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It doesn't matter how advanced police cars and police training have become over the years if poor people don't have access to their protection. Without taxes, t

It doesn't matter how advanced police cars and police training have become over the years if poor people don't have access to their protection. Without taxes, the poor would still get nothing and the rich would still get as much technologically advanced protection as they can afford. Schools have computers today, but even if they'd had chromebooks in the early 1900s, schools would still have been for the elite and the poor would still have been mostly uneducated. Increased taxation absolutely leads to greater technological and social advances and quality of life but only to the extent that those taxes are spent well and only up to a certain point. There's a point of diminishing returns for everything after all. The nice thing about taxes is that we're supposed to be able to have some say in how they're spent, in order to make sure that spending is reasonable. It's a failure of our democracy that we don't have a better handle on massive wastes of spending (like Vietnam or Afghanistan), but not a failure of the very concept of taxation. Taxes are amazing, but the lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability is a real problem. Thankfully it's also one we have the power to fix (and if we don't, we'll need to accept that we have a very different form of government than we tell ourselves we've got)

sneak 3y ago
Even with perfect control over allocation, I still disagree with the philosophical concept of taxation because it is done nonconsensually under threat of force. There is no use of tax money that justifies institutionalized armed robbery, it is morally indefensible to violate consent using the threat of violence. You could tax everyone only $1 and use it exclusively for neonatal care and it would still be morally repugnant. If taxes truly represent the will of the people, and people truly believe they are good, they would pay them even if not placed at gunpoint. “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to buy something he does not want simply because you think it would be good for him.” —Heinlein It seems to me that most of your arguments bring up wealth inequality. At that point, why bother with income taxes? Wouldn’t a simple wealth tax on assets over some threshold address the inequality more directly? If wealth redistribution is the goal, why should non-wealthy people pay any taxes?
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >You could tax everyone only $1 and use it exclusively for neonatal care and it would still be morally repugnant. I have to hand it too you for at least admitting your views there. >If taxes truly represent the will of the people, and people truly believe they are good, they would pay them even if not placed at gunpoint. People aren't like that though. If they were , we wouldn't have car clamps. I don't think you can argue a tax paying for neonatal care is repugnant and at that same time argue people will pay for what is good.
  - sneak 3y ago
    The difference is one of consent, which is what my example was constructed to illustrate. One is under threat, the other is voluntary.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I'd argue that collectively we do consent to taxation because we want the massive benefits it gets us. Naturally not everyone in the country agrees with the vast majority of the people, but those that don't still reap the benefits and are free to try to come up with equal or better alternatives or to convince the rest of the nation to give up interstate highways, public schools, police protection for everybody, or publicly funded science. If folks like you who don't want taxes ever manages to come up with something better I, and every one else, will be more than happy to keep all of our money to ourselves and still enjoy all of the benefits we get from taxation today. Until then, you've got a hard sell. I just wish that there were places still unclaimed by any government where people who wanted no part in our tax funded society could go to fend for themselves as truly free people. I'd love to see what you guys manage to come up with. There's lots of room in space, but we'll probably need a lot more time and tax money to get there.
  - sneak 3y ago
    We did, it’s called the free market. People still want roads and hospitals and schools, and the same money used to fund them today will be available to the same people consuming the services. Imagine how much more good people could do in their own communities if you stopped stripping a fifth of their paychecks to pay for foreign wars? The difference is competition. There is no incentive whatsoever to do a good job or be efficient if there is no change in your funding for failure. There’s no reason to spend efficiently if it’s not your money. It seems silly to me to force a common pool to pay for schools but not clothing, for health care but not food. Why not just raise taxes and get rid of checkouts at the grocery store? Consumer choice is important. Critically so. If you centralize everything, it will invariably suck as much as possible.

sneak 3y ago

Even with perfect control over allocation, I still disagree with the philosophical concept of taxation because it is done nonconsensually under threat of force. There is no use of tax money that justifies institutionalized armed robbery, it is morally indefensible to violate consent using the threat of violence. You could tax everyone only $1 and use it exclusively for neonatal care and it would still be morally repugnant. If taxes truly represent the will of the people, and people truly believe they are good, they would pay them even if not placed at gunpoint. “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to buy something he does not want simply because you think it would be good for him.” —Heinlein It seems to me that most of your arguments bring up wealth inequality. At that point, why bother with income taxes? Wouldn’t a simple wealth tax on assets over some threshold address the inequality more directly? If wealth redistribution is the goal, why should non-wealthy people pay any taxes?

lawlessone 3y ago
>You could tax everyone only $1 and use it exclusively for neonatal care and it would still be morally repugnant. I have to hand it too you for at least admitting your views there. >If taxes truly represent the will of the people, and people truly believe they are good, they would pay them even if not placed at gunpoint. People aren't like that though. If they were , we wouldn't have car clamps. I don't think you can argue a tax paying for neonatal care is repugnant and at that same time argue people will pay for what is good.
- sneak 3y ago
  The difference is one of consent, which is what my example was constructed to illustrate. One is under threat, the other is voluntary.
autoexec 3y ago
I'd argue that collectively we do consent to taxation because we want the massive benefits it gets us. Naturally not everyone in the country agrees with the vast majority of the people, but those that don't still reap the benefits and are free to try to come up with equal or better alternatives or to convince the rest of the nation to give up interstate highways, public schools, police protection for everybody, or publicly funded science. If folks like you who don't want taxes ever manages to come up with something better I, and every one else, will be more than happy to keep all of our money to ourselves and still enjoy all of the benefits we get from taxation today. Until then, you've got a hard sell. I just wish that there were places still unclaimed by any government where people who wanted no part in our tax funded society could go to fend for themselves as truly free people. I'd love to see what you guys manage to come up with. There's lots of room in space, but we'll probably need a lot more time and tax money to get there.
- sneak 3y ago
  We did, it’s called the free market. People still want roads and hospitals and schools, and the same money used to fund them today will be available to the same people consuming the services. Imagine how much more good people could do in their own communities if you stopped stripping a fifth of their paychecks to pay for foreign wars? The difference is competition. There is no incentive whatsoever to do a good job or be efficient if there is no change in your funding for failure. There’s no reason to spend efficiently if it’s not your money. It seems silly to me to force a common pool to pay for schools but not clothing, for health care but not food. Why not just raise taxes and get rid of checkouts at the grocery store? Consumer choice is important. Critically so. If you centralize everything, it will invariably suck as much as possible.