the US post-WWII was strong enough to offset taxation. Additionally, the US has enjoyed a status of economic core which has helped to prop up the tax regime. However, it is plain to see that has been crumbling since the early 2000s. 2. Name some countries - are they growing more than 10%? 3. Increasing taxation is how the strangulation of a population works, so in that sense you are correct. The state always fails. If it didn't, and taxation "worked", we would be living in a utopia. 4. Weak States that cannot enforce taxation are the ones where the population has freedom to grow without onerous tax burdens and corporate protectionism. A static view of the world assumes taxation is necessary. A nonlinear view recognizes the destruction it causes.
  - oblio 8y ago
    1. Ok. 2. Sustained growth at more than 10% is not realistic, especially for developed countries. I'm from a developing country and turning dirt farmers to office workers consistently will grow your economy by 10%. At some point you're going to run out of dirt farmers. This point is moot. Regarding high, realistic growth (2-3%) for developed countries: Singapore, Sweden. 3. States tend to fail far more often due to external factors. In the modern era that's becoming rarer and rarer as the cost of destabilizing a foreign state generally outweighs the benefits. 4. I'd be very happy if you could show me some examples. Which "weak states" are developed states? I wouldn't call any state in a developed country a "weak state".
    - miscreanity 8y ago
      2. Sustained growth at that rate is unrealistic. Going from dirt farmers to office workers is the kind of shift we're looking at over the next decade, but with a shift from office/service to creative work. Machinery displaced farming and automation/robotics is starting to push office labor off in a different direction. I would argue that developed nations are less prepared for that as their economies and retirement structures are ill-suited to that paradigm. Established systems also tend to fight to to bitter end by increasing taxation to make up for lost revenue. 3. Yes, most states are not part of the core; peripheral nations fail long before the foundation does. Thankfully the cost of such failure has become much less likely to result in loss of life. 4. Not weak states that are developed states - ones that are considered developing, yet experience growth largely due to lack of excessive taxation and regulation thanks to weak government. They are thus progressing toward becoming developed. Two examples are Georgia and Puerto Rico - the amount of growth and development in those locations are proportionally far greater than other nations in similar locations and situations. This is directly affected by investment capital, much of which has left high-tax jurisdictions. Which country are you from?
      - oblio 8y ago
        2. The economic limit to growth for developed countries is that you can't just force ideas out of people's heads. Automation/robotics improve things, but the productivity difference when averaged over a whole country is still not 10% per year, between developed countries. Keep in mind a growth rate of 7% means a doubling of an economy every 10 years. It's not reasonable to expect a doubling of economies every 10 years for developed countries, history has shown this repeatedly. 3. I'm an optimist, I don't see any signs of the foundation falling. The counterargument is that the fall is rarely seen ahead of time. Still, I think we can just file this as a difference in perspective and call it a day :) 4. Georgia, the state, I assume? Assuming it's the state, ok. But how come the vast majority of high-flyers still don't move to these states? How come those "oppressive" taxation regimes keep producing heavy hitters? Same thing is happening in Europe. Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, the UK, etc. have high productivity and high taxation. You'd expect everything to leak over to the low taxation countries. Yet these countries to lose a percentage of the high productivity members but come up with new ones. There must be something at work here (such as high taxation, coupled with half-decent administration, creating a good overall environment for productivity). Romania. Not sure it's relevant :)
- kmd511 8y ago
  "you get a bigger and more effective state that can offer advanced services reliably"...are you kidding? The healthcare system in the UK is in danger of collapse and likely to be bankrupt in another decade or so. A "bigger and more effective state" sounds like an oxymoron to me. Many of those countries that have high tax burdens also have a culture that values working and as such, they do not as many social parasites as we have in the US.
  - oblio 8y ago
    The US has many social parasites? I think you're too caught in the day-to-day to notice how things are. The US is one of the hardest-working places on the planet. You take fewer days off and work longer hours than most people. You value work too much, if anything.
  - rcxdude 8y ago
    The UK healthcare system is in danger of collapse because it has been slowly starved of the income it needs to operate effectively, by a government which is idealogically opposed to its existance and whose members generally stand to gain substantially from privatising it.
    - waluigi 8y ago
      Thank you for pointing this out. It seems that "Governments are ineffective" is taken as a universal truth around here, without considering the fact that pro-privatisation governments have a very strong incentive to make programs inefficient. If you want a more efficient government, vote for people who support government programs.
- zeveb 8y ago
  > US had the longest period of high growth when taxation was "overwhelming" (post-war boom). One's economy tends to do well when one has intact factories & workforce while the rest of the civilised world has been levelled and much of its workforce slain. We'll never see something like the post-war boom again unless we see something as utterly, senselessly destructive as the war itself (note that the economy would ultimately have been better in the long term had there never been a war).
  - Retric 8y ago
    Rebuilding took far less time than you might think.
- jandrewrogers 8y ago
  The effective income tax rates in the US in the 1950s, even on the top 1%, were barely higher than they are today and in many cases lower. The tax structure was significantly different, so a naive comparison might lead you to believe otherwise.

oblio 8y ago

1. US had the longest period of high growth when taxation was "overwhelming" (post-war boom). 2. Several developed countries have "overwhelming taxation", yet quite high economic growth and are among the world's top 10 regarding human development. 3. Developing countries will have to increase their taxation. That's how development works: you get a bigger and more effective state that can offer advanced services reliably. 4. Almost all underdeveloped countries, on the contrary, have weak states that can barely collect taxes.

