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> The entire purpose of government is to overcome the free rider problem. Can you expand on this? The U.S. was founded by people who fled to find reprieve fro

• wahern 8y ago
  Most colonists fled religious persecution or were seeking economic opportunity, and in some cases were moving to a place with more onerous taxes. The founding of independent government was about political self-determination. It most assuredly was not anti-tax. Nowhere in the newfound state governments was taxation limited; rather, AFAIU in all the new states the power to tax given to the legislature was absolute and unlimited! Federal taxation was limited, but that was out of concern for preserving the self-determination of each individual state. The guiding principle behind early American politics was that representative democracy was sufficient to constrain unfair taxation. In fact, the inability of the federal government to fund itself through direct taxation of the people, instead having to rely on funding from state governments which it could not compel, is one of the most important reasons the Articles of Confederation were deemed a failure. The new U.S. Constitution conspicuously granted the new federal government direct taxation powers. I think many people today, both liberal and conservative, would agree that the Founders' ideas about taxation were too simplistic. Conservatives might want more structural limitations, and liberals might want rules about distribution. But the Founders were definitely not anti-taxation. Early Americans weren't, "No taxation!" They were, "No taxation without representation!"