Taxes
According to Oxford Dictionary the significance of taxes is: A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions
One of the modern debates is if paying taxes is actually profitable or... ethical Because somehow we wish the people at least can share a little bit to improve the world we live in. But... this in reality does not happen at all. There are lot of millionaires that don’t want to pay taxes so they put all the income in secret bank countries like Bermudas. They think it is not profitable paying taxes because they are losing money just to plump the State. Are they right? Well check this example of three different countries.
Switzerland: secret bank/tax haven country. GDP $749 billion. Per capita $86.000. HDI 2nd place.
Spain: very taxation system and country. GDP $1.14 trillion. Per capita $31.000. HDI 25th place.
United States: the reference of occidental capitalism. GDP $20.8 trillion. Per capita $63.000. HDI 17th.
Source: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2020/October/weo-report?c=111,&s=NGDPD,PPPGDP,NGDPDPC,PPPPC,&sy=2019&ey=2025&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
Impressive data. As you can see literally the country which does not invest in taxation has the best quality life system ($86.000 per capita is quite a lot and 2nd place HDI). So what is happening here?
Spanish workers are wasting a lot of their income for public services but they do not seem as good as Swiss ones, also the income per capita is so damn low... so we, as Spaniards, we just work to plump the State?
Here is where the debate starts: is profitable paying taxes? Then, if it is, is the problem that State do not how to administrate it?
One of the modern debates is if paying taxes is actually profitable or... ethical Because somehow we wish the people at least can share a little bit to improve the world we live in. But... this in reality does not happen at all. There are lot of millionaires that don’t want to pay taxes so they put all the income in secret bank countries like Bermudas. They think it is not profitable paying taxes because they are losing money just to plump the State. Are they right? Well check this example of three different countries.
Switzerland: secret bank/tax haven country. GDP $749 billion. Per capita $86.000. HDI 2nd place.
Spain: very taxation system and country. GDP $1.14 trillion. Per capita $31.000. HDI 25th place.
United States: the reference of occidental capitalism. GDP $20.8 trillion. Per capita $63.000. HDI 17th.
Source: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2020/October/weo-report?c=111,&s=NGDPD,PPPGDP,NGDPDPC,PPPPC,&sy=2019&ey=2025&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
Impressive data. As you can see literally the country which does not invest in taxation has the best quality life system ($86.000 per capita is quite a lot and 2nd place HDI). So what is happening here?
Spanish workers are wasting a lot of their income for public services but they do not seem as good as Swiss ones, also the income per capita is so damn low... so we, as Spaniards, we just work to plump the State?
Here is where the debate starts: is profitable paying taxes? Then, if it is, is the problem that State do not how to administrate it?
Comments (502)
Switzerland has federal and provincial income taxes, although the rates are significantly lower than in the US. There are no capital gains taxes for many transactions but there is a wealth tax.
The collective idea that taxes are bad... the scare tactic of "they will raise taxes" and the like has done a horrible disservice to America as a whole since Reagan.
This sounds like a good system. Capital gains tax is terrible and disincentivizes investing and also makes taxes extremely, extremely cumbersome here in the US. Here in the US I don't think a wealth tax is too popular, but if it meant no capital gains tax then I'd probably be for that arrangement. I'd be curious to know at what wealth level that tax starts though and how high it is.
All that I can say is that to oppose taxes seems to be irrational. What happens to all the tax revenue a government accumulates? It goes into essentials such as infrastructure development, maintenance, revamping, paying government employees, financing activities of national importance and so on. In other words, taxes are spent on the taxpayers and the "best" part is the tax-funded projects outlined above not only benefit the individual but also society as a whole and that too for generations to come. In effect the tax you pay is spent by the government on you. I see no good reason to feel like someone has stolen your money unless you want to admit that you stole from yourself.
As you perfectly say. The problem is how bad taxes are distributed in countries. Probably Switzerland has taxes but not as much as Spain (promise) and look the different wealth ratio. It is just impressive and I am here thinking paying taxes is for nothing but it looks like the State is guilty at all.
Quoting creativesoul
Of course it is. We have to share the wealth to make a more developed country. But here we have another dilemma of how much should be the public expenditure. I am not trying saying here that if you are poor you do not deserve participate in society and it’s public service but it amazes me how Switzerland as a tax haven has that quality of life. Because sometimes having rich people does not mean equality but this country does. So probably as @T Clark said previously the key here is being more clever in the use of taxes.
Yes. Agree. This is supposed to be right? Public expenditure is profitable. But... why US and Spain (both taxation countries) are lower in the HDI index than a secret bank/tax haven country like Switzerland? It is so much interesting. Because sometimes it looks like the revenue that the government gets are not well distributed. Imagine having TRILLIONS of dollars and being in the 17th position... there is something that the government makes wrong.
But yes it is really complex because US has a lot of citizens. So this makes it harder (you have more population than Spain and Switzerland together) I guess in terms of administration.
There also a lot of people who defends this. Taxes are not so profitable so the public is wasteful. Paying a lot of taxes do not contribute to motivation in investing so they just travel to another country with low capital/income taxes.
If a neighbor told us we need to make a compulsory contribution to their revenue we’d cry “Extortion!”. But when the government does it we call it “taxes”.
It is legal robbery, plain and simple.
Prices in the U.S. were cheaper on January 1, 1900 then they were on January 1, 1800.
Imagine that!!
“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Couldn't have said it better.
Those who have money to take.
This is a good example Philosophy of Economics. It is just amazing how we give more value/credit to the currency depending the times. It is so abstract when Wall Street or Madrid Stock Change determines the value of a coin. It reminds me about 1929 crack and money hadn’t any value. But well it did not end bad when American Dollar is the strongest currency in the world despite some consequences.
Probably the deflation in January 1, 1900 occurred because civil war in the United United in the last years of XIXth century. (It is just my guess I am not a specialist in Economics).
Admittedly the idea comes from Frederic Bastiat in his book The Law. It’s a great read.
Try refusing to pay taxes to see what happens. But it has become so common place that we now do it before they show up with shackles and their guns drawn.
The State is so well established that you don't even consider its act of appropriating your own property as theft.
This is not just a matter of material control, but also of psychological "indoctrination".
The point is that, the individual never needed a mediator between itself and others to achieve success. The State takes your full potential, cuts it in half, takes a part, the other piece he gives to you and exclaims: - Success!
Same here.
Quoting TheMadFool
I think it’s at least debatable that tax-funded projects benefit everyone equally. For example, not all public schools are equal, and it too often is the case that schools in predominantly low income and black districts are not funded enough to support quality education. That said, I can see the rationale of low income and/or minority families not wanting to pay taxes, since they aren’t seeing the benefits that they so desperately need.
On the other hand, Nordic countries have high taxes and their HDIs are in Top 10 or so.
Tax havens attract foreign capital which can boost the country's economy and the government then collects substantial tax revenue even at lower rates. But if every country was a tax haven, the low tax rate would not be an incentive for capital to move, so I guess it wouldn't pay off.
Who should pay for street lights when anybody can freely benefit from them?
Quoting tim wood
I'm not sure how to respond to this, Tim. You make like 10 different points and all I was talking about was at the very least reforming if not cancelling capital gains tax, a tax which affects everyone who has a capital gain regardless of income level or wealth. This isn't about keeping the rich in check and preventing social upheaval, this is about reforming our tax structure in a way that's remotely sensible where people aren't sending in hundreds of pages of taxes where everyone of their transactions is documented... it's just a very outdated system and we should find a better way to tax, like how the Swiss system does it.
This isn't about Reagan, this isn't about King Louis, this is about making things simpler and enacted smarter regulation.
I want the government to stay out of my way, and at most to defend my rights and liberty.
It’s difficult to identify such a thing because statism is very prevalent. It has taken over our lives to that extent. But the prevalence of statism surely isn’t an argument in favour of it.
Those who want to do so voluntarily.
Yeah, because economy works when stuff is given for free and people pay for it voluntarily.
The "Government" should not be designed for the population through the State. It should be emanated indirectly from the individual interactions.
Your argument is based on the fact that society has already been pre-established by the use of the State.
"Ask that same question to a bird who was trapped in a cage for his entire life, and if it somehow managed to answer you, it would tell you: - I had no choice! If I want to eat, I must stay inside the cage. If I want to sing, I still need to stay in the cage. When I do, those who put me in here are satisfied, but when I decided to leave the cage and do the same, they promptly captured me and I was imprisoned in the cage again."
It is obvious that in order to survive in this way in which society was structured, I still have to submit to the demands of the State, however, this does not prevent me from conceiving how bad and unnecessary it is.
Therefore, your contentment with the Status Quo is not a valid argument.
Your answer is enough confirmation that you didn't read my last answer, or if you did, you didn't want to understand my point of view, so, therefore, I can only quote myself.
Quoting Gus Lamarch
Folk who do not see the irony of their oxymoronic title.
The discussion in question is about the "State" and not the "Government", as both are different concepts. Therefore, if you are unable to differentiate between the two, it is not my fault but of your ignorance.
Quoting tim wood
At this point, I really don't know what my purpose here is except to read the words of someone full of himself, however, my last point was to show you that your argument is invalid, so I'll reprise my thinking here:
"Your argument is invalid, as it is based on the concept of the State, which had been pre-established with society as a justification for the appropriation of private property of many by a few, which makes your argument "irrefutable" - irrefutability is fallacy -, since society in that we are both established, continues to take advantage of this method of oppression, and, therefore, it is obvious that I could not quote something that I want, desire, seek, etc... that is not, in some way, bound in the State."
I hope you understood, as I tried to be as clear as p.o.s.s.i.b.l.e.
As I have already stated, and I will continue to say: - While the people you love to belittle and degrade bring interesting content and questions to the table of debate, you glorify yourself by copying and pasting the link of an article on the forum and making a statement of two lines.
I believe that the real "whinning" here, are just those who truly have no content, and when they leave relevance, let themselves be consumed by bitterness.
Ad Hominem will only take this discussion to the garbage.
Well, do you want to debate the "State's historical evidence for being useful" with me? We will see how far you will be able to disagree without going into verbal aggression - which, being sincere, coming from you, does not seem to be a distant reality -.
At what point do you, the expert historian want to start? Feel free to choose the historical period. I will give you that honor.
Quoting tim wood
Indeed, but you prove yourself to be biased when you completely dismiss the rest of my argument.
You are just no worse than Banno, because you still remain to hear the truths you don't want to accept. For that, you have my thanks.
Or if they're selling stock, or cryptocurrency, or collectables like comic books or baseball cards. In other words, people who invest, and in those cases in the US many will be taxed twice: both on the state and federal level. Simply trading cryptocurrencies is a taxable event, as is using cryptocurrency to buy something. Does that really make any sense? Capital gains laws extend far beyond simply taxing the capital gain when people decide to sell. Lets just start there: Just tax us once and do it only when we cash out.
Yes because these countries fortunately have good governments that invest the revenue they get in good public goods. But it is not work in all countries. Sadly, it looks like that this social welfare system only work in Nordic countries.
Proponents of slavery argued the economy would collapse with abolition. Slavery worked, sure, but it was evil. My point is, the idea that taxation works is not much of an argument when it is premised on the denial of someone’s liberty and the appropriation of the fruits of his labor.
While comparing different nations' means of financing government, a number of factors have to be kept in mind.
The first question to ask is where the wealth is coming from. Diverse economies are very different systems compared to limited industry types. You mention Switzerland as a "tax haven." That is a reference to their banking industry that largely deals with money from other places. The industry contributes a big portion of tax revenue for the entire nation. So it is comparable to nations made wealthy by resource extraction but has degrees of freedom in the markets those directly tied to market prices do not.
The second question to ask is what is the wealth inequality gap between nations. Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia score very high on the comparison but have vastly different systems in regards to diversity of industries.
The third question to ask is what are the minimum standards of living in a nation and how will it make people live below that. While this measure is aspirational as a quantum of policy, it has a direct bearing upon what will be accepted by a nation. This element can be considered by comparing how differently the question is considered amongst the nations with the highest degree of inequality.
There are many other aspects to explore but I have developed a three body problem and Newton showed that was usually enough to confound us all.
So what about the "capitalists" who are saving 5k? 10k? 100k? 500k? At what point does it become a big deal to you? You seem to be treating it like everyone is either saving $100 or $10 million and there's no in between.
I'm familiar with wealth inequality, but that shouldn't be our main concern here. If your main concern is equality, the best way to do what would be to crash the stock market. Everyone would suffer, but we'd all be more equal. If a nuclear war broke out we'd all be much more equal.
