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"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own de

"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own devices." Except that there's no (current, easy) way of excluding you from various public goods that are paid by taxes. Examples include national defense, public spaces like parks, public highways, fire protection (if you live in shared housing or simply close enough to others such that we can't take the risk of letting your house burn down), etc... That's why these goods are called "non-excludable." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability

praptak 14y ago
Don't forget the money service - managing supply and providing guarantees for its value. Actually if you manage to exclude yourself from using this particular service you won't have to pay any taxes.
- Zak 14y ago
  That's not entirely true. I'll confine my response to how things work in the US since that's where I live and it's what I know the most about. Attempting to use an alternate medium of exchange may result in legal problems. In particular, Federal law says: Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. That doesn't seem to exclude exchanging goods or services for precious metals or other commodities so long as they're not cast in to something resembling money. It would be difficult to make small day-to-day purchases that way. The other problem is that income tax law in the US applies to non-monetary compensation. If I pay you 2kg of gold to work for me for a year on a software project and the IRS finds out about it, they will demand that you pay taxes on its dollar value.
  - praptak 14y ago
    Indeed, going barter will probably not let you avoid taxes. I thought of avoiding the use of money by totally withdrawing from the economic exchange.
Zak 14y ago
In principle, I agree with you, but most of the things you list are relatively cheap. In the United States (I know Jacques isn't American), the majority of the Federal budget is devoted to the military, interest on the national debt, various forms of free/subsidized insurance for the old and poor, and various forms of income support for the poor. The public goods other than national defense you list are very cheap in comparison to these things. Federal fuel taxes exceeded Federal highway spending in 2010 according to http://usgovernmentspending.com http://usgovernmentspending.com. The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay. Most of the rest of the spending falls in to the category of supporting people who for whatever reason have difficulty supporting themselves. There's a reasonable debate to be had about how and how much we want to provide support to some people by taxing others, but let's not pretend it's primarily about things like roads and fire departments.
- Jare 14y ago
  > The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay But national defense (or really, defense of any kind) is about more than just the ability to successfully repeal an attack; at certain scale, it's about ensuring that nobody even tries to lift a finger against you. And then there's the 'implied offensive' angle where others fear what you might do. The security and strength provided by that military is a significant factor in the ability of the USA to create and retain its wealth. Limiting the size of military to purely defensive levels would also limit that ability, so in many ways it's as much an investment as roads and fire departments. It's hard to measure the ROI but the stakes are clearly very high. Hope this doesn't feel cynical.
  - Zak 14y ago
    at certain scale, it's about ensuring that nobody even tries to lift a finger against you. And then there's the 'implied offensive' angle where others fear what you might do All true, but I think these things are true of China, with 1/5 the spending or the UK with 1/10. It is probably possible to provide an effective defense, including the ability to effectively attack an overseas enemy spending a much smaller amount than the US actually does.
mibbitier 14y ago
One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service. Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?
- wwwtyro 14y ago
  > Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation? Isn't that also true of food?
  - mibbitier 14y ago
    Not really the same IMHO. Giving people access to healthcare and fire protection doesn't create any bad incentives. You can't 'use' healthcare for monetary gain. Giving people food, money etc, gives people incentives to not bother working. Also I would say that a national health service ensures that the public is 'healthy'. Which affects us all, as diseases are transmitted etc. Just as the fire services ensures fires don't spread and burn down all the houses. The same isn't true of giving people food.
    - randallsquared 14y ago
      Well, there's no limit to how much healthcare you can use, though. Hanson[1] suggests Americans already buy too much healthcare, and in the US, healthcare still costs most people something through copays, etc. So, I think it's quite arguable that giving people free healthcare can create bad incentives, if not limited some other way. I also am not sure it makes sense to lump together healthcare (which includes a lot of long-term preventative care like vaccines and lifestyle advice) and fire protection (which is mostly emergency damage control). A better analogy might be if the government provided free fire insurance covering everything citizens own -- actually, the US does this sort of thing with hurricanes and floods, so there's a fairly exact analogy, and it seems clear that it does create bad incentives to build and rebuild in hurricane-prone and low-lying areas. [1] http://hanson.gmu.edu/CutMed.htm http://hanson.gmu.edu/CutMed.htm
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
arethuza 14y ago
"left to your own devices" That reminds me of the old status of being an outlaw - which really meant that you were outside of the protection of the law and anyone could do whatever they wanted to you. It was regarded as rather a harsh punishment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw
- olalonde 14y ago
  The modern version would probably be "freemen on the land": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land "Freemen on the land" are people who believe that all statute law is contractual, and that such law is applicable only if an individual consents to be governed by it. They believe that they can therefore declare themselves independent of government jurisdiction, holding that the only "true" law is common law, as they define it.
  - tmh88j 14y ago
    My friend's girlfriend is a public defender and has dealt with many of them. If anyone here has not heard of them or knows very little, I would suggest doing some investigating. I don't have respect for them (mainly because the overwhelming majority don't have a clue of the legal system and obligations they have as a citizen yet argue obscure laws), but it will provide some entertainment and a very strange but interesting perspective. Check out youtube for some interesting court room footage, such as this man who apparently controls the court room because a judge left. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjv20sC5CY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjv20sC5CY
    - donall 14y ago
      This is certainly interesting stuff. Can you recommend an article that deconstructs their motivations and/or comments on whether or not what they're doing is actually legal?
      - alex-g 14y ago
        This is a decent start: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman

praptak 14y ago

Don't forget the money service - managing supply and providing guarantees for its value. Actually if you manage to exclude yourself from using this particular service you won't have to pay any taxes.

