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It's a signal when humans will do something against the law - and generally it seems to be a fair response to excessive control or at minimum a counterweight to
by loceng 5y ago
It's a signal when humans will do something against the law - and generally it seems to be a fair response to excessive control or at minimum a counterweight to the actions of a selfish for-profit or industry. Piracy comes to mind as well: if content becomes too expensive, requiring monthly subscriptions to too many places or then unreasonable cost to buy a specific film or series - then more people will pirate, and more reasonable people willing to pay will start to pirate - the more friction and unfairness in the balance of everything, the more piracy. The ability to pirate or repair by third-party both I believe are necessary to keep organizations in check.
Edit to add: makes me think of Bitcoin too, people certainly have reason to be unhappy with local-global financial systems which have heavy-matured regulatory capture and overall corruption whether it's printing excessive money or being deceptive to foreign players so it's an uneven playing field.
- WalterBright 5y agoYou're right. When there's massive non-compliance with the law, there's something wrong with the law. For example, Prohibition, the war on drugs, gambling prohibitions, etc.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI can think of societies with massive tax evasion, from all economic classes of people and where bribes are normal. Is there something wrong with laws requiring tax payments and banning bribes?
- zabzonk 5y agoYes, because the law (and the systems supporting the law) can easily be evaded - there is something massively wrong.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 5y agoI'd be concerned about laws so onerous that a police state is needed to get compliance.
- loceng 5y agoSure, when people aren't getting reasonable ROI from that tax money - e.g. it's invested poorly and not invested in a way that's improving enough of their own community. Imagine if paying tax was voluntary - how relatively quickly communities of people who valued and understood the value of that pooling and who voted in competent politicians to manage their community would thrive/grow vs. the free-for-all and deterioration of infrastructure in areas where people opted not to pay; mind you private businesses may provide better services and people using them is them voting for their existence (voluntary payment) - though arguably initially before enough wealth was generated it would have been impossible to borrow the $100s of billions needed to start massive infrastructure projects; from my understanding there's a bit of this, along with more or less corrupting, in Democratic vs. Republican leaning states. Re: bribes - I'd argue that amount of people wouldn't fit within the definition of following the spirit of the mechanism - you need a foundation with integrity to start for it to be an honest signal; or it's the reverse, the anti, bribery a sign of a lack of integrity and accountability in the system.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 5y agoTake a look at economist C. Northcote Parkinson's books. He points out that when tax rates are 10%, people happily pay their taxes as their duty to live in society. People who cheat get ostracized. Various things start going awry at 20% and 30%, and at 40% tax evasion becomes the national pastime. People regard as fools people who don't evade taxes. Think about the people who are running away from California due to their confiscatory taxes, and then California goes after them claiming they still are residents. Think about the people in government who openly want to dismantle the wealthy - like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. What do you think will happen?
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThat’s a separate issue. I was talking about countries that lack the tribal trust between its members such that it is presumed it’s every man or sub tribe for themselves. This lack of trust is an unquantifiable cost in the progress of that society, one that the US was blessed to not be burdened with, and to which I credit the strength of the nation. But that’s beside the point, which is I don’t think a simple statement like “if everyone breaks the law then the law is bad” is valid.