There's also more to say about these statistics like that there's more people in the top 20% than in the bottom 20% and also that as people get richer they move quintiles so it's not like these quintiles are static. You need to track individuals over time, not portray the country as 5 static quintiles when people move through those quintiles throughout their lives.
Oh no my friend, if you dare to use this argument again, I will have to use it against your bias as well.
Well, why did you refuse to prove the "Good" that the State brought during history to me? I was kind enough to let you choose the historical period. Why so shy?
The problem with inequality is not that it fails to provide equality. When the means of exchange in a system are vastly different from each other, it involves using the inequality as a fulcrum of wealth.
I don't understand what you're saying and I would like a more concrete example. I understand the first sentence.
Which part do you not understand?
Oh are you talking about differences in foreign currency value? I could agree with you there, but I was talking about domestic economics with tim and initially addressing the OP.
I was responding to your comment that observing differences in equality was about an agenda to level all experiences. Like a nuclear war or what not.
You aren't doing a great job of owning your own ideas. My interest level is dropping.
@javi2541997 It is not ridiculous and a lack of respect towards us, when we have already spoken more than 5,000 words about what the Government is and what its role in society is.
Since you didn't even have the ability to have a real discussion with me, I'm sorry to inform you that you will have to look for your answers on your own. If you don't want to, feel free to not do it, our discussions will be much richer without your participation.
Thank you. Good day/Good night.
Arguments based upon authority are the weakest kind.
Indeed, they are... But Tim doesn't appear to perceive that.
I thought it was you that was intent upon setting the terms of the discussion.
My sarcasm was about the fact that he used the argument of authority to repudiate my evidence that his arguments were invalid.
Read the previous discussion, if you want to give some opinion.
I read the discussion closely. My opinion is based upon a considered response to the views offered. I included a post that explained my point of view. Argue against that, if it is of interest to you.
Or not. Whatever.
Could you just explain what exactly you mean when you say "When the means of exchange in a system are vastly different from each other, it involves using the inequality as a fulcrum of wealth."
Sure enough.
Profits are the result of getting more income than what is paid out. So if one can keep the cost very low, the profit increases very much.
On the other hand, the approach increases poverty to the extent it becomes a "social" issue. Entire systems of exchange will fail if some level of poverty is not supported to some degree.
The different ends of the spectrum are connected by means of who is employed or not.
Therefore, who can work or not in any system becomes the smallest explicable value.
Ok so you're saying something like "When there are wealth disparities, that must involve exploiting that wealth difference as a means of accruing wealth."
I don't really agree with that. I don't think the wealthy preying on the poor is an inevitability. I certainly don't see exploitation of the poor as an inherent part of wealth.
EDIT: Bad timing. This was my response to your previous post, not the one above.
The idea of exploitation presumes a theft has occurred. I am not interested in that argument.
What I am saying is that the inequality is necessary for certain business models to work.
And that is what many proponents for inequality are actually arguing for in their communities.
That is where the rubber meets the road. What is the ratio of return for all of the people involved in an enterprise?
Which ones?
But what about you? Don't you live somewhere where the conditions I refer to apply? Are you one of those Libertarians that have no idea about where they are and why they receive whatever the universe offers to them?
No I believe there is plenty of unfairness surrounding wealth inequality, but that the fault lies elsewhere. There are absolutely rules in the system that favor the rich and penalize the poor, but the fault doesn't lie with capitalism inherently.
What taxes are spent on is important. Sure. The issue is that there are many many things that need to be done and there is not enough money to do it all.
Here's the pattern of the last four decades...
Give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest, most financially privileged citizens. Claim there's not enough money to continue with everything as it is. Cut social services. Cut public education. Begin the public narrative of running the government like a business. Pronounce how much more it costs for a government to provide services that private industry would cost. Get people believing that it's a good idea to have a small government. Make "big government" a derogatory slur and/or slight to attack another politician with. Begin attempts to privatize everything. Give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest and most privileged. Cut public education even more. Cur social services even more.
Rinse and repeat until there is no longer anything that can be called "commons"; no publicly owned anything, no public parks, no public education, etc.
Shit, to be frank... we - in the States, that is - have the very best government and justice system that private money can buy. It's called lobbying nowadays though, not bribery or corruption. Hell, sometimes legislation is passed that is not even written by an elected official.
I have gone to some effort to not make it a problem of capitalism as such. I am getting the impression that you wish I was somebody else.
I suspect that if I mention something, like fly fishing, you’ll go and talk about laws against over-fishing, nets, licensing and whatnot. No, I get it: government is everywhere. It is virtually inescapable.
Statists like to mention roads but never war, famine, slavery, censorship, gulags, genocide. You will pass off the softest of despotism as necessary (because without them we wouldn’t have roads), while the hard ones needn’t be mentioned at all.
This happens in Europe too... The richest always win. I guess it is a principle inside the occidental world. Nevertheless, I think the US system does work you literally have the best universities of the world that provides a lot of well paid workers in the future.
Check out this sad fact: unemployment rate of young Spanish people is 44 % (oh God it is a lot) while we still paying taxes to maintain the public services. Which the unemployment rate in the US? I guess so low because you are the strongest capitalist economy in the world.
Then, I guess as you said, it is all about how cleverly the government uses the revenue to invest in people (university, education system, well paid work in public administration, etc...) rather than just make debts and asking for loans.
What a stupid thing to say. If it's legal, it's not robbery is it? That's the point. Robbery is taking something you don't legally have a right to take.
Well, you can vote for political parties that propose less common goods and less taxes to finance them but I guess you see democracy as a threat to your liberty too. I wonder what alternative would work for you.
Deflation is the natural order of things. Inflation is the anomaly. Here's why...
If the amount of money being created in the system, Y, is equal to the amount of goods and services produced , X, by the economy (X=Y), then (in theory) you have zero inflation. If the productivity of the society increases (that is, you are producing more value per hour worked because of increases say in technology, then you might have 2X) then you have created a situation where your money becomes more valuable as Y now equals 2X.
This is exactly what happened during the 19th century in the U.S. and why so many people from Europe wanted to emigrate. When you have this situation, the ENTIRE society receives the benefits of the increase in productivity simply through using money.
Inflation is the opposite case whereas there is more money created than good and services, so the value of your money decreases. The type of inflation you have depends on where the excess money is applied, e.g., now in the housing market, the stock market, Bitcoin, and other commodities.
The banking system desires inflation for several reasons. First, they can inflate away debt which is critical in times such as we are living in now. The second is that they get to use the new money introduced into the system before prices are inflated by that money so they buy low and just watch their investments grow "naturally."
The other reason is the most pernicious. Since money is debt in this system, the amount of interest that must be paid to keep the system going necessitates that more and more money be created simply to make this payment.
THIS is the primary reason for the trillions in stimulus. It has little to do with people and everything to do with keeping this Ponzi scheme going. Like Henry Ford said in 1932, "If the American people tonight learned how the banking system in their county worked, there would be revolution by morning," or something fairly close to that.
Robbery is taking someone’s property by force or by threat of force. You can employ whatever euphemism you choose, but your objection is silly.
Why would I see democracy as a threat to liberty? I wager you just threw that in there without thinking about it much.
Because that's how we vote on stuff like taxes, but you see taxation as a denial of your liberty.
Not even a strand of chewing gum exists between the premise and the conclusion.
So what's your alternative? Your vote overriding those who want taxes? Voluntary payment for goods that are given for free? Anything else is denial of your liberty?
Given for free? When it comes to government, no goods and services are free. I would settle for piecemeal reforms that trend in the direction of liberty. I think a voluntary system where you pay only for the services you need would suffice.
The problem with common/public goods and services like street lights, police or army is that anyone can freely benefit from them. It is practically impossible to exclude anyone from their use. That's why they are paid for with taxes. You can't buy them voluntarily like you would buy a car.
Thanks for your explanation. Very appreciated. It cleared my mind.
Yes! But this point is the most interesting at all. I understand how you have explained how money/value works in economics. Also the fact what happens with debts and payment and also the how works the bank system.
But... Why some currency are better than others? I mean, if you start creating a lot of American dollar it is worthy because is a powerful currency. But this does not happen with pesos or rupiah.
So I guess it also depends, as you said, in the value of that country? (income, GDP, goods, profit, revenues, etc...)
That is a problem, and because it is immoral to plunder another’s money against his will, it needs fixing in my opinion.
So far no one has found a better fix than taxes. And it's not completely against your will because taxation is influenced by your voting in elections. You may not like the result but that's what happens when your life is intertwined with the lives of others.
You should read up on how the international monetary system works. It is fascinating and absolutely essential to understand what's going on at the moment. Two places to check out are the American Monetary Institute and the BIS (Bank of International Settlements). The BIS is the central bank to central bank and they are quite candid at times vis a vis the pathetic state of the global economy.
Let me tell you a couple of things that might peak your interest. As I am sure you are aware, the American dollar (USD) is the global reserve currency. With that designation, those who create the USD (particularly the USG) can essentially print money at will (until they can't), and we are getting closer and closer to that time.
When WWII was over, the survivors got together and created a new monetary system (Brenton Woods Agreement). It made the USD the reserve currency which meant several things. Primarily, all other currencies would be valued against the USD as they were towards gold previously. That system worked fairly well until 1964 when US coinage was counterfeited with copper filling, and then the big move was going off the gold standard altogether in 1973. What is happening today is a direct result of that decision and something that many in the US (including me) have been screaming about ever since.
Going to a FIAT system of currency (no longer backed by anything other than the good faith of the USG) allowed the FED and the government to essentially destroy the country (exchange equity for debt on an international scale). The biggest effect was in the balance of payments with international trade whereas before 1973 countries had to balance their trade with other countries with gold bullion, now they could make payments in USD. Imagine that!
This allowed the US to export its manufacturing base to China and pay the trade balance in phony (printed) US dollars. It screwed over tens of millions of Americans whereas the wealthy got super rich.
What will probably turn out to be an even bigger problem is the inflation situation although people have been predicting a hyper-inflationary episode for decades now. I was always on the deflationary side of that argument and there are still tremendous deflationary forces at work, two being an incredible excess of labor globally, the other technological advancement in industry.
Chew on that for a while...
Some of the threads I have started are shorter than the longest of yours.
The obvious confusion in the OP is the dithering between profitable and ethical. Perhaps you might clean that up.
I want to follow you but it is quite complex when it is hard to me understanding principles of economics. Nevertheless, thanks for your statements and arguments to make me have more knowledge.
Here is interesting how you explained to me what was the path of the US dollar after the WWII ended. Quoting synthesis. This makes a country so much powerful. Having a currency that is so valuable around the world makes the difference.
But I guess (If I finally get your points) one of the most difficult goals is facing the dollar. So probably this is the reason why the Eurosystem was created. New profitable currency which can face the Dollar.
Nevertheless p, it is interesting because we are giving “value” to some coins than others.
Quoting synthesis
I will. Thank you for the recommendation.
Here it is clearly stated to everyone that you do not know the difference between Egotism and Egoism, therefore, you did not understand anything that was said on my part.
Miserable are all those who only think about profit.
Profit - and only profit - is what made men miserable.
Quoting Gus Lamarch
As I pointed out, some of the threads I have made have as few replies as your longest thread.
Is "interesting content" your best comeback?
Or are you going to continue to introduce non sequitur after non sequitur?
It was you who took offence at my little post. Who is bitter? Do you consider yourself a Sovereign Citizen? Or are you just a fellow traveler?
Why do you feel so defensive?
You people are so funny.
So if I just drive your car away without any force or threat of it (just because you happened to have left it unlocked) that's not robbery? Remind me to to pop round to your house next time you're out.
Oh, and 'property' is decided how exactly, if not by law?
Thus, governments take what they want under threat of violence.
Whether that is ethical I will leave to each to decide for their own.
What is this, an interview? or can you only speak in questions? Do I have to speak in questions too?
What can better avoid an argument than quibbling and nitpicking about the choice of words?
It's not nitpicking, it's central to the whole issue. What constitutes property is defined by law.
20% (or whatever) of your wages legally belongs to the government because it is defined by law that it does. That's absolutely no different to the way in which the remaining 80% belongs to you - because it is defined as such by law.
You want to claim one is 'robbery' but the other not when they are of no different status at all.
True of all property. So what's special about taxes?
This post is very important. Here where my debate started for.
Literally only a few of people would pay their own taxes if laws were not punished them. So I guess this is why it is interesting how we have a dilemma/debate in the modern world.
Is ethical to pay taxes? Well supposedly yes... But sometimes it looks like the government does not take advantage of this. So all the problems is how we are governed in the the country you live in.