Zak 14y ago
That's not entirely true. I'll confine my response to how things work in the US since that's where I live and it's what I know the most about. Attempting to use an alternate medium of exchange may result in legal problems. In particular, Federal law says: Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. That doesn't seem to exclude exchanging goods or services for precious metals or other commodities so long as they're not cast in to something resembling money. It would be difficult to make small day-to-day purchases that way. The other problem is that income tax law in the US applies to non-monetary compensation. If I pay you 2kg of gold to work for me for a year on a software project and the IRS finds out about it, they will demand that you pay taxes on its dollar value.
- praptak 14y ago
  Indeed, going barter will probably not let you avoid taxes. I thought of avoiding the use of money by totally withdrawing from the economic exchange.

Zak 14y ago

In principle, I agree with you, but most of the things you list are relatively cheap. In the United States (I know Jacques isn't American), the majority of the Federal budget is devoted to the military, interest on the national debt, various forms of free/subsidized insurance for the old and poor, and various forms of income support for the poor. The public goods other than national defense you list are very cheap in comparison to these things. Federal fuel taxes exceeded Federal highway spending in 2010 according to http://usgovernmentspending.com http://usgovernmentspending.com. The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay. Most of the rest of the spending falls in to the category of supporting people who for whatever reason have difficulty supporting themselves. There's a reasonable debate to be had about how and how much we want to provide support to some people by taxing others, but let's not pretend it's primarily about things like roads and fire departments.

Jare 14y ago
> The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay But national defense (or really, defense of any kind) is about more than just the ability to successfully repeal an attack; at certain scale, it's about ensuring that nobody even tries to lift a finger against you. And then there's the 'implied offensive' angle where others fear what you might do. The security and strength provided by that military is a significant factor in the ability of the USA to create and retain its wealth. Limiting the size of military to purely defensive levels would also limit that ability, so in many ways it's as much an investment as roads and fire departments. It's hard to measure the ROI but the stakes are clearly very high. Hope this doesn't feel cynical.
- Zak 14y ago
  at certain scale, it's about ensuring that nobody even tries to lift a finger against you. And then there's the 'implied offensive' angle where others fear what you might do All true, but I think these things are true of China, with 1/5 the spending or the UK with 1/10. It is probably possible to provide an effective defense, including the ability to effectively attack an overseas enemy spending a much smaller amount than the US actually does.

mibbitier 14y ago

One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service. Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

wwwtyro 14y ago
> Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation? Isn't that also true of food?
- mibbitier 14y ago
  Not really the same IMHO. Giving people access to healthcare and fire protection doesn't create any bad incentives. You can't 'use' healthcare for monetary gain. Giving people food, money etc, gives people incentives to not bother working. Also I would say that a national health service ensures that the public is 'healthy'. Which affects us all, as diseases are transmitted etc. Just as the fire services ensures fires don't spread and burn down all the houses. The same isn't true of giving people food.
  - randallsquared 14y ago
    Well, there's no limit to how much healthcare you can use, though. Hanson[1] suggests Americans already buy too much healthcare, and in the US, healthcare still costs most people something through copays, etc. So, I think it's quite arguable that giving people free healthcare can create bad incentives, if not limited some other way. I also am not sure it makes sense to lump together healthcare (which includes a lot of long-term preventative care like vaccines and lifestyle advice) and fire protection (which is mostly emergency damage control). A better analogy might be if the government provided free fire insurance covering everything citizens own -- actually, the US does this sort of thing with hurricanes and floods, so there's a fairly exact analogy, and it seems clear that it does create bad incentives to build and rebuild in hurricane-prone and low-lying areas. [1] http://hanson.gmu.edu/CutMed.htm http://hanson.gmu.edu/CutMed.htm
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago

arethuza 14y ago

"left to your own devices" That reminds me of the old status of being an outlaw - which really meant that you were outside of the protection of the law and anyone could do whatever they wanted to you. It was regarded as rather a harsh punishment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw

olalonde 14y ago
The modern version would probably be "freemen on the land": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land "Freemen on the land" are people who believe that all statute law is contractual, and that such law is applicable only if an individual consents to be governed by it. They believe that they can therefore declare themselves independent of government jurisdiction, holding that the only "true" law is common law, as they define it.
- tmh88j 14y ago
  My friend's girlfriend is a public defender and has dealt with many of them. If anyone here has not heard of them or knows very little, I would suggest doing some investigating. I don't have respect for them (mainly because the overwhelming majority don't have a clue of the legal system and obligations they have as a citizen yet argue obscure laws), but it will provide some entertainment and a very strange but interesting perspective. Check out youtube for some interesting court room footage, such as this man who apparently controls the court room because a judge left. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjv20sC5CY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjv20sC5CY
  - donall 14y ago
    This is certainly interesting stuff. Can you recommend an article that deconstructs their motivations and/or comments on whether or not what they're doing is actually legal?
    - alex-g 14y ago
      This is a decent start: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman