8 ms·

You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, can't just sneak a premise that the state has default a right to collect a piece of arbitrary appreciati

by _bin_ 2y ago

You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, can't just sneak a premise that the state has default a right to collect a piece of arbitrary appreciation on an asset (as all assets are used for speculation) when the owner hasn't actually gotten cash from that, and that any government that doesn't tax that is just cutting someone a break on something rightfully owed. The state of nature is no tax, and as it's unpleasant, we create societies and fund them with taxes that we must deliberate and determine to be just and reasonable. You don't get to argue from the point that your preferred taxation regime is simply how things should be and that how things are is therefore wrong, especially not without a justification. I'd also point out that people's assets have gone up in nominal terms in the past few years, but for many that's not reflective of an increase in purchasing power. Much of that increase is due to excess inflation from the profligate overspending of our past two administrations, so the cycle currently looks like this: government prints money and causes inflation -> your assets are "worth more" -> taxman says "give me a piece of that" even though your real wages have fallen or have just barely recovered to pre-2020 levels. And of course, even if we index to inflation, that will necessarily hit the poor harder: food and energy are deemed "too volatile" to include in headline CPI, but as necessities, they comprise a larger part of poor households' spending and so inflation will hit them harder than the numbers suggest.

Log_out_ 2y ago
yes, we can. the whole premise of a democracy is that every law is a solid majority away from being turned over.one of the reasons big money is inherent anti-democratic.
- _bin_ 2y ago
  Okay, I don't actually believe in that form of democracy. Not all things that are legal are good, therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do. I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. And no, that is not the premise of every system that incorporates democracy as an element, it's the premise of an absolute democracy.
  - FactKnower69 2y ago
    >I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. lmfao this is always, always, always the refrain
  - jjav 2y ago
    > therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do Which inevitably leads to the question: who should get the power to do that and why they, specifically?
    - pdonis 2y ago
      You have it backwards. The actual question is, how did the majority magically get the power to enforce its will on the minority in the first place?
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
        The majority held this power as long as we’ve been a social species. Even a Pharaoh lives with consent of the majority even if they’ve convinced that majority they are divine.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - chairmansteve 2y ago
        Maybe the question is, how are the wealthy magically protected from the mob? The answer is, some form of government protects them. And that form of government is going to want it's tribute.
      - MisterBastahrd 2y ago
        Violent revolution, mostly.
      - jjav 2y ago
        > You have it backwards. The actual question is, how did the majority magically get the power to enforce its will on the minority in the first place? This doesn't answer my question at all. Who should decide those limits, and why they? Who pics them? Think of a thought experiment: A new city/town/state/country is getting started (let's assume peacefully somehow, this is a thought experiment). Who gets to set those limits on democratic action? One choice that comes to mind is everyone gets together and pics the wisest person in the crowd = representative democracy. Another choice is the strongest bully in the group beats everyone up and sets the laws however he likes = dictatorship. What other choices? And which one should be best?
- freejazz 2y ago
  Really? We're a 'solid majority' away from murder being made legal?
wr3nothopter 2y ago
[dead]
witchammer 2y ago
> The state of nature is no tax > You don't get to argue from the point that your preferred taxation regime is simply how things should be Those two statements seem mildly contradictory.
- _bin_ 2y ago
  Not really. Trace the course of history and the natural state of man is much closer to what Hobbes described. In the wild, homo sapiens doesn't have a taxation system. As we built up civilizations, we created taxes as I described. And neither am I arguing for my preference to stick with how we mostly run our taxation regime (tax value when moved, not value at rest) without some justification for it.
  - consp 2y ago
    No tax in the wild? In my view, sure there was: you get water and share it, the other guy hunts and shares it. The fact no centralised system existed does not mean no tax on the community was levied in some way.
    - mbrumlow 2y ago
      I don’t believe sharing was all that common. But the difference in your story is voluntary sharing. Once the hunter demands water for meat it becomes an exchange, and is the basis of our capitalist society. Taxes in that system would be more like 10 men who did not hunt or gather demanded you give them food and water or they would beat your face in.
      - supplied_demand 2y ago
        ==Taxes in that system would be more like 10 men who did not hunt or gather demanded you give them food and water or they would beat your face in.== This seems a little dramatic. Are the 10 men demanding food and water also building roads, cleaning the water, removing waste, educating children, protecting collective assets, or any of the other things that Governments do with collective taxes? If not, the analogy falls apart.
FactKnower69 2y ago
>You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, huh, what natural, physical laws are being broken? collecting taxes exceeds the speed of light or goes below 0K or something?
TheCoelacanth 2y ago
> The state of nature is no tax The state of nature is no property. Billionaires can't exist without a government enforcing their property rights. Why shouldn't they pay the entity that made it possible for them to accumulate their vast wealth?