As someone previously said the Nordic countries have a lot taxes but it looks like it works so well. They have the so called "welfare state" but somehow only works there
True. This is why I say it is philosophy of Economics because we accept some monetary patrons instead of others. Because they are powerful. It is not the same having euros/dollars in your bank account than pesos or rupees.
I mean, it is quite interesting how literally a coin has more value than others. But yes I am agree depends in other facts as goods, industry, revenue, etc... That makes the monetary system of this country more powerful than others
Is it?
Well, it would have been a bit silly of me to say so if an empty (rhetorical?) question were enough to counter it.
In a world where people would not pay taxes unless forced by threat of violence to do so, I can't see how those same people would refrain from just driving away in your car unless threat of violence prevented them. what is it about your car which makes it sacrosanct in the minds of the same people who would let children starve for want of a few pounds on their tax bill?
If you posit a world where people care as little as possible about the welfare of others unless forced by threat of violence to do more, I don't see ownership being anything other than a free-for-all with the strongest winning.
Morally is incoherent too, because it assumes the market automatically leads to just outcomes. It quite clearly doesn't because economic transactions are representative of relations of power, not moral worth.
Absolutely, but not only that, it ignores that the market-valued income they currently enjoy is arrived at by a market which already assumes taxation exists. Companies in a no tax environment would have considerably more expenses and risk hedging to pay for and a much more desperate pool of potential employees. I can't see how that's going to end up with anything but a huge reduction in wages, certainly no better than net income now.
You may be right.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43587224?seq=1
This is more casuistry. I’m going to have to ignore it.
One of the disadvantages to being the reserve currency is that you have to run trade deficits so as to create enough dollars for the world to use. IOW, if the US runs a trade surplus and other countries are buying more US products (and you basically must use USDs to trade), where are you going to get your USDs from? One of the reasons the US trade deficit has been kept so high (through outsourcing the manufacturing base) was to create deficits that would increase the global supply of USDs (it was a banking decision).
The global economy is a massive ruse in many ways and although it works on some levels (particularly for governments and corporations), the small company and individual gets hosed unless they are willing to adopt the practices of larger concerns and lie, cheat, and steal as their primary business model.
The entire Euro-system was doomed from the beginning but that's another story!
Yes! And in this quote that you mentioned it is interesting how some countries used the secret bank/tax haven policy (this is why I started this debate) just to try being something in this world.
For example, Nauru and Cook Island were in bankruptcy some years ago. They can pick up the tourism card but let’s be honest it will not work in the long run. So they decided put tax haven policies and it looks like “something” has changed. It is true they are far from the average HDI members but it is better than literally nothing. So... are some countries forced to make cheats just to survive? I guess yes.
Quoting synthesis
Agree. This can start a different debate lol.
Governments have always given themselves the legal right to appropriate the fruits of their subject’s labor. The law clearly prescribes this, yes, and no one is arguing otherwise. So much for the legal argument.
The moral argument is that it is wrong to take something from another against his will. You either believe this or you do not. If you believe it is right for the government to take from another against his will, then you believe it is right to take from another against his will. It’s actually quite coherent.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. I think the somewhat bleak picture you are sketching is exactly the world we are living in now. People apparently need to be forced to care. I think that fact is as unfortunate as the coercion itself.
The difference is that between coercion and deterrence. In addition, the violent reprisal to the would-be car thief is an assumption on the thief's part, whereas the intention of government to coerce one with violence is clearly stated in law.
For example, I'd imagine that if the object to be stolen was a loaf of bread and the thief had some good reason for stealing it, there may not be any violent reprisals at all.
Quoting Isaac
I don't posit this. Doesn't the fact that people need to be forced to pay taxes imply it? And wishing for all the power to be in the hands of government is simply another version of the strongest winning.
So if I take your car it's morally wrong for you to try and take it back if I don't want you to? God, it's like discussing with a three year old.
Countries having their own currencies are critical because you need to be able to adjust the value of the currency (v. the USD) based on what happening in your economy.
And of course, war is now economic, so why mess with bullets and bombs when you can just steal it through the currency manipulation, taxes, fees, and transfers.
The imposition of the Euro is like a stealth European war.
We’re talking about taking the fruits of someone’s labor, their money, their property, which I’ve said countless times. You’re talking about taking things that have already been stolen. It’s silly sophistry.
Yes, I agree in principle, but remember, you've not made your case that people only pay taxes because they're forced to do so, you've only assumed it.
Quoting Tzeentch
Is not police restraint and eventual imprisonment not a violent reprisal clearly stated in law?
Quoting Tzeentch
I'd like to think so too. So the crux of the matter isn't anything to do with legal property, it's to do with the fairness of each person having their needs met. we'd allow the starving man that loaf, regardless of the means by which he acquired it, regardless of his legal rights to it, regardless of the fact that another has a claim on it...rather we'd allow him it entirely on the grounds that he should have it, that it would be inhuman to deny him it.
So how are taxes different, in essence?
If you want to say - I don't like the way the government spends my taxes - then you'd have an argument. But taxes sensu lato are just like the bread. It would be inhuman to let the poor starve so we organise a system of skimming off enough money from workers to help feed them.
Ah. So theft of inheritance is fine then?
Is this your version of Socratic irony?
Do you intend to answer any of my points, or just whinge?
No I don’t advocate for denying the comforts you and entire generations of people have become dependant on, built as they were from the appropriation of other people’s wealth.
Questions are points now? Did you know you can make arguments in other ways?
It is. Actually it looks like the classic Europeans wars back in the past. Nevertheless, even though the euro system a has its flaws, I think it has a good cooperative principle: free market between European and a solid currency.
Imagine not having the euro and then other currencies could go to a random European country and buy whatever they want with no it’s real value. I guess this is one of the strategies the Europeans thought back in the day.
But, of course, inside the European system there are some problems too. This morning I say a brief episode of a random channel which asked: “why the Mediterranean economies are so inestable?” and the someone replied: because the Euro is prepared just to the north European countries.
What a complex debate.
Speak for yourself. I never entered in to it willingly. I have no other choice but to comply. Back to the herd.
I do not see the state as a mutual insurance company, or as some social contract. I see it as a predatory institution devised as a means of control and exploitation. As Thomas Paine put it, it is at best “a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world”—and we’ve seen it at its worst. There is no check and balance, no right, or no constitution it is willing to nullify in order to protect its own interests and power.
OK. I'll try...
Property is only defined legally, everything you own you own by the concession of the government who ensures you are protected from those stronger than you who would otherwise just take it. There's no 'natural right' to property. You did not acquire what you have solely by the sweat of your own brow but by standing on the shoulders of giants. It is nothing short of vile, self-serving hubris that you think you own anything that isn't jointly made with the co-operation of those among whom you live. The idea that the giving of some small recompense to reflect that is 'theft' is one a petulant teenager might give to exasperated parents, not one worthy of serious discussion.
I’ll check him out Tim. Thank you.
Maybe that’s where we differ. I believe one has a right to his property and you believe such a right can only be decided by the whims of a government. I believe property precedes law, is the natural extension of ones faculty and labor, and that to appropriate it is evil. So we disagree at the very first premise.
I do not think I acquire all I have without help from others, or that I do not require neighbors to cooperate for the better of our community. The idea that one should be forced to give a “small recompense” to some centralized institution instead of providing charity, labor, protection to his own community is selfish and lazy.
At issue is not the right, but what constitutes your property. Is everything you acquire by any means yours simply by virtue of having laboured for it?
If so, then spoils of war and theft both result in rightful property.
As does tax. The government must undergo some work to acquire tax, no?
There are two ways by which one can acquire the means for his survival: through the products of his own labor or by appropriating the products and labor of others. I prefer the former and repudiate the latter. I don’t do this because some law tells me to, but because my conscience does. Therefor I afford him the right to his property, and will defend this right instead of violate it. If I wish to acquire his property I do so with common enterprise and free exchange rather than force and coercion.
So no, I do not think stolen property and plunder constitute rightful property and that one has a right to such property simply because he labored to steal it. After all, I’ve been railing against compulsion and appropriation this whole time.
Those two are the same thing as you've still not answered the question about how to establish rightful ownership of property without law.
Nothing is the product of your own labour alone, you cannot produce even so much as a grain of flour by your own labour alone. You need a field, some seed, sunlight, air, water and nutrients. did you acquire those by your labour alone? No.
Organising a government, maintaining an armed force and setting up a system of taxation using that threat - that's all very much the government's own labour. So why are the taxes thus gained not the product of their own labour?
You see all "products of [one's] own labour" involve "appropriating the products and labor of others" - the field, the seed, the clean air, the good soil, the clean water, the open ground... All the products and labour of others. and that's just to grow a grain of wheat. Multiply that by a thousand for your computer, your fridge, your car...
It is. Therefore, the threat is clearly stated and no assumption needs to be made.
Quoting Isaac
The fact that I was going to share the loaf of broad, does not changed the fact that I am being threatened into doing so.
What happens when all-benevolent loaf-of-bread-sharing governments turns into something else?
What it comes down to, is governments forcing their inhabitants to act in accordance with subjective moral viewpoints through threats of violence.
That I may or may not agree with said moral viewpoints is, as far as I am concerned, not relevant; the means are unjust.
I don't see what difference that makes.
Quoting Tzeentch
That's a different matter altogether. Not liking what a government is doing and not liking governments are two very different positions.
Quoting Tzeentch
Again, this just assumes the threat of violence is required. when you work for someone, they're required to pay you by threat of violence. So how do you avoid that?
What do you suggest we do (in cases of moral conflict) to resolve those conflicts other than use democratically elected governments to decide which course of action to take and enforce it if necessary?
You established a very important dilema inside this topic and it is interesting. Which course of action should take the government to make us pay taxes? Why do they need it ?
Here we have clearly a moral/ethical problem. Somehow most of all democracies of the world use this system. Pay taxes to use the public services and then, if you don't do so, you will get punish.
But... Whey they control us? Do not they believe in us? I guess it us noticeable that a considerable amount of rich people do not want pay taxes. I guess they are just somehow selfish but here we have the debate itself.
Are we really free with the money/income we earn each month? Because if we do not pay taxes the government will enforce us to do it. So we are not free at all. In this point, you are even more free buying a property than having the money in a bank.
Note: I am not sayin here that not paying taxes is good. But somehow our income is attached to government laws and regulations just to ensure that everyone (or the majority) will pay their portion needed it.
An assumption takes place in the head of the assumer. If an individual wants to make assumptions about my reaction to them taking my property, then I am the subject and not the actor.
In the case of taxation, the government is clearly the actor and overtly threatens with violence.
Quoting Isaac
Sure. But I think it is relevant.
Quoting Isaac
This is not an action I am undertaking or even voluntarily a part of. It is not my responsibility to avoid it, though I can voice my displeasure at this state of affairs as I am doing now.
Quoting Isaac
Beyond protecting people from physical violence and overt threats thereof (in a more general sense: protection citizens' constitutional rights), I don't see much a role for government in the arbitration of moral conflicts. Let people figure it out for themselves.
Yes. I am not saying government is useless. I want to try to point out why the government needs to enforce us to pay taxes by laws. It is interesting because this shows that probably most of the citizens will not do it by their own.
To be honest, I do not know what the government is for but yes we need because it is impossible live in a society without authority. It would be a chaos. I imagine a less aggressive government but I am dreaming.
Nevertheless, I guess issues that important as taxes should depend on law and judges. I mean, more judicial control rather than politicians because it is so easy to change the tax machine when every 4 years a new government is elected.
I was talking about the government. It's illegal to steal cars. The government makes the overt threat that you will be forcibly imprisoned if to take a car you don't own. It makes the same overt threat if you take money you don't own. I'm not seeing the difference. Are you saying that the government should protect your property but not it's own, or that it shouldn't protect your property either?
Quoting Tzeentch
I do too, but I suspect not in the same way. I think it's relevant because most arguments starting "I don't think governments should be allowed to..." end up as "I don't like it when governments...". If you want government, but only to do the things you want it to do, then you're either advocating a retreat from democracy, or you're just being hypocritical, which is a much less persuasive argument.
Quoting Tzeentch
You mean you don't work for anyone?
Quoting Tzeentch
Except that's not what you're saying is it? Because people did figure it out for themselves. They gathered together, selected candidates, asked others to vote, ceded power to those individuals to make decisions for the benefit of the group and enforce those decisions against those who disagreed. You're now saying they got that wrong. So it's not "Let people figure it out for themselves" at all. It's "People need to do what I want them to do"
Edit - just noticed @tim wood beat me to it.
You're perfectly free to spend the money you own in whatever way you see fit. 20% (or whatever) of the money in your wage packet is not yours, it's the government's. So obviously you're not free to spend that however you see fit, it doesn't belong to you. Why would you think you could spend money that doesn't belong to you?
Interesting. I didn’t see it that way. You see it as a primary factor the fact 20 % of our income belongs to the State. This is made in a way that our life in a 20 % depends on State. I am not saying here it is bad but somehow impressive it is inflicted by the laws which percent belongs to State. This is somehow modern sacrifices. We have to sacrifice a 20 % to maintain the State and public services. Agree.
But why we have to enforce it by laws? Why is not innate sharing our benefits to others as human behaviour? Probably because most of the people would avoid paying taxes?
We live in large enough societies that your actions will affect people you don't even know and will probably never meet.
Most of what government does is resolve disputes between parties who have an interest but who do not know each other (or perhaps don't like each other) sufficiently well to arrive easily at a mutually beneficial agreement. It's much easier, given the sheer scale of such potential disagreements in a country of several million, to have such settlements prepared in advance.
All of the state’s institutions are directed towards preserving its own life, increasing its own power, and enlarging the scope of its own activity. Our lives, our power, and the scope of our own activity decreases in proportion. We become dependant, not independent.
So according to your...
Quoting NOS4A2
... the government are fully entitled to the products of all that labour.
That’s wrong and for the reasons I’ve already stated.
Well yes. This point can be a good argument about why governments need to enforce the pay of taxes through laws. We live in nations where supposedly we have to help each other but sadly it is not as easy as just the theory. Keep in mind that taxes are always a political debate to start with. So it is not inner in each person give their benefits to help people they will probably never meet
Quoting NOS4A2
This is why sometimes people give up about taxes, justice, public administration, etc... because it looks like governments build the institutions just to help their own interests forgetting the interests of the population.
So... the institutions are not bad at all. It is the selfishness of governors that poison everything they touch.
What reasons? You've not stated any reasons why some are entitled to the products of their labour but others aren't. What are these distinguishing factors?
I’m not so sure about that. Good people will do evil things just because the law tells them to. They are no longer acting as men, but as officials.
There are two ways by which one can acquire the means for his survival: through the products of his own labor or by appropriating the products and labor of others. I prefer the former and repudiate the latter. I don’t do this because some law tells me to, but because my conscience does. Therefor I afford him the right to his property, and will defend this right instead of violate it. If I wish to acquire his property I do so with common enterprise and free exchange rather than force and coercion.
So no, I do not think stolen property and plunder constitute rightful property and that one has a right to such property simply because he labored to steal it. After all, I’ve been railing against compulsion and appropriation this whole time.
Yes because they are brainwashed but fortunately we are not longer being ruled by a military system who forces you to make evil things. Yes we are officials but in not so bad issues inside the diaspore of time we were born. Imagine born in XV or XVI century and kill random people because a king told you just to plump his power.
Right. But I answered that. You're wrong. There are not two ways.
Quoting Isaac
Ignoring it doesn't make the error go away.
True, we should make the distinction between violent tyranny and it’s softer variations. But I think it’s something we should be careful with.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a prescient chapter in his book Democracy in America called “What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear”. He describes what he calls “soft despotism”. It’s worth a read and as valuable today as it was then:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/816/816-h/816-h.htm#link2HCH0073
Yes, your argument was nonsensical. Toiling your own field, planting a seed, watering the seed, and using the sun to grow wheat for flour is somehow appropriating the product and labor of others. Few greater absurdities have been spoken.
Well then how did you acquire the field, if not from the common? By what means was the water kept clean, if not by the efforts of others upstream? By what means did you acquire the seed, if not from the common? How has the soil maintained sufficient fertility to grow your seed in if not by the efforts of those who have come before you? By what means is the air kept clean enough if not by the collective efforts of those other who share it?
And that's just one grain of wheat growing.
Now do that for the computer you're writing on.
As you said it was so worthy of read. Thank you for the recommendation of this article/extract from a book. Well this hardens what we are talking about in this thread. We are agree the system is flawed. But it looks like we don’t know what to change. In the Ancient Times they tried everything to establish a situation where the people can have the same opportunities and being useful inside the nation (I refer as nation because we clearly established that State is so different)
But I guess we just created a monster who is by us with zero empathy. We learn how to work and then pay the bills, but... what about happiness? Respecting each other? Ethics?
No! Because we still live in big villas where only the strongest/richest can govern. Everybody has no chance to be a ruler. Let’s be honest
If you look inside the government it is even scary. But... we do not have any system yet. So is this system or a military/religious one.
Exhorted obedience. That is the key of this. We are as obedient as in the ancient times but at least we are not getting in slavery or killed for someone with more power than us... (?)
I don’t get how asking these questions is supposed to lead me to your conclusion. They don’t. All of the above can be acquired without appropriation, through common enterprise and free trade rather than force and coercion, as I’ve already stated.
Depends on whether or not you can pay loan off on the tractor you couldn't afford in full, I guess. Technically many folks might be legally appropriating the product and labor of others through debt.
When the highly efficient firms come to price you out and your left with a mountain of debt, there will be no crying "force and coercion" as a consequence of free market action. Shit happens.
There will be no monolithic state to punish you for defaulting, just a mob of racketeers working for the transient emanation of their local government. Then you can just defend yourself with guns. Pow pow!
If that’s what I signed up for so be it. The point is I sign contracts, accept debt, and partner with others willingly and through my own free will, and suffer any risks thereby.
It's like you've never encountered the use of questions before. Do I really have to explain this to you?
"I've not been outside today" - "Then how come your boots are muddy?"
"I've never met her before" - "Then how come you have her phone number in your phone?"
"I don't know anything about that stolen painting" - "Then how come your fingerprints are on it?"
...
It's quite a normal method of enquiry. That you're baffled by it says more about you than the enquiry itself.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yeah. I don't know if you've noticed this in life, but just stating that something is the case does not constitute an argument. It tells us nothing at all of any shared use. This is a public forum. For discussion. It's not here to canvass opinion like some complex Gallup poll. Nobody cares if you think these things can be "acquired without appropriation, through common enterprise and free trade rather than force and coercion". The standard needs to be a bit higher than you just reckoning it. Hence the questions.
I'm asking you to demonstrate that it's the case, with examples. You know, like in a proper discussion.
I'm not asking because I want to double-check what you already think to complete my list of 'stuff NOS reckons'.
I didn’t think such a simple, common-sense notion about the difference between stolen goods and goods acquired through work and effort would be so difficult for a brilliant thinker such as yourself. Alas, here we are.
Sorry, I refuse to demonstrate that one can acquire his property through means other than theft. And I would argue if you need such a thing demonstrated you’re probably not fit for this world.
A nice way of hedging one's bets, self-contradiction, or just plain insincerity...
The problem, of course, arises when conflicts arise between private and common interests. Which takes precedence/priority, the common or the private? The answer... the private. The proof... look no further than the pandemic response.
Agree. Literally private and money preferences are taking advantage of other countries. Look at Israel he is paying to their own benefits and then they had a huge number of vaccines. Many European countries are negotiating with Russia trying to buy Sputnik instead of some consensus.
Pandemic showed us how selfish the government are.
Go on then.
Am I getting this correctly?
Yes. There are countless ways to deliberate and compromise that do not require legal intervention. Absent that I would have to relocate. And if you need laws to convince you to avoid spewing toxic fumes into your neighbor’s yard then maybe the society isn’t the problem.
And when a big polluting industry moves into town and starts polluting the entire town, then everyone would have to relocate to another town. And when multiple industries move into your state/province, then you can re-locate to another state/province.
Eventually you will run out of places to relocate. OK, maybe outer space, but even there pollution is a problem.
Quoting NOS4A2
In this imperfect world that we live in laws are required.
Surely a solution to the problem exists outside of government intervention. Perhaps once we relocate we can innovate a cleaner and more cost-effective method and put our former neighbor out of business, without having to give more power and money to some intervening bureaucracy.
Governments are notoriously awful at managing the environment. In the city where I live, our sewage has been pumped into the sea for decades, for example. Our federal government ships much of our plastic to third-world countries.
When we believe the government will take care of these issues, we thereby hand over our responsibility, believing they will take care of it.
I’m no anarchist, so I think some laws are a necessary evil. But the only laws required are the ones that defend human rights and limit state power.
Well, I think I started a potentially good dialogue on that. After all, it seems to be the case that most of our taxpayer money goes into servicing the public in some way either through medical care or retirement programs or public infrastructure. I think the public usually wants what is being funded by the government and that seems to be a good consideration. Also, taxation doesn’t really make a particular individual less wealthy than another individual only because of taxes under most circumstances. So, it seems that taxation doesn’t disrupt the natural dominance hierarchy of our society that much at all either. So, I’m not entirely sure why people would use the strong language of calling it theft.
A moral right to pre-tax can only be said to exist if earned income results in a fair and equitable payment for labour rendered. This too is false. Market circumstances are not concerned with the moral worth of labour or who needs the job the most or who is most deserving of fulfilling the assignment. So a moral right to pre-tax income is incoherent.
Since no rights are infringed, there's no theft.
who makes the law, cheats. never forget it.
It is legal robbery, plain and simple.[/i]
As @Tom Storm also previously said: [i]
I don't mind paying taxes. I live in a community.
“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes[/i]
Here is the ethical debate about taxes. Which side you want choose? Here is the thread Taxes.
I agree with Justice Wendell Holmes.
That’s another good argument against taxation being theft that I haven’t thought about.
I think this example clearly constitutes theft. Just because someone lives under someone else's roof, does not forfeit their right to their property.
As I said.
Within our existing legal framework, this quite clearly would constitute theft. It doesn't answer whether taxation is theft one way or the other though.
But a lot of private individuals acquire money unjustly from other private individuals, even if that acquisition is legally sanctioned. That's basically the definition of capitalism. And taking something back from a thief to compensate the victim is not another case of theft. So in a sense taking from the rich and powerful to care for the poor and powerless is, or at least can be, not theft.
However the way we (anywhere that has tax-funded welfare, not any particular country) do things now, we're not directly taking the ill-gotten gains specifically from the wrongdoers and giving it specifically back to the victims, but rather taking from the class of people reckoned to be likely wrongdoers with likely ill-gotten gains (or at least the subset of those who can't manage to weasel out of it), and giving to the class of people reckoned to be likely victims (or at least the subset of them who can manage to get in on that).
Basically, we're trying to fight theft with theft. Which... is better than just letting the theft go unabated in one direction but not the other. But it's obviously still not perfect. Far better to just stop the original theft, or at least, tax specifically the problematic kinds of gains, to fund welfare specifically to the people victimized in the process.
Like say, tax net income from rent and interest, and if that is a negative number (because someone's paying more rent and interest than they get), then that tax becomes negative, and so a form of cash welfare.
As I said, the difference is between coercion (forcing someone to do something by threatening with violence) and deterrence (stopping someone from doing something through threatening with violence).
Both are undesirable, because ideally we would not threaten with violence at all, but the former is a graver injustice than the latter.
Quoting Isaac
I do, but I do not threaten them and I never asked for a government to threaten them either.
Quoting Isaac
It is exactly what I am saying.
What you're pointing out is that people got together and decided not to let people figure it out amongst themselves anymore.
And yes, I think that is wrong.
The government doesn't coerce with the threat of violence in the case of taxes though. It deters. The money rightly belongs to the government. It is using threat of violence to deter you from stealing it, just like with the car.
Quoting Tzeentch
So you think it's wrong for people to get together and decide for themselves then. Because you're opposing the result of that process.
You don't need to argue that the state "rightfully owns everyone and everything" to support that it can rightfully take money for its own benefit. Do you not take money for your own benefit, from your boss or clients, for example.
It's only necessary to argue that the money concerned rightfully belongs to the government.
Second, the threat of violence is implicit in every "voluntary" transaction. It's voluntary right up to the point where people start disagreeing about the service or product delivered.
If you truly believe this, then I think further discussion on this subject will be fruitless. Governments don't have a right to anything, other than what they themselves appropriated through force.
Quoting Isaac
The key word is "themselves". Even democratically elected governments don't decide for themselves, they decide for others also, and reinforce those decisions through threats of violence.
This is undesirable. I'm willing to accept it as a necessary evil, but only under the condition that governments' power is kept as small as possible.
How are you concluding that? What method of establishing who has a right to what are you applying?
Quoting Tzeentch
Your original suggestion was in the context of...
Quoting Tzeentch
Are you suggesting that all moral conflicts can be resolved in a timely fashion without imposing a solution on either party. Do you have anything but wildly unsupported optimism to back this up?
If the adult child wants to move out then the father would have to give the console back. Though, the father can demand the console as rent if the adult child still wants to continue living under his father’s roof. I think this is analogous to how taxes can be collected as a kind of rent for living in a society that allows you to be wealthy in the first place. Even progressive taxes wouldn’t necessarily constitute theft as it could be argued that those in the upper wealth class receive more benefit from living in a society than some poor person that might only be slightly better off living in a society.
I suppose it might seem problematic that the punishment for not paying your taxes might be jail time. Though, that is rarely the punishment. Usually, the punishment is that the government will try to lock you out of being able to access certain institutions that are kinda important but not essential in the strictest sense. For example, you might have difficulty getting a loan, you might not be able to go to college, and you might lose your job or it might be difficult to find a new job. Most of time, people would just repay the taxes that they haven’t paid once they are caught. Of course, one can just avoid sales taxes in the store by just choosing not to buy anything. In summary, most of the punishments for not paying taxes essentially just involve the person refusing to pay taxes being kicked out of various social institutions that they aren’t entitled to be a part of in the first place or the person always just gets charged these taxes whether they like it or not. So, it’s hard for me to see how this would be unfair to the person who refuses to pay taxes because they always seem to have an option to just go live in the wilderness somewhere where they can be completely free from paying any taxes. The problem is that they seem to want to have it both ways. They want the benefits of living in a society and they don’t want to pay the fees that their society has indirectly voted that they must pay.
I could ask the same of you, no?
All I know is that "might makes right" is no basis.
Quoting Isaac
I am not.
I don't think all moral conflicts need a solution. And when they do, I don't think government (aka, threatening violence) is a desirable way to go about solving them. Two wrongs don't make a right.
But as stated before, I am not oppossed to government as a whole. I can see a clear case for governments threatening with violence to protect others physical safety. I would still regard it as a necessary evil, at best.
I agree but I think taxation can also be justified if the state uses this money for the maintenance of civilized society that allows us all to be somewhat wealthy in the first place and just for the general public benefit. I don’t think that the government is spending most of the money that it collects in taxes for its own personal benefit at least in developed countries. Also, I don’t see how taxation couldn’t appropriately be understood as just like the rent that an individual has to pay to a civilized society to live in that civilized society. Even if the rent happens to differ based on income, it may be argued that wealthier people just benefit more from living in a society than poor people do and thus they should pay more taxes.
Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan said: Homo humini lupus. I don't like the government idea either but as you said is somehow necessarily because we the humans tend to be so selfish or even dangerous to others. More than an evil, it is a beast in an uncontrolled behaviour. That's the most intriguing paradox.
The government can help you to solving problems or... It is them who create those.
Just like a child does not choose to be born in the father's home, so the individual does not choose to be born within a state's borders.
It is analagous insofar as the father's ill parenting can be compared to the state's ill governance.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Because most people, wisely, do not let it get that far. However, that does nothing to change the fact that this is what is being threatened with.
I would disagree that it can be justified, but in such a case it can be tolerated.
We are, however, continuing to assume states are benevolent and don't use the wealth they received through threat of violence to commit injustice.
We know that in fact, they do. All the time.
You could, but I'm not the one implying that some things are 'rightful property' and others aren't by some mystical external means. Property is defined by law. Some portion of your wages are, by law, the property of the government, to do with whatever they see fit (within the law).
If you want to invoke some other means of establishing rightful property, such that the government might still 'steal' it, despite having a legal claim to it, then I don't think its an unreasonable expectation of mine that you might have worked that out prior to making an assertion based on it.
Quoting Tzeentch
That doesn't answer the question. If a moral conflict is not resolveable, within the timescale required, to the satisfaction of both parties, what do you do?
Government is most people's answer to that question. If you want to reject government action in these situations you need to supply an alternative.
Quoting Isaac
You wish to make a case for "might makes right", which is fine. But I don't think you would like the implications.
Quoting Isaac
Do you think your body is your rightful property?
Quoting Isaac
And where do such legal claims stem from, if not states simply appropriating to themselves "rights" that they enforce through power?
Quoting Isaac
Me, personally? Nothing. Mediate, perhaps, if both parties agreed they wished for me to do so. I could see a role for governments as mediators, but not all moral conflicts are solvable, and even less are solvable through use of violence or threats thereof.
Quoting Isaac
Small government is the alternative. The constitution determines what moral conflicts are severe enough to be arbitrated by a government (and we can have a discussion about what those could be), and the rest is left for people to deal with on their own, like adults, I'd almost add.
Well, I think it’s also analogous in that both cases do not seem to constitute theft. The question of whether or not taxation is theft is different from the question of whether or not it is justified. You can think that something isn’t theft but it is unjustified nonetheless.
Quoting Tzeentch
Ok, so would taxation still be theft if the final punishment that you were threatened with involved the government sending you to live in some forest away from civilization unless another country wants to take you as it’s citizen? After all, you might be entitled to not go to prison for refusing to pay your taxes but are you entitled to be able to continue living in the country that you refuse to pay your taxes in?
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, could you provide me with some specific examples of what you have in mind here? I’m guessing you might be talking about some small portion of the money being used for something stupid like fighting a war on drugs but I wouldn’t imagine that this constitutes very much of the taxpayer money at all. Though, even with something like the war on drugs, it may be argued that if the majority of the public agreed with this use of money then the government would still just be fulfilling the desires of the people that it represents as it ideally should do.
Not at all. There are many ways of thinking about what is 'right' that would lead to taxes being the 'rightful' property of the government. I think, for example, it is 'right' that everyone should share in the wealth generated from the use of their common resources - that seems fair to me. So some portion of everyone's wealth is the rightful property of each and every person who shares in the common resources that went into generating it.
Notwithstanding that, if you want to oppose 'might makes right' you need to supply an alternative, something which you've manifestly failed to do. It's a simple question - how do you establish what is the rightful property of a person? You must have an answer because you confidently say that taxes are not the rightful property of the government.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes. that is generally enshrined in most law. I think it's 'right' that we get to decide what we do with our own bodies insofar as it doesn't interfere with the decision of others what to do with theirs.
Quoting Tzeentch
You do know states are democratically elected? I do hope that hasn't passed you by all these years. Every few years a tentative 'state' asks the population if they can have, and enforce the having of, a certain proportion of income to pay for a set list of services. If the people agree, they get to enforce it. If the people do not agree, they don't. so it's simply false to claim that the legal claims stem from 'the state' as if it were some monolith. the legal claims stem from proto-states suggesting such claims to the populace, who then agree to them.
Quoting Tzeentch
I thought you were opposed to 'might makes right'? Who do you think is going to get their way in the case of a conflict if you do nothing? The one with the nicest hair?
Quoting Tzeentch
A trivial truth with which everyone would agree. the point is entirely about which are which. Not simply that there are two such categories. No-one is advocating that the government intervene in the case of siblings squabbling over who should have the last biscuit, and no-one is suggesting that there should be no government at all, so pointing out that there are two categories of moral conflict is irrelevant. The issue is how we decide which falls into which group. As for the constitution... if you're seriously suggesting that the only way this question can be answered is by reference to what a handful of men from the eighteenth century thought, then we really have left the realm of sensible discussion.
You've said that taxation is theft (to an extent) yet you've not given a single reason why that moral conflict is one which the government should not solve, yet threat of violence is one which the government should solve. What is your method of establishing which moral conflicts a government should step in to resolve - and I don't mean for you to provide me with a list, I mean for you to outline the reasons why some things are on that list and others not - the rationale.
Note that I have not argued that taxation is theft. What I am arguing is that threatening people with violence is undesirable, in most cases immoral, never a just means to an end and in some cases a necessary evil.
However, keeping in mind what I just stated, I'd like to answer your question.
Is there still a threat of violence in effect when the punishment is exile instead of imprisonment? I would assume so. If the person refuses to be exiled, what would the state do? They would force them through physical violence. In other words, the threat of violence is still there.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It is a bit backwards to have someone be born into a country involuntarily and then ask them what right they have for living there. From where would a state derive the right to remove individuals from what it no doubt considers as "the state's property"? Who gave it to the state?
It is the state's, because the state has the power to enforce that claim. Ergo, it acts on the principle of "might makes right", which, as far as I am concerned, is no right at all.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Wars, corruption, propaganda, government scandals, well-intentioned but ill-advised policies. The evils of government should be self-explanatory.
A morally justifiable 'evil' is an oxymoron. If it is necessary to achieve a moral end then it is, by definition, the morally right course of action. Just because an isolated example of it out of context would be immoral, doesn't somehow make it immoral in context. Or at least that's a rather silly and unhelpful way of defining actions.
If taxation and government intervention in moral conflicts is a necessary method of achieving right goals, then it is the right thing to do. No more need be said of it. What use is it saying that it's 'wrong, but necessary', where does that get us?
Quoting Tzeentch
It's really tiresome you keep telling us what is not acceptable and yet refusing to answer questions about what is. I asked you exactly the same type of question about private property and you didn't answer, so why should anyone provide you with an answer with regards state property?
From where would a private individual derive the right to remove individuals from what it no doubt considers as "the individual's property"? Who gave it to the individual?
Voluntary interaction and association, of course.
Quoting Isaac
That is not something I have said.
Quoting Isaac
And where is that right derived from?
Quoting Isaac
If some people agree, they get to enforce it onto everyone.
A sad state of affairs. The tyranny of the majority, they call it. And majorities can be wrong both morally and factually.
Quoting Isaac
A body of power that is much smaller than government, and therefore much less capable of enforcing its will on others.
Quoting Isaac
The United States isn't the only nation with a constitution.
No.
"Might makes right" and "the ends justify the means" are not suitable principles to base one's actions upon.
Quoting Isaac
It stops us from regarding it as a just means to an end.
Quoting Isaac
Why does it bother you so? A just alternative is not required to acknowledge something as unjust.
Quoting Isaac
The question of what is "rightful property" was never a part of my argument.
Also, I was enjoying our discussion, but the tone seems to be turning somewhat sour. Can we not?
The solution was to moral conflicts where the parties cannot reach a mutually agreed solution - so voluntary interaction and association doesn't answer the question.
Quoting Tzeentch
My mistake. So are they?
Quoting Tzeentch
I think it's a common feeling we share so no real need to 'derive' it, it's a fundamental precept. If I was pushed I'd say point to the incoherence of a position which has any concept of property at all without having an entity to which that property belongs who themselves has some control over that.
Quoting Tzeentch
again, just whinging without alternative. If not the tyranny of the majority, then what? Remember these are cases which cannot be resolved by any voluntary means, cases for which such avenues have been tried and failed. What then?
Quoting Tzeentch
If it's not capable of forcing it's will on others then how does it ensure that it's choice is enacted and not that of the one with more enforcing power?
Quoting Tzeentch
Whatever century then. It doesn't make the idea any less ludicrous. What magical ability did those people have to decide such matters that we lack?
Quoting Tzeentch
I didn't say the ends justifies the means, I said a course of action cannot be immoral when the end is moral and there's no alternative. that's not the same as "the ends justifies the means" where a choice of 'means' is implied.
Quoting Tzeentch
Where does that get us?
Quoting Tzeentch
As above, I can't see how it isn't required. If there's no choice then the idea of moral responsibility, fairness and justice are all irrelevant. Morality is a means by which the right course of action is chosen, a motive to do it. It's not an arbitrary and meaningless label to just assign to things.
Quoting Tzeentch
I know. I'm trying to draw out the implicit reliance on it. as you said
Quoting Tzeentch
Who has a right to property and by what means is absolutely fundamental to your position.
Quoting Tzeentch
There are two types of people who promote small government. Those who value autonomy and those who value selfishness. Obviously the latter are people I do not well tolerate and the more ludicrous your counter arguments sound the less tolerant I become of them. These things have real consequences, If we were discussing the merits of Star Wars, I'd hold myself to a level of moderation, but you're suggesting the poor should starve, that children should go un-housed, that medical care be withheld from those too poor to afford it, that the wealthy should be allowed to steal common resources without bar. These are not morally neutral position we can discuss as if it were a game of cricket.
I call it theft and use strong language because my property is confiscated without my permission. I do not know whether my money goes to some pensioner or if I’m helping buy some Raytheon missiles.
I think there are far more subtle problems we will soon have to contend with, if we’re not already. We don’t just hand over our money when the government taxes us; we also hand over our independence and responsibility to one another.
I cringe whenever state proponents pretend taxation is the moral and compassionate thing to do, as if paying a tax was akin to taking care of the ill and feeding the poor. But really they’re handing that responsibility to someone else, in this case some faceless, centralized authority, who may not even exist in the community, let alone know what’s best for the people there. I wager many tax-payers would be more inclined to help the needy in their own community if they weren’t already paying the government to do it for them.
