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I don't think you need any citation or reference to know that even as early as 20 years ago there wasn't as much pervasive computerized record keeping and surve

I don't think you need any citation or reference to know that even as early as 20 years ago there wasn't as much pervasive computerized record keeping and surveillance as there is now. By "worked well" I mean people paid their taxes and the overwhelming majority were law abiding. Here's one example to ponder about: if we had this kind of surveillance earlier, would things like the Civil Rights Movement and generally the 60's counterculture come about? I.e. the era of "sex and drugs and rock'n'roll"? If only the authorities had the tools that they have today, oh boy! Don't like the liberation of sex? Is rock'n'roll the Devi's music? Fine. We'll close your PayPal account. Privacy is very important for having a free society and freedom of expression. Financial privacy should be no exception.

ComodoHacker 7y ago
Majority of people paid their taxes, but many didn't, many more than today. Think of mafias of all kinds. So law abiding majority had to pay more to cover state expenses. Without computerized record keeping taxes were collected in person, often with support of armed force. And tax evasion could be as simple as hiding in the woods when tax collector comes. It worked, but not so well.
- feanaro 7y ago
  Yet the world itself worked rather well. That must either mean that taxing working well is not necessary for the world to work well or that it worked better than you are implying.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    You're aware that depending on where you are in the world you can sample a vast range of development levels, so where exactly do you wish to move to have this well functioning society where people are taxed on trust alone?
    - feanaro 7y ago
      I never implied taxing on trust alone, I'm simply arguing against total financial surveillance. Taxing in the mid-20th century did not rely on trust alone and it was a nice mix of trust and manual investigation in suspicious cases. I think such a mix is optimal for a predominant number of human activities and total surveillance should (almost?) never be reached for. You can apply the same style of reasoning to end-to-end encryption. Various actors are aiming for total surveillance in that area too, it is most likely a terrible idea and we have precedent that the world works reasonably well without it.
      - shakna 7y ago
        > How else do you propose taxation is assured? Blind trust? > Sure, why not? It has worked for many years before. Taxing on trust alone is exactly where this little thread started.
        feanaro 7y ago
        I know, but based on context, I estimated that quip to be somewhat reactionary. The alternative is obviously not to leave out any kind of enforcement. The alternative is to go back to the kind of enforcement that was used and worked fine several decades ago.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    What does 'worked well' mean? If you measure anything, infant mortality, poverty, murder rates, diseases, nutrition, education, which of them fit any sensible definition of 'well'?
    - feanaro 7y ago
      This question works both ways. If a radical change is being argued for, such as total financial surveillance without possibility of anonymous transactions, then I would expect the person making the argument to put forward a benchmark showing that total financial surveillance is making the world better. In my case, "worked well" meant something like a mix of: a) the world did not end, and b) everyday life in developed societies (which previously did not have total financial surveillance, but are now eager to achieve it) was more or less the same then as it is today. In fact, to expand on b), it seems to me (admittedly from a completely intuitive and unquantified perspective) that we are quickly losing civil liberties today and that this aspect was better in the past.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  Have we entirely eliminated tax evasion today? Money laundering continues. Our current approach of criminalising everyone and their dog isn't efficient.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    Money laundering is ironically an inversion usually as part of ensuring the money looks legitimate is ensuring that the taxman gets a cut.
stefs 7y ago
> By "worked well" I mean people paid their taxes and the overwhelming majority were law abiding. as i understand, the "overwhelming majority" (lower and middle class) are not the focus of the problem here as they rarely use tax havens to circumvent taxes anyway (it's probably not cost effective). this is all about those who have the funds and motives to circumvent taxation, who happen to be a minority - even thought they're not a minority when it comes to taxable income; the 1% or whatever. as for the rest of your argument, i don't completely agree. while you're probably right in practice, i.e. the authorities would have used their tools against those movements, the goals of those movements were different. the civil rights movement was probably illegal at the time but the goal was to change the laws to make it legal. same for sex. no millionaire wants to make tax evasion legal, as that would affect all tax payers, even those of the lower and middle class. they want that only for themselves. i agree that (hard) drugs are probably a comparable example - it's illegal and puts a strain on society. on the other hand, use of hard addicting drugs can be categorized as an illness. so should we label money hoarding and tax evasion an illness? offer treatment options? allow them supervised safe spaces to evade taxes so we can offer them help? i'm not convinced that financial privacy whould be no exception. there must be limits if it affects the others. i also don't think environmental pollution should be an issue of privacy - you shouldn't be able to pollute the air and claim it's nobodys business, as your factory stands on your own private plot of land.

