2 ms·

First problem with taxing is that it takes money without consent and with force, aka theft. But that aside, do you want to get your favorite monopoly hooked on

by sfe22 5y ago

First problem with taxing is that it takes money without consent and with force, aka theft. But that aside, do you want to get your favorite monopoly hooked on and addicted to the money taken from people’s activities that are harming themselves or others?

sdoering 5y ago
Taxes are theft? I never heard this line of reasoning. Care to explain? How would a government pay for protection, infrastructure, education, and a lot of other things governments provide to their citizens?
- sfe22 5y ago
  If people in a region need protection services I am sure they will figure out a way to pay for it. Otherwise said service may not be really that important. If you worry about not getting 100% of people to pay without coercion and threatening taking their freedom to move, good news, even now over 50 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes or pay a tiny amount. The interested parties will take care of it easy.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    And those who can't afford to pay for their ambulances and fire departments and roads and schools, fuck 'em, right? It's their fault for being poor, they should try harder. Libertarians are funny people. It boggles my mind how anyone can be clueless or compassionless enough to be one.
    - sfe22 5y ago
      In a free market it will be unlikely to have many poor people, as they will see the reality and settle where they are truly productive. Parents care about their children (even if you don’t think so) and reliable education will be offered to them. Fire department can be arranged by neighborhoods, nobody wants their house burning down, or very high insurance payments. Remember how much resources governments waste, they will all get cheaper, how much they tax, people will get way richer. And yes, I believe everyone will be better off with free markets, otherwise i’d be a commie too. It’s not that I don’t care about others. I care more than most do. I see they working jobs that are not necessary, or governments destroying their purchasing power. Fortunately I am doing pretty well, even with after the money government takes, and if I was evil or not compassionate I wouldn’t advocate for change, but rather take advantage of current system and move to the side that benefits from peoples diminished value of work. It would be way easier for me.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        > In a free market it will be unlikely to have many poor people, as they will see the reality and settle where they are truly productive That's a very wild claim, unsubstantiated by anything. The history of industrial revolution shows otherwise ( regular people are exploited to death until some regulations come to stop the most rampant abuses). Do you have anything to support your case? > And yes, I believe everyone will be better off with free markets, otherwise i’d be a commie too. So for you there's only communism and absolute free markets? So you're in the clueless libertarian case. Considering the freeish markets available today fail miserably at correcting for externalities such as pollution and climate change, how do you imagine absolutely free ones would do so?
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  It’s the slogan of the kind of liberal economics that’s way far too the right and involves things like private roads and (more facetiously) private McNukes.
catlifeonmars 5y ago
I don’t really see that as a problem. Taxation (aka taking money by law) is a corrective measure to a free market failure: namely accounting for externalities. Sure, we could argue about whether some taxes are good or bad, and whether certain things should or should not be taxed, but the utility of taxation overall as a corrective measure is well understood.
- sfe22 5y ago
  I made two points since i know many add exceptions for some parties when defining theft. Care to reply to the second point?
  - catlifeonmars 5y ago
    Maybe I’m being dense, but I don’t really understand your second point. Could you be more explicit? Are you saying that the government could get addicted to a certain level of addiction in society to fund itself?
    - sfe22 5y ago
      If government is dependent on smokers smoking a lot to fund its activities, what happens if some smokers decide to quit? The government has vested interest to keep number of smokers high.

by sfe22 5y ago

sdoering 5y ago

Taxes are theft? I never heard this line of reasoning. Care to explain? How would a government pay for protection, infrastructure, education, and a lot of other things governments provide to their citizens?

sfe22 5y ago
If people in a region need protection services I am sure they will figure out a way to pay for it. Otherwise said service may not be really that important. If you worry about not getting 100% of people to pay without coercion and threatening taking their freedom to move, good news, even now over 50 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes or pay a tiny amount. The interested parties will take care of it easy.
- sofixa 5y ago
  And those who can't afford to pay for their ambulances and fire departments and roads and schools, fuck 'em, right? It's their fault for being poor, they should try harder. Libertarians are funny people. It boggles my mind how anyone can be clueless or compassionless enough to be one.
  - sfe22 5y ago
    In a free market it will be unlikely to have many poor people, as they will see the reality and settle where they are truly productive. Parents care about their children (even if you don’t think so) and reliable education will be offered to them. Fire department can be arranged by neighborhoods, nobody wants their house burning down, or very high insurance payments. Remember how much resources governments waste, they will all get cheaper, how much they tax, people will get way richer. And yes, I believe everyone will be better off with free markets, otherwise i’d be a commie too. It’s not that I don’t care about others. I care more than most do. I see they working jobs that are not necessary, or governments destroying their purchasing power. Fortunately I am doing pretty well, even with after the money government takes, and if I was evil or not compassionate I wouldn’t advocate for change, but rather take advantage of current system and move to the side that benefits from peoples diminished value of work. It would be way easier for me.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > In a free market it will be unlikely to have many poor people, as they will see the reality and settle where they are truly productive That's a very wild claim, unsubstantiated by anything. The history of industrial revolution shows otherwise ( regular people are exploited to death until some regulations come to stop the most rampant abuses). Do you have anything to support your case? > And yes, I believe everyone will be better off with free markets, otherwise i’d be a commie too. So for you there's only communism and absolute free markets? So you're in the clueless libertarian case. Considering the freeish markets available today fail miserably at correcting for externalities such as pollution and climate change, how do you imagine absolutely free ones would do so?
avgcorrection 5y ago
It’s the slogan of the kind of liberal economics that’s way far too the right and involves things like private roads and (more facetiously) private McNukes.

catlifeonmars 5y ago

I don’t really see that as a problem. Taxation (aka taking money by law) is a corrective measure to a free market failure: namely accounting for externalities. Sure, we could argue about whether some taxes are good or bad, and whether certain things should or should not be taxed, but the utility of taxation overall as a corrective measure is well understood.

sfe22 5y ago
I made two points since i know many add exceptions for some parties when defining theft. Care to reply to the second point?
- catlifeonmars 5y ago
  Maybe I’m being dense, but I don’t really understand your second point. Could you be more explicit? Are you saying that the government could get addicted to a certain level of addiction in society to fund itself?
  - sfe22 5y ago
    If government is dependent on smokers smoking a lot to fund its activities, what happens if some smokers decide to quit? The government has vested interest to keep number of smokers high.