The infantilization of entire generations will become an issue wherever this paternalistic system is disrupted, just as in any relationship where one side is dependant on the other. If the government is forced into austerity, usually by its own overspending, the services the population has grown to become dependent on could be lost.
It's not your property. Flat out and simple. It is the property of the government, by law. The same law by which anything is the property of anyone.
You've yet to give an account of why the 'rightful' amount you're owed in return for your labour is exactly your gross wage and not exactly your net wage. Would this mean if you got a pay rise you'd give the extra money back?
Yes I cringe too because it is supposed that if we pay taxes we will save other people's lives. Probably it is true thanks to this system at least we give to all the citizens an "opportunity" to start with. But I guess everything do not starts and neither ends just for paying taxes. If the system is screwed the distribution of benefits will be flawed too.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is the point where I go totally pessimistic. I don't understand why some people cheers when the State get into debt more than 100 % of their GDP. Like... What's going on here? This method will make us poorer and more dependent from the governors and their laws. At least, I guess, in this situation we will not be so lost because the people nowadays are not ignorant and they understand when the State is not doing their work good or a proper administration.
I guess this is something interspersed. We are lost because... We are so dependent of the State/situation?
Right, and slaves were the property of slave-holders by law. Appealing to law isn’t at all convincing.
If I sign a contract for a certain wage in exchange for my labor, I would expect the full amount to be paid.
Why on earth would you expect that. The other contractee knows full well what tax is and fully expects the appropriate percentage of whatever they agree to go the government. Why would you assume they would want you to have all of it?
Rent is theft too, so this doesn’t resolve the problem.
I’m not doubting the fact that taxes exist and that we have to pay them. What I doubt is the underlying ethics of taxes.
That's not what I asked you. I said that a proportion of the money you earn from a contract is not your property. Both contractees knew this when they sign, so tax cannot be theft, the property taken is not yours, never was and everyone knew that when setting the price.
My question is, why do you want to steal money that isn't yours?
Yes, the government confiscates a share of my earnings and does so legally. Yes, I have no recourse within their justice system to argue this is my property, and that they are plundering my earnings for their own benefit. That isn’t in dispute. What I am disputing is the underlying ethics of paying taxes.
You haven't said anything about ethics. You've just lied about it being theft, because you know full well it's not your property that's being taken.
Quoting NOS4A2
No they do not. A part of your wage packet is tax. It's the government's money, always was and everyone involved in the entire price-setting contract knew that. So on what grounds was it ever your property?
Well, there are plenty of cases where the government does seem to be justified in using physical violence if someone refuses to comply with something. For example, it seems that the government can be justified in using physical violence to help a landlord evict her tenant that refuses to leave her property. If they are justified in using violence to help some individuals remove other individuals from their property, then why wouldn’t they also be justified in removing unwanted citizens of a country from the society which seems to belong to the public?
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, the state could be viewed as a tool used by society to ensure that people give a portion of their money back to that society. One could argue that it’s not the state per se is entitled to the taxpayer money but it is the public or society that is entitled to that money. Of course, this sort of defense of taxation would mostly apply to taxation in democratic countries with low levels of corruption. No one is trying to defend taxation for something frivolous like the building of a fancy mansion for the president of the country or something like that.
Quoting Tzeentch
How much of the taxpayer money in countries like the US is actually being used to fund these sorts of things though? Based on what I know about the US federal budget, most of the money is going to Social Security, Medicare, and the military. At worst, this would fall under well-intentioned but ill-advised use of money category. But, that use of money can still be defended if that’s what the public actually wants and it seems most of the public is pretty cool with taxpayer money being used for that sort of stuff.
Maybe it seems that way to you, but plenty of others would contest that that is removing the tenant from their rightful property at the behest of an unjust claim over it by another, because use justifies ownership.
There's no underlying moral right to pre-tax income because that would mean people should be paid based on moral worth of their services and their own moral worth or needs. But that's not what's being established in the market.
It is not established in the market as you perfectly explained because since Spinoza divided education in enlightenment they teach us how to be "practical" not how to be moral.
The market and somehow "everything" do not care at all if the payer is or not a moralist. They just want his money to provide revenue to the State.
Then there shall be no solution that I am willing to be a part of.
Quoting Isaac
The words "rightful" and "property" could each fill a forum thread on their own, and I believe our interactions are starting to exceed what is practical to reply to at once, so therefore I will let this lie.
For now, I don't think this can be answered with a simple yes/no.
Quoting Isaac
How does this relate to your earlier statement that accused me of relying on "mystical" means?
Quoting Isaac
Does a scientist who debunks a certain scientific theory only become valid once he offers an alternative? I think not.
Quoting Isaac
Likely, it often cannot, which is precisely the point.
Quoting Isaac
What I'm saying is, I believe the most important moral conflicts to be solved through threat of violence need to be enshrined in a constitution, precisely because the use of such a tool is so fundamentally wrong and only ever a necessary evil. Writing it down in a constitution should ensure a government is never able to expand its mandate for coercion. Power inevitably consolidates, grows and corrupts. A constitution should provide a boundary a government is unable to cross.
And these boundaries are pretty universal, as far as I am concerned. The thinkers of the 17th and the 18th century were thinking about the same fundamental problems with government as we are today.
Quoting Isaac
I disagree.
Everything in this sentence is susepctible to subjectivity, meaning that it could be used as a justification for literally any course of action.
Quoting Isaac
There is none. Coercion is an unjust means all by itself.
Quoting Isaac
That explains the hostility. I'm used to this sort of kneejerk reaction on this forum, sadly. One cannot present a different opinion on this forum without being framed as a Trump-supporting, moneygrubbing, redneck, evil capitalist. If you would like to do the same, then it speaks of your ignorance; not mine.
I think you are making an awful lot of assumptions about what I am suggesting, and our interactions will be much more fruitful if you do not.
That's "might makes right" by negligence. You don't get to absolve yourself of moral responsibility for the consequences of your actions by saying "I didn't agree to this" if you didn't offer an alternative either. If we don't govern such cases using collective action then the strongest will just get their way, those are the only two options and refusing to support the former is tacit support for the latter.
Quoting Tzeentch
It doesn't. Unless you want to claim that the exact recompense for labour, to the penny, is somehow a common feeling we all share?
Quoting Tzeentch
No. Because we do not have to have a theory on certain scientific matters. We do have to have a means of dealing with intractable moral conflicts.
Quoting Tzeentch
So the strongest win instead.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well they're absolutely evidently not are they? Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion, and you wouldn't be in a minority.
Quoting Tzeentch
That's absurd. So it's unjust to use coercion to prevent a shooter from gunning down a dozen children. What bullshit.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yeah, so am I. Your "I just have an alternative view, why can't we discuss this calmly" is just as much of a kneejerk reaction to strong criticism as the criticism itself. Your 'alternative view' leads to some horrific consequences and you don't seem to even care. What else am I to make of that?
I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly here. Who is "they"?
My main point is there is neither a moral nor legal right to pre-tax income.
That doesn't answer whether taxes are moral or not, merely establishes that the claim "taxation is theft" is false.
If we look at the function of the State then it should have adequate means to perform that function. To finance those means a State can do the following things:
1. print money
2. issue debt
3. raise taxes
Printing money is arguably just another way to tax people. If the government prints money, everybody's money devalues because the money supply increases (all other things being equal). So through government action, your money buys less. It also introduces increased currency exchange costs because holding this State's currency carries an additional risk that inflation is a consequence of government financing needs. Foreign investors won't be interested in holding this currency for a long time. So printing money isn't a good way forward. And since it more or less does what taxation does, the government is better off raising taxes. That leaves comparing taxation with issuing debt.
The government can issue debt to finance itself but that debt needs to be repaid at some time. This puts the burden on future generations. It's not moral to put the burden of costs now entirely on future generations. At the same time some burden can be applied to future generations because they will benefit from the social goods and prosperity the current and past generations have created.
So to avoid the clearly unjust result that the financial burden of State financing is entirely borne by future generations, taxation is necessary to at least establish inter-generational fairness. Taxation will also be required to pay off future debt (to the extent this cannot be rolled over).
The only meaningful underlying ethical discussion in my view is therefore: what should be the function of the State?
They are not my actions, and I am not so sure there exists any moral responsibility to rely on unjust means to attain what one considers desirable results.
Quoting Isaac
No, I don't. Are your views based on such feelings, you think?
Quoting Isaac
I think they are, to anyone who understands the subjectivity our existence is subject to (on a philosophy forum, I assumed there would be many!).
Quoting Isaac
Yes. But as stated before, some injustice can be accepted as a necessary evil in view of the imperfect nature of man. It doesn't make it just. That would be absurd.
Quoting Isaac
Such is the nature of disagreement on these sorts of topics, and I am thinking the exact same thing listening to some of your views.
If you want to hear more about my ideas, then engage with them like an adult. If you do not, then what are you doing here other than trying to extinguish your own doubts?
Now then, lets switch it around.
If we accept that violence and coercion can be just means to what we believe to be a just end, then all that is stopping one from enforcing their views of justice on others is whether they have the power to do so. In other words, might makes right. Morality is meaningless, if one holds a view such as this. Literally any course of action can be justified through it, and history is filled with examples.
They are your actions. You take actions which affect others and which use common resources. What you think is reasonable in that regard may not be what others think is reasonable and if you recourse to government to solve that then you undermine your own argument. If you don't then you have some other means. You cannot walk away. Even so much as buying a loaf of bread involves the use of common resources with which other might disagree. You don't have the "Not my problem" option.
Quoting Tzeentch
That's not the point. The point is that the money you get in return for your labour includes tax that belongs to the government. Your use of shared resources like air and water includes a social contract with other users to contribute to the shared maintenance costs. You can't opt out and there is no 'default' value. The only options are collective agreement and enforcement, or no agreement and the strongest do whatever they will with those shared resources.
Quoting Tzeentch
This doesn't seem to follow at all. You seem to be saying that the only people who 'understand' some matter are those who agree with you on it.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well then the matter of the justness or unjustness of an action has absolutely no consequence, so I don't see the point in discussing it. Let's instead discuss whether we should or should not do some action. We'll call those actions we should do 'just-x' and those actions we should not do 'unjust-x'. So is taxation just-x? That's all that matters here, because all we have to decide is whether to do it or not. What to call it is a pointless and irrelevant discussion. We might as well call it 'bob' for all the name matters.
Quoting Tzeentch
Adult behaviour is not circumscribed by polite language.
Quoting Tzeentch
Nonsense. I've bolded the relevant part, see if you can work it out from there.
I was referring to the State itself and the governors aka all of those who have the power to control the leviathan. I was not disagree with you. I guess it is quite negative saying paying taxes is theft. This action can at least provide us the same opportunities to start with.
But sometimes it looks like literally a theft (the public services are not so good sometimes... but yeah it is better than nothing).
Thank you for your explanation about how worthless the action of printing money could be.
Nevertheless, here is the big problem then. How effective can be the State. As you perfectly asked to me: Quoting Benkei
Well I don’t want to make a tangent here but it is another kind of debate. Here is the problem itself. The state. It is not the act of paying taxes but how the leviathan administrates the revenue (which it is a lot). It is true that I am not have to be so pessimistic because there are some States that proof how taxes can work positively to the people. For example, the Nordic countries tend to have many taxes but it is completely worthy because they are the representation of social welfare state
But this is not the reality in the most countries of the world. Most of them just give “average” services not good quality ones. Perhaps, in this point depends a lot of how lucky you are in the country you were born in.
Sometimes you can provide all the tools but the State/government/leviathan will not do nothing special at all and only provide inequality.
A perfect argument for small government.
Quoting Isaac
Indeed, but individuals do not partake in this system voluntarily, so I don't agree that one shares any responsibility for injustices perpetuated by said system. Perhaps more importantly, I don't see how one could hold a moral responsibility for something one has no power over.
Quoting Isaac
Based on what?
Quoting Isaac
A social contract can exist, but only on the basis of mutual voluntariness, not threats of violence. Obviously such a contract would have no moral weight.
Quoting Isaac
A contradiction in terms.
Quoting Isaac
You believe the fact that our system is fundamentally based on injustice, namely coercion and violence, has no consequences?
Quoting Isaac
"What they believe seems so obviously true, that if you are standing in the way of it, either you must be incredibly stupid, utterly uninformed or simply dishonest. People like that find it very hard to believe that someone else could honestly, sincerely and intelligently reach a different conclusion. They talk about how complex the world is, but it never seems to be complex enough that other people could have read the same evidence they've looked at and come up with a different conclusion." - Thomas Sowel
Thanks for letting me share one of my favorite quotes, and I'll let you figure out how it relates to adult behavior.