miscreanity 8y ago
1. There are numerous cyclical factors that affect the productivity of a population. Growth in the US post-WWII was strong enough to offset taxation. Additionally, the US has enjoyed a status of economic core which has helped to prop up the tax regime. However, it is plain to see that has been crumbling since the early 2000s. 2. Name some countries - are they growing more than 10%? 3. Increasing taxation is how the strangulation of a population works, so in that sense you are correct. The state always fails. If it didn't, and taxation "worked", we would be living in a utopia. 4. Weak States that cannot enforce taxation are the ones where the population has freedom to grow without onerous tax burdens and corporate protectionism. A static view of the world assumes taxation is necessary. A nonlinear view recognizes the destruction it causes.
- oblio 8y ago
  1. Ok. 2. Sustained growth at more than 10% is not realistic, especially for developed countries. I'm from a developing country and turning dirt farmers to office workers consistently will grow your economy by 10%. At some point you're going to run out of dirt farmers. This point is moot. Regarding high, realistic growth (2-3%) for developed countries: Singapore, Sweden. 3. States tend to fail far more often due to external factors. In the modern era that's becoming rarer and rarer as the cost of destabilizing a foreign state generally outweighs the benefits. 4. I'd be very happy if you could show me some examples. Which "weak states" are developed states? I wouldn't call any state in a developed country a "weak state".
  - miscreanity 8y ago
    2. Sustained growth at that rate is unrealistic. Going from dirt farmers to office workers is the kind of shift we're looking at over the next decade, but with a shift from office/service to creative work. Machinery displaced farming and automation/robotics is starting to push office labor off in a different direction. I would argue that developed nations are less prepared for that as their economies and retirement structures are ill-suited to that paradigm. Established systems also tend to fight to to bitter end by increasing taxation to make up for lost revenue. 3. Yes, most states are not part of the core; peripheral nations fail long before the foundation does. Thankfully the cost of such failure has become much less likely to result in loss of life. 4. Not weak states that are developed states - ones that are considered developing, yet experience growth largely due to lack of excessive taxation and regulation thanks to weak government. They are thus progressing toward becoming developed. Two examples are Georgia and Puerto Rico - the amount of growth and development in those locations are proportionally far greater than other nations in similar locations and situations. This is directly affected by investment capital, much of which has left high-tax jurisdictions. Which country are you from?
    - oblio 8y ago
      2. The economic limit to growth for developed countries is that you can't just force ideas out of people's heads. Automation/robotics improve things, but the productivity difference when averaged over a whole country is still not 10% per year, between developed countries. Keep in mind a growth rate of 7% means a doubling of an economy every 10 years. It's not reasonable to expect a doubling of economies every 10 years for developed countries, history has shown this repeatedly. 3. I'm an optimist, I don't see any signs of the foundation falling. The counterargument is that the fall is rarely seen ahead of time. Still, I think we can just file this as a difference in perspective and call it a day :) 4. Georgia, the state, I assume? Assuming it's the state, ok. But how come the vast majority of high-flyers still don't move to these states? How come those "oppressive" taxation regimes keep producing heavy hitters? Same thing is happening in Europe. Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, the UK, etc. have high productivity and high taxation. You'd expect everything to leak over to the low taxation countries. Yet these countries to lose a percentage of the high productivity members but come up with new ones. There must be something at work here (such as high taxation, coupled with half-decent administration, creating a good overall environment for productivity). Romania. Not sure it's relevant :)
kmd511 8y ago
"you get a bigger and more effective state that can offer advanced services reliably"...are you kidding? The healthcare system in the UK is in danger of collapse and likely to be bankrupt in another decade or so. A "bigger and more effective state" sounds like an oxymoron to me. Many of those countries that have high tax burdens also have a culture that values working and as such, they do not as many social parasites as we have in the US.
- oblio 8y ago
  The US has many social parasites? I think you're too caught in the day-to-day to notice how things are. The US is one of the hardest-working places on the planet. You take fewer days off and work longer hours than most people. You value work too much, if anything.
- rcxdude 8y ago
  The UK healthcare system is in danger of collapse because it has been slowly starved of the income it needs to operate effectively, by a government which is idealogically opposed to its existance and whose members generally stand to gain substantially from privatising it.
  - waluigi 8y ago
    Thank you for pointing this out. It seems that "Governments are ineffective" is taken as a universal truth around here, without considering the fact that pro-privatisation governments have a very strong incentive to make programs inefficient. If you want a more efficient government, vote for people who support government programs.
zeveb 8y ago
> US had the longest period of high growth when taxation was "overwhelming" (post-war boom). One's economy tends to do well when one has intact factories & workforce while the rest of the civilised world has been levelled and much of its workforce slain. We'll never see something like the post-war boom again unless we see something as utterly, senselessly destructive as the war itself (note that the economy would ultimately have been better in the long term had there never been a war).
- Retric 8y ago
  Rebuilding took far less time than you might think.
jandrewrogers 8y ago
The effective income tax rates in the US in the 1950s, even on the top 1%, were barely higher than they are today and in many cases lower. The tax structure was significantly different, so a naive comparison might lead you to believe otherwise.