- bluGill 2y ago
  The state of nature is it is your property so long as you can protect it. There are lots of different ways to do that. Many animals have concepts of owned territory which they protect in various ways.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    And you principally protect your property by… wait for it… paying taxes to the state to uphold law and order
    - bluGill 2y ago
      That is not the state of nature though. There are "primitive" societies that don't organize their village that way. Social pressures and you working alone are enough to protect your property when the total population to worry about is around 100 people. We use taxes because nature doesn't scale to towns of 1000, much less nations of millions. But that is not the state of nature.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - Wytwwww 2y ago
        The concept of property (the way we understand it i.e. all the stuff besides of a handful of personal items) is not something that generally exists or existed in "primitive" societies. i.e. you can't really "own" more land than you and your family can personally farm and extract rent on it without a state to protect your claim.
CPLX 2y ago
We (almost) invariably tax money when it changes hands. Like if you own something and then I own it, there's a tax. If I give something of value to someone else, the government takes a cut. There's a ton of nuance there, sometimes intended to avoid certain negative consequences that feel like double taxation or that provide peverse incentives. But that's the general premise. If you pay taxes on your income and then use it to buy something from me, I have to pay taxes on it too. That's my income now. If my father paid taxes on something he earned that's his tax bill. When I get it, I have to pay too. That's my income now. This is very clear and consistent. Outside of all the people with an interest in pretending otherwise. Also worth noting that there's no state interest whatsoever in preserving generational wealth. Just none. The fact that kids have to earn their own money instead of a family coasting for generations is a good thing for the most part. There are some plausible arguments for preserving continuity in certain cases, like community based family owned businesses, farms, that kind of thing. But everybody already agrees with that which is why those kinds of things have been generally exempt from estate taxes for generations. The people telling you otherwise are trying to trick you into caring about their agenda, which is how to not pay taxes on their substantial wealth.
- logifail 2y ago
  > We (almost) invariably tax money when it changes hands. Like if you own something and then I own it, there's a tax [..] But that's the general premise. I appreciate HN is USA-centric, but over on this side of the pond it's nowhere near as simple as that. > If you pay taxes on your income and then use it to buy something from me, I have to pay taxes on it too. That's my income now. Except that companies - even one person companies(!) - generally pay taxes on their profits, not their total income or revenue.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    All companies almost everywhere absolutely pay taxes on revenue, in the form of sales tax / value-added tax.
    - logifail 2y ago
Wytwwww 2y ago
> The state of nature is no tax, and as it's unpleasant Being able to accumulate capital, at least without having to resort to extreme violence is also about as "unnatural" as it gets.. No taxes = No government = No excess (above subsistence level) accumulation of assets
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  And the people who have a strong drive for the accumulation of capital/assets build armies and those armies shake down subsistence-living people for food and supplies in order to sustain themselves and suddenly you've got taxes again
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    Yes, thankfully modern liberal(ish) democracy(sort of) and the rule of law allowed us to exit this circle (well.. at least brought us much closer to that point than we ever were).
- logifail 2y ago
  > Being able to accumulate capital, at least without having to resort to extreme violence is also about as "unnatural" as it gets.. (This is a genuine clarifying question, because I'm struggling here) are you suggesting that saving is somehow unnatural?
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    I believe that the claim is this: In the long scope of history, being able to accumulate money without having to be strong enough to defend it is really rare.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > that saving is somehow unnatural Depends on how you define saving. Hoarding perishable goods is of course a pretty natural behaviour but that only scales so much. Investment (i.e. owning more land or other productive assets than you can utilize directly yourself) seems pretty as opposed to communal ownership seems pretty "unnatural". Not that I'm somehow implying that "natural" (whatever that really means, since using violence and coercion certainly seems like natural human behaviour) is somehow always superior to the opposite.
jancsika 2y ago
> You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, can't just sneak a premise that the state has default a right to collect a piece of arbitrary appreciation on an asset (as all assets are used for speculation) when the owner hasn't actually gotten cash from that, and that any government that doesn't tax that is just cutting someone a break on something rightfully owed. That's a great point. But note that you also cannot arbitrarily jump so far back in an implied chain of premises as if to suggest that you've somehow build your own (suspiciously libertarian-leaning) argument from first principles. For example: > The state of nature is no tax Well, the state of nature is also tribalistic. But imagine someone making an argument that collectivizing the farm in question is right because the state of nature is humans living in a collective. You'd rightly reject such an appeal to nature in that case. Therefore, you should reject your own appeal above.