How so?
Quoting Tzeentch
Really? So you've no moral responsibility for anything then, since all of life is something you've been involuntarily thrown into with rules that you've no power over?
Quoting Tzeentch
The law. The contract you signed. The market value. Take your pick, all of them knowingly include the fact that some of the transactional amount is the property of the government. This is why the concept of 'property' which you keep sidestepping is fundamental to your position. If you want 'rightful property' to be based on something other than these factors you need to spell out what that something is.
Quoting Tzeentch
So morality is optional? Depends on whether you agree or not? I think you're confusing morality with personal preference.
Quoting Tzeentch
True. I should have said a method of collective decision-making and enforcement. It doesn't alter the point. It's either that or the strongest get their way.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes. that obviously have no consequences the way you've defined them. You've described them a necessary evils. Are you having trouble with the definition of necessary?
What do you think the consequences are?
Quoting Tzeentch
That fact that it's possible for people to reach very different conclusion with integrity does not prove that any given person is doing so does it? So I don't see how it's relevant. Unless you're arguing that it's somehow impossible for someone to hold a position that's dishonest, insincere or unintelligent.
Just to underline this with regards to the misunderstandings above. I think most people agree with the principle that we should allow people the maximum freedom which does not in turn impose on the freedom of others to a greater degree. That last necessitates that we restrict some freedoms. So long as there exist people who would exercise those freedoms even at the expense of the freedom of others then restricting them will require coercive force of some definition.
We end up with no coherent position other than an acceptance of coercive force, or a claim that no such people exist (we're all saints).
So, just as with the specific case of tax, government intervention in general is not a question which is resolvable using binary notions. The only relevant question is exactly what freedoms must be restrained to protect the freedoms of others, and what form that coercion takes. The mere need for it is not even in question.
As such some metric is needed to accompany any claim of excessive (or even insufficient) coercive force. It's an incomplete argument to simply say that coercive force is bad or, unjust or whatever. The use of such force is not in question. The matter to which it is applied is what's in question.
So to say a government should not do X is only reasonable when accompanied by evidence that the freedoms X is intended to constrain do not, in fact, constrain the freedoms of others to a greater degree. (or, of course, some other moral framework entirely).
What's interesting is, given the obvious dissolution of such claims to this metric (for most secular ethics), why there's such a move to avoid talking about it in favour of polemics like "coercion is bad", as if they addressed anything at all relevant to the issue.
We may disagree on what is reasonable, so let us not through coercion force upon others what we believe to be reasonable.
Quoting Isaac
Not all of life is involuntary, but what a person is to do with the life they have been given, as far as it relates to themselves, is not a matter of moral responsibility. Ergo, if a person wants to end their life, I don't see that as immoral, considering they were not born voluntarily.
If a parent wants to take their own life, it becomes different, because they've made the voluntary choice to have children and that does become a matter of moral responsibility.
Quoting Isaac
I don't think any of these form a definitive basis for moral conduct. In some cases laws may prescribe moral behavior. In other cases they may not. This is a subjective matter, and therefore I am highly sceptical of those who would try to force them upon others.
Quoting Isaac
It is not. I would consider it unjust even if one were to reclaim through violence or threat thereof their "rightful property" (whatever that may mean and to whoever it may belong).
Quoting Isaac
I have my thoughts about what is moral, and for me personally moral conduct is not optional.
However, I do recognize that morality is also a highly subjective matter, and that attempting to force subjective views onto others through whatever violent means is contrary to that understanding.
Quoting Isaac
The choices you present are one and the same. The remedy is to decentralize power, in other words, small government. This way, whoever counts as "the strongest", is as weak as possible.
Quoting Isaac
How do you feel, for example, about the fact your government may use the money it takes from you, to wage war, the necessity of which, I hope we can agree, I highly debatable?
Quoting Isaac
Perhaps your conclusion that I am not, is one you are drawing too swiftly.
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting Tzeentch
These are all just meaningless platitudes without any alternatives.
Let's take a simple case. I believe that excessive carbon emission is immoral (excessive to the point the most scientists in the field think it will negatively impact future generations). Others may think it moral. what do you suggest we do about that?
We can't just each do what we think - that way those who see it as moral will simply get their way, the atmosphere we both share will be polluted to the degree they're comfortable with.
I can't move - we've only one atmosphere.
We could negotiate, but all the while we're negotiating they're polluting the atmosphere to whatever extent they see fit ie they're getting their way. It's a de facto win for them.
We can't make different decisions for each small community - again, we all share the same atmosphere.
So how do we resolve this without democracy and government coercion?
In your hypothetical regulation free society you're screwed.
Quoting NOS4A2
We are all responsible for the reasonably predictable consequences of our actions. History has shown us over and over that - in the absence of laws regulating economic activity - economic power becomes
hyper concentrated in the hands of a few power hungry individuals - and power hungry people do not willingly give up their power. This is why most democracies have anti-monopoly laws.
In your hypothetical regulation free society, your attempts to put the mega-corporation polluting your town out of business will fail. Mega-corporation will deny you the access to the raw materials needed to create your cleaner & cost effective solution. Mega-corporation will make it impossible for you to get access to the marketplace to sell your solution. We know this as well as we know anything.
Quoting NOS4A2
And what's the alternative? Rely on the good will of people? You know the answer to that.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's why we have democracies. If your government is doing a lousy job of managing the environment, then get together with your fellow citizens and elect a different government. Is this easy? Of course not. Is this a perfect solution? Of course not - duh. . .
The reasonably predictable outcome of your hypothetical regulation free society is that you would have less freedom than you do now.
- - - - - -
To a certain extent I understand & empathize with your position. No one wants to be forced how to live their life, we all want to maximize our freedom and options. But on this small planet with 7.5 or so billion people, every action we take - no matter how small - affects everyone else.
If I turn up the thermostat in my house from 68 to 70 because we have company, I am affecting your life in a small but measurable way.
If I am feeling tired and drive to the store to get milk instead of walking - even in my nice environmentally & politically correct Prius - I am affecting your life in some small but measurable way.
Every time I flush the toilet, I am affecting your life in a small but measurable way.
Multiply this by 7.5 billion.
Right. So unless you're a hermit, you will have undertaken hundreds of such decisions which then entail moral responsibilities, so I don't see how you can get out of social responsibility that way.
Quoting Tzeentch
I didn't say anything about moral conduct, we were talking about how you establish what is our property. an again, you've just told me what isn't and not what is. How do you establish that your gross wage is your property?
Quoting Tzeentch
Then the strong get whatever they want, which you expressly said you were opposed to.
Quoting Tzeentch
So how do they defend themselves against the neighbouring 'small government' who are just that little bit stronger. They'd just be defeated gradually until the strongest took over more land than they could administer, at which point they'd retreat to a scale of governance just below that... Oh wait, all that actually happened, it's called history.
Quoting Tzeentch
It's not about the problem, it's about the solution. Just because you can identify a problem, doesn't mean your chosen solution suddenly become viable. If I disliked junk mail then taping my letterbox shut would solve the problem, but that doesn't make it any less stupid a solution.
Quoting Tzeentch
You're consistent dodging, and changing the subject when your position is shown to be untenable is strongly suggesting otherwise.
You truly concern yourself with "winning" in such great games?
I personally don't walk around with the weight of the world on my shoulders. Being a moral person happens in everyday life; not in opinions floating around in one's head.
To answer your question; if you cannot convince them and they win, let them "win". If the only alternative is violence or coercion, I am in this case more than content with non-action, and I consider moral conduct a victory in itself.
Quoting Isaac
Name a few. Lets see if we agree.
Quoting Isaac
I don't have an answer for that. I think the idea of property is too complicated for a simple answer. Regardless of what the law says, I don't think the state holds any moral right to take through violence what it believes to be hers. Nor do I think the state holds any stronger claim to property than the individual does.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Yes, it is. One big mess of self-perpetuating violence fought with more violence. Bravo.
Quoting Isaac
And the solution was never, more violence.
Quoting Isaac
If you believe you have won and I am simply dodging your superior points, then what are you still doing here?
Why waste your time with such a simpleton as I?
So if someone were attacking you, you wouldn't fight back, you'd just let them kill you because if you cannot convince them and they win, let them "win"? I'm guessing you'd answer no, and I'm guessing you'd justify that answer with some mumbled caveat about violent force being an exception without ever giving any account of why, as if that were the only force that mattered for some unexplained reason.
Quoting Tzeentch
Take a look at 's post, there's no need for me to repeat what he's written.
Quoting Tzeentch
Evidently you do, otherwise you could not conclude that the taxed portion of any transaction was not the rightful property of the government.
Quoting Tzeentch
It doesn't. Generally it takes it through the tax code. You've had a seriously unlucky experience with some very overzealous tax collectors if that's your impression. The overwhelming majority of tax is collected peacefully.
Quoting Tzeentch
We agree there. I think the state has exactly the same claim to property as individuals have.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well no. State-on-state violence is decreasing and has been for many years, mainly because of the diplomatic efforts of democratic governments. My complaint was with regard to you wanting to send us back to warring city-states.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed. The solution is less violence. Peace enforced by threat of violence is less violent than a lack of such enforcement. Your solution is more violent because the most violent elements in society are unrestrained.
Quoting Tzeentch
So that your charade of moral concern is never seen as viable by those who seek to use it as a mask for basic greed and bigotry.
I've yet to encounter a single 'small government' enthusiast who isn't also a big industry supporter, opposed to progressive action toward minorities... It's always the same. They bleat about 'small government' but basically they just want some way, any way, of pushing their neoliberal agenda.
You guessed wrong, because it cannot be justified. Obviously I cannot sit here and claim I would let myself get killed. I do not know what I would do if someone were to try and kill me.
Quoting Isaac
We have been over this. Whatever one's opinions may be about property, having it taken does not justify violence or threats thereof.
Quoting Isaac
Because the threat of violence underpins it all.
Quoting Isaac
And the reason the state can take whatever it wants, is because it acts on the principle might makes right.
Quoting Isaac
That is a very rose-coloured interpretation of the most violent century in human history. Virtually all of which committed by governments, I might add!
Quoting Isaac
Incorrect. I am not an anarchist.
Quoting Isaac
Quit lying to me, Pinocchio.
Quoting Isaac
All these assumptions about me are wrong. So there's that.
I’m not so sure of that.
When I compare power-hungry individuals occupying a corporation vs a government, I prefer the mercantilist to the dictator. At least I can refuse to work with or purchase the services of the mercantilist, while I have no such choice under state power. On top of that, there is no comparison between corporate power at its worse and state power at its worse.
As for environmental concerns, we should note that governments have also contributed to our current situation, and that we have arrived to it under the yoke of state power. Anything else is counterfactual, so at best we can speculate at what might have happened otherwise. The desire for change, however, has always occurred from the bottom up. That we have to beg our governments to address these concerns instead of taking on the task ourselves is just another hurdle to seeing it through.
Then by what means do you restrain them?
You can not vote for them.
Quoting NOS4A2
Begging government is taking on the task. If you want a hammer do you attempt to make one yourself, or do you ask the blacksmith?
The underlying moral principle is that it is wrong to confiscate and plunder the earnings of someone else.
We've talked a while about why I believe the fundamental principles underlying government are flawed, but we haven't yet gotten into why the practical implication of those principles are much worse. Shall we?
I don’t see why I’d want to.
I don’t beg the blacksmith for a hammer. We agree to a price and I purchase his services. This is free exchange. It would be comparable to government only if I had already payed the blacksmith and now had to beg to receive a hammer.
Well, with that mindset, I think nobody would rent anything and we would often have to spend way more money buying something. The benefit of being able to rent is that sometimes you need to use something for a short amount of time and it wouldn’t be worth buying that thing. I’m not sure how radical your viewpoint on this is. Would you go as far as to say that a hotel who has a guest that just stayed there for one night owns that hotel room? For how long do you have to use something for you to think that the user of that thing owns that thing.
For fuck sake. It's not your earnings, we've been through this. You can't just make things the case by ignoring all contradiction.
Your earnings do not belong to you. Some portion of them belongs to the government.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yep. Completely agree with you.
Quoting Tzeentch
Why not?
Quoting NOS4A2
I didn't ask about your personal preferences for how you like to get stuff done. You're simply manifestly wrong about 'begging the government' being different to taking on the task oneself.
Why would I have no moral right to my earnings? I didn’t quite understand that part.
