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Aside from the quibbles over how much of government activity is useful and won't get done otherwise so we have to have less of something to have more of that st
by blargey 2y ago
Aside from the quibbles over how much of government activity is useful and won't get done otherwise so we have to have less of something to have more of that stuff, there are also a good number of taxable things that most people don't like, or otherwise consider prosocial to have less of. Extreme wealth / income, pollution, alcohol/tobacco/gambling, etc.
- dullcrisp 2y agoSomeone must like them though. Are you not ashamed denying them more of that thing that they like in exchange for frivolities like roads, sanitation, etc.?
- monero-xmr 2y agoWe live in a democracy, and when you have conditioned society to assume everything is taxed, then yes, taxing vices like alcohol and tobacco are easier to stomach. I would be less opposed to it if every single dollar extracted from the vice was put to whatever society decided to do about the vice (police, treatment, etc.). But taxing the vice is a source of revenue for the ever-expanding state, and therefore society doesn’t actually want the vice to stop, rather they want it to grow in order to expand their revenue. I don’t want the government to fund anything a citizen wouldn’t fund themselves. If it’s useful, then someone will make a business to provide it. If it’s desirable without the profit motive, then allow a charity to develop. I see charity funded by free citizens as a form of market solution. What drives me crazy are giant government bureaucracies that are totally removed from the democratic process that fund things no one voted for, that we can never seem to defund.