ComodoHacker 7y ago

Majority of people paid their taxes, but many didn't, many more than today. Think of mafias of all kinds. So law abiding majority had to pay more to cover state expenses. Without computerized record keeping taxes were collected in person, often with support of armed force. And tax evasion could be as simple as hiding in the woods when tax collector comes. It worked, but not so well.

feanaro 7y ago
Yet the world itself worked rather well. That must either mean that taxing working well is not necessary for the world to work well or that it worked better than you are implying.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  You're aware that depending on where you are in the world you can sample a vast range of development levels, so where exactly do you wish to move to have this well functioning society where people are taxed on trust alone?
  - feanaro 7y ago
    I never implied taxing on trust alone, I'm simply arguing against total financial surveillance. Taxing in the mid-20th century did not rely on trust alone and it was a nice mix of trust and manual investigation in suspicious cases. I think such a mix is optimal for a predominant number of human activities and total surveillance should (almost?) never be reached for. You can apply the same style of reasoning to end-to-end encryption. Various actors are aiming for total surveillance in that area too, it is most likely a terrible idea and we have precedent that the world works reasonably well without it.
    - shakna 7y ago
      > How else do you propose taxation is assured? Blind trust? > Sure, why not? It has worked for many years before. Taxing on trust alone is exactly where this little thread started.
      - feanaro 7y ago
        I know, but based on context, I estimated that quip to be somewhat reactionary. The alternative is obviously not to leave out any kind of enforcement. The alternative is to go back to the kind of enforcement that was used and worked fine several decades ago.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  What does 'worked well' mean? If you measure anything, infant mortality, poverty, murder rates, diseases, nutrition, education, which of them fit any sensible definition of 'well'?
  - feanaro 7y ago
    This question works both ways. If a radical change is being argued for, such as total financial surveillance without possibility of anonymous transactions, then I would expect the person making the argument to put forward a benchmark showing that total financial surveillance is making the world better. In my case, "worked well" meant something like a mix of: a) the world did not end, and b) everyday life in developed societies (which previously did not have total financial surveillance, but are now eager to achieve it) was more or less the same then as it is today. In fact, to expand on b), it seems to me (admittedly from a completely intuitive and unquantified perspective) that we are quickly losing civil liberties today and that this aspect was better in the past.
squiggleblaz 7y ago
Have we entirely eliminated tax evasion today? Money laundering continues. Our current approach of criminalising everyone and their dog isn't efficient.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Money laundering is ironically an inversion usually as part of ensuring the money looks legitimate is ensuring that the taxman gets a cut.

stefs 7y ago

> By "worked well" I mean people paid their taxes and the overwhelming majority were law abiding. as i understand, the "overwhelming majority" (lower and middle class) are not the focus of the problem here as they rarely use tax havens to circumvent taxes anyway (it's probably not cost effective). this is all about those who have the funds and motives to circumvent taxation, who happen to be a minority - even thought they're not a minority when it comes to taxable income; the 1% or whatever. as for the rest of your argument, i don't completely agree. while you're probably right in practice, i.e. the authorities would have used their tools against those movements, the goals of those movements were different. the civil rights movement was probably illegal at the time but the goal was to change the laws to make it legal. same for sex. no millionaire wants to make tax evasion legal, as that would affect all tax payers, even those of the lower and middle class. they want that only for themselves. i agree that (hard) drugs are probably a comparable example - it's illegal and puts a strain on society. on the other hand, use of hard addicting drugs can be categorized as an illness. so should we label money hoarding and tax evasion an illness? offer treatment options? allow them supervised safe spaces to evade taxes so we can offer them help? i'm not convinced that financial privacy whould be no exception. there must be limits if it affects the others. i also don't think environmental pollution should be an issue of privacy - you shouldn't be able to pollute the air and claim it's nobodys business, as your factory stands on your own private plot of land.