by _bin_ 2y ago

Log_out_ 2y ago

yes, we can. the whole premise of a democracy is that every law is a solid majority away from being turned over.one of the reasons big money is inherent anti-democratic.

_bin_ 2y ago
Okay, I don't actually believe in that form of democracy. Not all things that are legal are good, therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do. I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. And no, that is not the premise of every system that incorporates democracy as an element, it's the premise of an absolute democracy.
- FactKnower69 2y ago
  >I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. lmfao this is always, always, always the refrain
- jjav 2y ago
  > therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do Which inevitably leads to the question: who should get the power to do that and why they, specifically?
  - pdonis 2y ago
    You have it backwards. The actual question is, how did the majority magically get the power to enforce its will on the minority in the first place?
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      The majority held this power as long as we’ve been a social species. Even a Pharaoh lives with consent of the majority even if they’ve convinced that majority they are divine.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - chairmansteve 2y ago
      Maybe the question is, how are the wealthy magically protected from the mob? The answer is, some form of government protects them. And that form of government is going to want it's tribute.
    - MisterBastahrd 2y ago
      Violent revolution, mostly.
    - jjav 2y ago
      > You have it backwards. The actual question is, how did the majority magically get the power to enforce its will on the minority in the first place? This doesn't answer my question at all. Who should decide those limits, and why they? Who pics them? Think of a thought experiment: A new city/town/state/country is getting started (let's assume peacefully somehow, this is a thought experiment). Who gets to set those limits on democratic action? One choice that comes to mind is everyone gets together and pics the wisest person in the crowd = representative democracy. Another choice is the strongest bully in the group beats everyone up and sets the laws however he likes = dictatorship. What other choices? And which one should be best?
freejazz 2y ago
Really? We're a 'solid majority' away from murder being made legal?

wr3nothopter 2y ago

[dead]

witchammer 2y ago

> The state of nature is no tax > You don't get to argue from the point that your preferred taxation regime is simply how things should be Those two statements seem mildly contradictory.

_bin_ 2y ago
Not really. Trace the course of history and the natural state of man is much closer to what Hobbes described. In the wild, homo sapiens doesn't have a taxation system. As we built up civilizations, we created taxes as I described. And neither am I arguing for my preference to stick with how we mostly run our taxation regime (tax value when moved, not value at rest) without some justification for it.
- consp 2y ago
  No tax in the wild? In my view, sure there was: you get water and share it, the other guy hunts and shares it. The fact no centralised system existed does not mean no tax on the community was levied in some way.
  - mbrumlow 2y ago
    I don’t believe sharing was all that common. But the difference in your story is voluntary sharing. Once the hunter demands water for meat it becomes an exchange, and is the basis of our capitalist society. Taxes in that system would be more like 10 men who did not hunt or gather demanded you give them food and water or they would beat your face in.
    - supplied_demand 2y ago
      ==Taxes in that system would be more like 10 men who did not hunt or gather demanded you give them food and water or they would beat your face in.== This seems a little dramatic. Are the 10 men demanding food and water also building roads, cleaning the water, removing waste, educating children, protecting collective assets, or any of the other things that Governments do with collective taxes? If not, the analogy falls apart.

FactKnower69 2y ago

>You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, huh, what natural, physical laws are being broken? collecting taxes exceeds the speed of light or goes below 0K or something?

