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What if there are other (and better) ways of achieving the same thing, but without state and taxation? Would you consider them?

• intopieces 12y ago
  I would not consider them. The system of taxation has worked for centuries and will continue to work. The potential benefits of the 'other and better ways' are outweighed by the cost of experimenting. Let us not re-invent the wheel.
  • snitko 12y ago
    Slavery was also prevalent in most of the world until the 19-th century. Was it a good idea too? The difference is in quality of the heist, not the nature of it: both slaves and taxpayers are robbed off the fruits of the labor. And how did you calculate exactly that potential benefits of any new ideas would be outweighed by the cost of experimenting with them?
    • coldtea 12y ago
      >The difference is in quality of the heist, not the nature of it: both slaves and taxpayers are robbed off the fruits of the labor. If you consider the government as an enemy entity, like a slave-owner yes. If you consider the government as people you put into place as representatives, according to how the majority compromised to be governmed, to handle common affairs (and that can do a good or a bad job at it), then no. If people thought taxes are that bad considering what they need to have in return, they'd vote somebody who promises to abolish them then.
      • snitko 12y ago
        But what if I don't want any representative? Where does that vote go? If I believed your first statement to be true, does it then follow then I'm free to not pay taxes and IRS wouldn't try to confiscate my property and jail me for not doing so?
• rtpg 12y ago
  Are you proposing an alternative? Currently, we have two situations that have been done empirically: - State-run insurance (seems to work) - Free-for-all (disaster is an understatement) Removing regulations is not the answer, since we've had to add regulations to make it cheaper. Things were worse before. If you have an alternative, propose it. But all the evidence points to a collective system making more sense and being cheaper.
  • snitko 12y ago
    >- Free-for-all (disaster is an understatement) If you mean the US system in which insurance companies and government were always in bed, and in which the FDA regulated the shit out of the drug market, making it necessary to spend billions to release a new drug, then I would actually agree, public healthcare is somewhat more humane. But nowhere in the world do you have a completely free market. And I would say that's something that should happen fairly soon with the advent of Bitcoin. To understand why regulations always make it worse for the consumer and what the alternative might be, try to imagine how a society would work without a state. That is, imagine there's no way a state and government can ever emerge. How would society organize itself. Come up with solutions. And surely you will find ways that are much more elegant and humane. These days, people see problem and their first reaction is apply government to it: "we have poor people that cannot afford healthcare, therefore government!", all the while every possible example in the world points out that only in places where government was less pervasive, poor people had more opportunities to rise and climb the ladder.
    • rtpg 12y ago
      It's impossible to have a free market, because you can't opt out of going to the hospital if you're dying. Plus insurers and doctors' interests are aligned so there's no reason for prices to go down.
• coldtea 12y ago
  Yes, except if they were rehashed "let the market do it" suggestions that never work.
  • snitko 12y ago
    Again, that's not an argument. I can say "governments never work" and 90% of the time I would be factually correct.