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> 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'

> 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.
      - fluoridation 2y ago
        You can if you can convince others to protect it for you.
      - TheCoelacanth 2y ago
        And even much later under feudalism, property as we know it didn't really exist. Land (essentially the only productive asset that existed) was owned by the government, but the government was a loose network of aristocrats instead of a faceless state.
  - mmcdermott 2y ago
    While I'm sure that someone somewhere objects to paying for law and order, I think most tax grumbling comes from taxes rising (and, arguably, still not rising enough) to pay for bigger and bigger programs with an increasingly tenuous relationship to law or order. Not everyone objects to every line item, of course, but the bigger the budget gets the more certain it becomes that those rising taxes are not just to keep up with inflation on basic essentials.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      Yes that is the nature of compromise
      - mmcdermott 2y ago
        Agreed, but the post above draws a direct line between a taxes and basic law and order, but one could support scaling back any number of taxes and spending programs without opposing or endangering law and order.
        jncfhnb 2y ago
        You don’t get the law and order unless the government is able to derive power from an accepting populace.
    - arrosenberg 2y ago
      > I think most tax grumbling comes from taxes rising (and, arguably, still not rising enough) to pay for bigger and bigger programs with an increasingly tenuous relationship to law or order. The Constitution addresses this confusion in its' preamble. The role of the government includes law and maintaining order, but it extends further - "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
      - 2y ago
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
Given that most billionaires have their billions as imaginary ownership of gigantic corporations, how exactly would someone steal their shares from them such that government needs to enforce their property rights? Can I just walk up to the bank and say "hey, I have $100 billion worth of Facebook stock, gibs me da money"? You know, but for the feds swooping in (or possibly the Delaware state troopers) and shutting that down? The government may indeed enforce property rights in a meaningful way, but it doesn't seem like it's doing this for billionaires. > Why shouldn't they pay the entity that made it possible for them to accumulate their vast wealth? If this were indeed a true description of how that process occurs, why are you so comfortable with letting the government "make that possible"? Where in the Constitution (or even common law) does it grant the government this power?
- ForHackernews 2y ago
  > ...most billionaires have their billions as imaginary ownership of gigantic corporations Exactly. The entire notion of their wealth is predicated on an elaborate system of law and governance! Otherwise, it's all just freaking numbers on a computer.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > Can I just walk up to the bank and say "hey, I have $100 billion worth of Facebook stock, gibs me da money"? No, but assuming you are on Facebook's board / in upper management you can conspire with the rest of the board to get rid of Zuckerberg (possibly permanently) and share the company amongst yourself. ARM China seems like somewhat close example of what can happen when there is no government willing to protect property rights. e.g. as long as he has enough local support a CEO of your subsidiary could just take over the entity and there would be nothing you can do about it. IMHO we'd end up with some dystopian form of Cyberpunk style techno feudalism without strong governments regulating everything. Which in theory might be a good thing for the corporations themselves, just not for most of the people who are currently running them.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    > No, but assuming you are on Facebook's board / in upper management you can conspire with the rest of the board to get rid of Zuckerberg (possibly permanently) and share the company amongst yourself. Yes, if you want to oust him and take over as CEO, then boards of directors have that power. But that's more about his job security. When he leaves, he leaves with just as much stock as he ever had, and in the case of some termination clauses in contracts for that stuff, he walks away with more than he walked in with. With the government out of the picture, this doesn't much change. If the board of directors tries to confiscate shares or some equivalent (I dunno, withholding dividends? Does Facebook even pay dividends?), then their stock price tanks immediately. Somewhere down near $0. Their financing falls apart shortly after that, and pretty soon the company goes under. The punishment for some group stealing Facebook isn't government goons stepping in and bashing skulls, it's in the complicated structures that make it worthless just about as soon as it's stolen. I think your Chinese example is quite the opposite of this. The government of China basically has to step in and allow ARM China to pull such a stunt, or it's impossible.
lazide 2y ago
Eh, the oldest form of government is a Kingdom. If a government won’t enforce others rights to property, eventually someone is going to form a government where everyone’s things are theirs eh? Since what other option do they have if they want to own something.
- jacobolus 2y ago
  That's fine. Such people can renounce their citizenship and pay the required exit tax, convert all their assets to gold bars or whatever, and go move somewhere in the world without a functioning state, where they can hire a private militia, build their own basic infrastructure, etc.
  - lazide 2y ago
    why would they do that when they can take over the gov’t and steal everyone else’s stuff? (see Russia, Venezula, China, and many others) Notably, the biggest thefts seem to happen when they can convince people that the gov’t is doing it for ‘the good of the people’, and they’re ‘going after the rich people’, and then they can pocket it when no one is looking.
    - jacobolus 2y ago
      In the USA it's mostly "the rich people" and extremely profitable corporations who have captured parts of the government and figured out ways to corruptly siphon money out of the rest of the economy into their own pockets. This is a reason why we need better anti-corruption legislation, an end of the "super PAC", much higher inheritance taxes with fewer loopholes, and structural reforms to fix a profoundly corrupt Supreme Court.
      - lazide 2y ago
        Sure, but that isn’t what the comment I was replying to was saying, was it? Also, a lot of what you’re describing seems like regulatory capture.