TheCoelacanth 2y ago

> The state of nature is no tax The state of nature is no property. Billionaires can't exist without a government enforcing their property rights. Why shouldn't they pay the entity that made it possible for them to accumulate their vast wealth?

bluGill 2y ago
The state of nature is it is your property so long as you can protect it. There are lots of different ways to do that. Many animals have concepts of owned territory which they protect in various ways.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  And you principally protect your property by… wait for it… paying taxes to the state to uphold law and order
  - bluGill 2y ago
    That is not the state of nature though. There are "primitive" societies that don't organize their village that way. Social pressures and you working alone are enough to protect your property when the total population to worry about is around 100 people. We use taxes because nature doesn't scale to towns of 1000, much less nations of millions. But that is not the state of nature.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      The concept of property (the way we understand it i.e. all the stuff besides of a handful of personal items) is not something that generally exists or existed in "primitive" societies. i.e. you can't really "own" more land than you and your family can personally farm and extract rent on it without a state to protect your claim.

CPLX 2y ago

We (almost) invariably tax money when it changes hands. Like if you own something and then I own it, there's a tax. If I give something of value to someone else, the government takes a cut. There's a ton of nuance there, sometimes intended to avoid certain negative consequences that feel like double taxation or that provide peverse incentives. But that's the general premise. If you pay taxes on your income and then use it to buy something from me, I have to pay taxes on it too. That's my income now. If my father paid taxes on something he earned that's his tax bill. When I get it, I have to pay too. That's my income now. This is very clear and consistent. Outside of all the people with an interest in pretending otherwise. Also worth noting that there's no state interest whatsoever in preserving generational wealth. Just none. The fact that kids have to earn their own money instead of a family coasting for generations is a good thing for the most part. There are some plausible arguments for preserving continuity in certain cases, like community based family owned businesses, farms, that kind of thing. But everybody already agrees with that which is why those kinds of things have been generally exempt from estate taxes for generations. The people telling you otherwise are trying to trick you into caring about their agenda, which is how to not pay taxes on their substantial wealth.

logifail 2y ago
> We (almost) invariably tax money when it changes hands. Like if you own something and then I own it, there's a tax [..] But that's the general premise. I appreciate HN is USA-centric, but over on this side of the pond it's nowhere near as simple as that. > If you pay taxes on your income and then use it to buy something from me, I have to pay taxes on it too. That's my income now. Except that companies - even one person companies(!) - generally pay taxes on their profits, not their total income or revenue.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  All companies almost everywhere absolutely pay taxes on revenue, in the form of sales tax / value-added tax.
  - logifail 2y ago

Wytwwww 2y ago

> The state of nature is no tax, and as it's unpleasant Being able to accumulate capital, at least without having to resort to extreme violence is also about as "unnatural" as it gets.. No taxes = No government = No excess (above subsistence level) accumulation of assets

entropicdrifter 2y ago
And the people who have a strong drive for the accumulation of capital/assets build armies and those armies shake down subsistence-living people for food and supplies in order to sustain themselves and suddenly you've got taxes again
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  Yes, thankfully modern liberal(ish) democracy(sort of) and the rule of law allowed us to exit this circle (well.. at least brought us much closer to that point than we ever were).
logifail 2y ago
> Being able to accumulate capital, at least without having to resort to extreme violence is also about as "unnatural" as it gets.. (This is a genuine clarifying question, because I'm struggling here) are you suggesting that saving is somehow unnatural?
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  I believe that the claim is this: In the long scope of history, being able to accumulate money without having to be strong enough to defend it is really rare.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > that saving is somehow unnatural Depends on how you define saving. Hoarding perishable goods is of course a pretty natural behaviour but that only scales so much. Investment (i.e. owning more land or other productive assets than you can utilize directly yourself) seems pretty as opposed to communal ownership seems pretty "unnatural". Not that I'm somehow implying that "natural" (whatever that really means, since using violence and coercion certainly seems like natural human behaviour) is somehow always superior to the opposite.

jancsika 2y ago

> You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, can't just sneak a premise that the state has default a right to collect a piece of arbitrary appreciation on an asset (as all assets are used for speculation) when the owner hasn't actually gotten cash from that, and that any government that doesn't tax that is just cutting someone a break on something rightfully owed. That's a great point. But note that you also cannot arbitrarily jump so far back in an implied chain of premises as if to suggest that you've somehow build your own (suspiciously libertarian-leaning) argument from first principles. For example: > The state of nature is no tax Well, the state of nature is also tribalistic. But imagine someone making an argument that collectivizing the farm in question is right because the state of nature is humans living in a collective. You'd rightly reject such an appeal to nature in that case. Therefore, you should reject your own appeal above.