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.
    - fluoridation 2y ago
      You can if you can convince others to protect it for you.
    - TheCoelacanth 2y ago
      And even much later under feudalism, property as we know it didn't really exist. Land (essentially the only productive asset that existed) was owned by the government, but the government was a loose network of aristocrats instead of a faceless state.
- mmcdermott 2y ago
  While I'm sure that someone somewhere objects to paying for law and order, I think most tax grumbling comes from taxes rising (and, arguably, still not rising enough) to pay for bigger and bigger programs with an increasingly tenuous relationship to law or order. Not everyone objects to every line item, of course, but the bigger the budget gets the more certain it becomes that those rising taxes are not just to keep up with inflation on basic essentials.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Yes that is the nature of compromise
    - mmcdermott 2y ago
      Agreed, but the post above draws a direct line between a taxes and basic law and order, but one could support scaling back any number of taxes and spending programs without opposing or endangering law and order.
      - jncfhnb 2y ago
        You don’t get the law and order unless the government is able to derive power from an accepting populace.
  - arrosenberg 2y ago
    > I think most tax grumbling comes from taxes rising (and, arguably, still not rising enough) to pay for bigger and bigger programs with an increasingly tenuous relationship to law or order. The Constitution addresses this confusion in its' preamble. The role of the government includes law and maintaining order, but it extends further - "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
    - 2y ago

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

Given that most billionaires have their billions as imaginary ownership of gigantic corporations, how exactly would someone steal their shares from them such that government needs to enforce their property rights? Can I just walk up to the bank and say "hey, I have $100 billion worth of Facebook stock, gibs me da money"? You know, but for the feds swooping in (or possibly the Delaware state troopers) and shutting that down? The government may indeed enforce property rights in a meaningful way, but it doesn't seem like it's doing this for billionaires. > Why shouldn't they pay the entity that made it possible for them to accumulate their vast wealth? If this were indeed a true description of how that process occurs, why are you so comfortable with letting the government "make that possible"? Where in the Constitution (or even common law) does it grant the government this power?

ForHackernews 2y ago
> ...most billionaires have their billions as imaginary ownership of gigantic corporations Exactly. The entire notion of their wealth is predicated on an elaborate system of law and governance! Otherwise, it's all just freaking numbers on a computer.
Wytwwww 2y ago
> Can I just walk up to the bank and say "hey, I have $100 billion worth of Facebook stock, gibs me da money"? No, but assuming you are on Facebook's board / in upper management you can conspire with the rest of the board to get rid of Zuckerberg (possibly permanently) and share the company amongst yourself. ARM China seems like somewhat close example of what can happen when there is no government willing to protect property rights. e.g. as long as he has enough local support a CEO of your subsidiary could just take over the entity and there would be nothing you can do about it. IMHO we'd end up with some dystopian form of Cyberpunk style techno feudalism without strong governments regulating everything. Which in theory might be a good thing for the corporations themselves, just not for most of the people who are currently running them.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  > No, but assuming you are on Facebook's board / in upper management you can conspire with the rest of the board to get rid of Zuckerberg (possibly permanently) and share the company amongst yourself. Yes, if you want to oust him and take over as CEO, then boards of directors have that power. But that's more about his job security. When he leaves, he leaves with just as much stock as he ever had, and in the case of some termination clauses in contracts for that stuff, he walks away with more than he walked in with. With the government out of the picture, this doesn't much change. If the board of directors tries to confiscate shares or some equivalent (I dunno, withholding dividends? Does Facebook even pay dividends?), then their stock price tanks immediately. Somewhere down near $0. Their financing falls apart shortly after that, and pretty soon the company goes under. The punishment for some group stealing Facebook isn't government goons stepping in and bashing skulls, it's in the complicated structures that make it worthless just about as soon as it's stolen. I think your Chinese example is quite the opposite of this. The government of China basically has to step in and allow ARM China to pull such a stunt, or it's impossible.

lazide 2y ago

Eh, the oldest form of government is a Kingdom. If a government won’t enforce others rights to property, eventually someone is going to form a government where everyone’s things are theirs eh? Since what other option do they have if they want to own something.

jacobolus 2y ago
That's fine. Such people can renounce their citizenship and pay the required exit tax, convert all their assets to gold bars or whatever, and go move somewhere in the world without a functioning state, where they can hire a private militia, build their own basic infrastructure, etc.
- lazide 2y ago
  why would they do that when they can take over the gov’t and steal everyone else’s stuff? (see Russia, Venezula, China, and many others) Notably, the biggest thefts seem to happen when they can convince people that the gov’t is doing it for ‘the good of the people’, and they’re ‘going after the rich people’, and then they can pocket it when no one is looking.
  - jacobolus 2y ago
    In the USA it's mostly "the rich people" and extremely profitable corporations who have captured parts of the government and figured out ways to corruptly siphon money out of the rest of the economy into their own pockets. This is a reason why we need better anti-corruption legislation, an end of the "super PAC", much higher inheritance taxes with fewer loopholes, and structural reforms to fix a profoundly corrupt Supreme Court.
    - lazide 2y ago
      Sure, but that isn’t what the comment I was replying to was saying, was it? Also, a lot of what you’re describing seems like regulatory capture.