Right, and slaves once belonged to their masters by law. The point isn’t whether they do or don’t, but whether it is right or wrong to do so, something you’ve consistently avoided.I think of all the times those in power claimed they had this or that right to take from their subjects, and I picture you there cheering them on.
I'm assuming that you live in a democracy - i.e., not Saudi Arabia, North Korea, etc. If I'm mistaken in that assumption, then I apologize because you have a whole different set of problems.
Quoting NOS4A2
Not when the mercantilist has monopoly control of an essential item - food, water, clothing, housing. And remember that this will happen in your hypothetical unregulated economy.
Quoting NOS4A2
In a democracy, however flawed it may be, you are the government. In a democracy you and your fellow citizens have the final say on what the government does. If you do not like the decisions your fellow citizens have made, if you do not like the policies your government is pursuing, you can pick up and move to another state/province/country where things are run more to your liking.
I highly doubt that you will find any such place, but I could be wrong.
Or you can always buy a boat and live out int the ocean. Or perhaps this might be a good solution for you.
For example, where there are 2 workers with the same skill, it would be morally correct if the one that's starving gets the job. Since the market system is incapable off taking such moral issues into account, you cannot claim a moral right to whatever earnings you make as a result.
Quoting Benkei
Maybe it goes back then to what we understand as the proper role of government. Is the overarching goal of government to provide everyone a level playing field or is it something else like to try to ensure the population life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?
I do believe in taxes, by the way, but when people push the argument that citizens have zero rightful claim to their income it should set off a few alarm bells unless we believe the main goal of government is some type of large scale social engineering that is to be achieved through massive wealth confiscation and redistribution.
That's also, in my view, the main ethical discussion. What's the role of government? I'm partial to John Rawls approach with the veil of ignorance and reflexivity.
During our discussion we have worked from the assumption that governments produce mostly positive outcomes, to counterbalance their usage of unjust means. In reality, we see corruption, propaganda, shameless disregard for individual (and sometimes human) rights. We see governments that with every attempt to solve a problem create a dozen new ones. What we see is governments playing political games with often war as a result. Wars that have only increased in scale since history has been recorded, that have killed hundreds of millions in the last century, and that during the Cold War were literally on the verge of wiping out humanity.
I do not need more proof that governments cannot be trusted with power, and that everything must be done to curb what little power they should be allowed to hold.
In addition, with the idea of government, comes the problem of individuals having to hold large amounts of power. Again, history shows what power does to individuals. It inevitably corrupts. First it attempts to consolidate, then it attempts to grow. Corruption is a process that simply cannot be avoided, and it ultimately secures the fate of a nation, just like is now visibly happening in the United States.
I actually don’t agree completely with the use-is-ownership principle for reasons similar to your questions (how long do I have to be away from home before it stops being my home? a decade? a day? a year? an hour? why that long exactly?). But I do think that there are other changes to how we construct our property rights that ought to be made both for deontological reasons and because of good consequences, one of which is discouraging scenarios where one person owns something that another person regularly uses, for the profit of the former at the expense of the latter, i.e. rent. Something approximating rent is still possible to construct under my scheme, so long as that’s actually what everyone involved actually wants, like a hotel room of whatever. Going into the full details on this would be a huge derailment of this thread though.
The thing I kind of struggle with with Rawls is that he basically asks us to be non-situated, i.e. pretend that we're a mind floating up in the ethereal and go from there in terms of designing society.
I just don't know the extent to which people can do this. Then again I haven't touched Rawls since undergrad so feel free to correct my ignorance on this one if there's something I'm missing.
EDIT: It's like if two non-disabled people were to ask how they'd want severely disabled people to be treated in this society how would they have any idea? Would they want to just be euthanized shortly after birth? Would they want state care or to be left with their families? Who knows.
I am unable to see how the market system prohibits such hiring. Any employer can easily decide the “moral worth” of a person, and decide who to hire based on his own conscience or on the possibility of just outcomes. People can, and have, run companies that explicitly hire the homeless or convicts, for example.
The government, on the other hand, confiscates and distributes wealth based on amoral factors, such as income. They take the money because you have it, not because you are more deserving or in need of it or the outcomes would be more just. Also, where I live I have two different sales taxes on general goods and services, the provincial sales tax (5%) and the general sales tax (7%). Everyone has to pay them, rich and poor, young and old, with zero valuation of moral or even financial worth. Considering these I would argue the opposite. It is the government that is incapable of taking moral issues into account. How could they? We are little more than SIN numbers to them, after all.
Quoting Benkei
Couldn't we just simplify this and say everyone's just looking for the best all around deal that's nicest to all the groups? Tying this back to taxation, what's the implication? Is it that government ought to tax and redistribute heavily to ensure all groups are fairly compensated and that no one group gets to keep too much?
Of course this isn't possible. That some people let themselves be guided by some moral principles when hiring, still doesn't lead to a moral and just outcome. Certainly when only some do it but even when all would do it, your still don't have a just outcome. How can market actors tell to hire a local or a Bangladeshi to make your shirt? How can market actors tell how much to pay nurses as opposed to, let's say, cigarette manufacturers or cocaïne producers? So the idea you have a moral right to these market outcomes is simply incoherent.
And that's not even going into issues like the polluter pays principle, environmental, safety and health standards for workers, which are costs market actors will externalise unless they're forced to take them into account.
The idea markets can solve every issue or ever result in moral outcomes is deeply flawed.
I haven't avoided it, you never asked what I thought a fair payment in return for labour would be. It's incoherent for you to berate determining ownership by law when the the only issue you're raising against the current system of remuneration is the tax element. all the rest of it is still determined by law. So the fickleness of law isn't your issue.
The point is, as @Benkei is also saying, you've provided us with no means other than law, to determine fair payment for work done, and the law includes taxes. Market valuation includes taxes. Personal agreements as to who should get what include taxes.
What you'd need to provide to support your case is some means of determining how much a person should be paid for the work they do which just happens to arrive at the exact pre-tax wage worked out using our current system, which, on the face of it, is ludicrous.
Quoting NOS4A2
How is income an amoral factor. All income is generated at least in part by taking from common resources. If you take something that isn't yours without payment, that's immoral, right? That's the exact definition of immoral you're using. So anyone not voluntarily giving a fair portion of their income to support those common resources is acting immorally. The government is therefore right to confiscate some of their property. Either you pay the tax voluntarily (in which case it's not confiscation), or you try to keep profit which is not your to keep (an immoral act and so deserving of the confiscation of those profits).
Quoting NOS4A2
You've just argued yourself that it is immoral to take something which isn't yours. 5% of any product's price pays for the common resources which went into making it, to try and take that product without paying for the use of those resources is theft, an immoral act. The government is acting perfectly morally by ensuring those common resources are well-managed and requiring payment for that service.
I don't think we have. In some ways, that's the point I'm trying to draw out. That you criticise government structures simply because you don't like some of the things your current government is doing. That's not a sound argument.
Quoting Tzeentch
All of which are perpetrated by democratically elected governments. The people of your country elected these spineless morons to run things. So what on earth makes you think that putting decisions back into the hands of these very people is going to improve things? again, you're using the same tactic you used with tax specifically, now with government in general. That one situation is bad does not constitute an argument in favour of any alternative you care to offer. That a ship is sinking does not mean jumping into icy water becomes a good alternative.
Quoting Tzeentch
Someone will hold power - the strong, the majority, the wealthy, the best connected... You can't just point to any one group and say that because they've done bad things the power ought to be taken from them and given to one of the others. You have to also demonstrate that one of the other would handle it better. If you want power returned to provincial governments, you have to show that provincial governments, collectively, make less of a mess than federated governments do, otherwise you're just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You've yet to make such an argument.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes. And political power is not the only form of power. so you make your small government... whose then to stop Google, Amazon and Facebook from accumulating vast power? Once more, your failure to detail the alternative makes your argument weak. Yes governments give power to individuals and that leads to corruption - no argument from me there. Without government restraint, monopolised companies give power to their CEOs and that leads to corruption. So where's the improvement made by restricting the power of government, all you've done is transfer it to someone else?
I think the things we have discussed are all fundamentally a part of government structures.
Quoting Isaac
Governments hold centralized power, which is something individual citizens of a nation do not. I do not expect anyone to run things well, because power inevitably draws the corrupt and breeds corruption.
Decentralizing power ensures that those in power have a minimal capacity to force their will onto others. I'm not arguing it's a perfect system. As long as man is imperfect, his systems will be imperfect. But I see absolutely no argument for giving governments and individuals within governments the power over millions of citizens. We know where it leads.
Quoting Isaac
The argument for decentralizing power, is that ultimately it makes dysfunctional power structures escapable. The question may become, how do we keep decentralized power from centralizing itself? Perhaps it requires a continuous effort.
Quoting Isaac
The only reason one even needs to worry about these types of companies, is because they try to control people by trying to control powerful governments who have the mandate to violence and coercion. Powerful government is the enabler here, not the remedy.
Really? You think it's a structural issue that governments show "corruption, propaganda, shameless disregard for individual (and sometimes human) rights". That seems like an odd conclusion. How do you see that working. Like it's impossible for a government not to do those things?
Quoting Tzeentch
I provided one earlier. The alternative is warring city states and we know where that leads too. We've been there.
Quoting Tzeentch
Effort of what? This is just a hand-waiving cop out. The whole raison d'être of centralised government is to prevent a repeat of the very bloody process of centralisation happening all over again. It's monumentally reckless to advocate abandoning this project and then hand-waive the possibly devastating consequences with "Oh I'm sure we'll work it out nearer the time..." If you haven't got a very clear and well evidenced method of avoiding bloody civil war and degradation of shared resources between decentralized states then my assessment of you seems not so far off. You're basically willing to risk mass warfare and global environmental crisis just so that a government can't use your taxes to support gay marriage (or whatever progressive government scheme it is you disapprove of).
Quoting Tzeentch
Nonsense. Amazon provides appalling working conditions, comes close to breaching human rights in developing world sources and pollutes common resources. None of this is done by appropriating government coercion. It's done because the laws allow it. Worse is not done because governments prevent it. Without centralised government, what is to stop Amazon from removing even further worker's rights, from ignoring sustainable resource limits in their supply chain, from driving developing world workers into slavery? How do you propose to prevent these things without centralised government?
Quoting Benkei
I agree with that, and in doing so acknowledge that it can be tough to truly conceive ourselves as truly independent, disembodied minds pondering this type of thought experiment.
I gotta say, I wonder though in a game theory sense whether it might ever make sense to just completely gut one group (say, 5% of the population) for the benefit of the other 95%. There's only a small chance after all that you were the "negotiator" for that 5% and in favoring the 95% you probably advanced the interests of your group.
The idea of advocating on behalf of an unknown group is a little strange to me. I feel like we should reformulate this for better clarity.
EDIT: One more question, must we advocate for groups like "pedophiles" and "people who are capable and able to work, but refuse to do so and instead claim benefits."
The use of violence, coercion and the process of corruption and wherever those may lead it, yes. Undoubtedly.
Quoting Isaac
Centralized government has to do with consolidation of power, not with preventing bloodshed. And it has done none of the sort over the course of history. Again, the greatest atrocities in our history have been committed by centralized governments.
Quoting Isaac
That's a bit of a hyperbole, but just like in any other system based on unjust means, there's a chance of citizens using those same unjust means against it. Violence is self-perpetuating. Hence, why I fundamentally disagree with its use.
And so far centralized governments have shown quite the opposite of preventing mass warfare and environmental disasters, so pick your poison.
Also, I thought we were past your shameless attempts of trying to frame me.
Now I am some homophobe as well? Puh-lease. Show some class. So far you've been wrong in all your assumptions about me.
"This person said words I don't like, so they must be a despicable person."
Quoting Isaac
Developing countries usually struggle with a myriad of other problems, government corruption undoubtedly one of them. And your answer is to give such corrupt governments a further mandate for violence and coercion.
The problem you sketch is a complex one, and I don't see how centralized government contributes to a solution.
In some developed countries minimum wage is determined by collective bargaining rather than law, and one could argue employees there get better wages and benefits because of it. Bargaining has been the mainstay method of determining renumeration since time immemorial, after all, whether there is law, taxes or not.
I agree that bargaining for renumeration necessarily includes taxes wherever taxation exists, but people do not do so because it is right and moral. They do it because they have to or risk punishment. This to say nothing of under-the-table employment or black markets, where taxes need not apply at all.
So the assumption that only law can determine renumeration is a false and one. Worse, it risks filling heads with the stupid idea that one cannot haggle over wages with employers and should run to authorities instead.
The notion of “common resources” seems to me unappealing. I live in a very vast country. I don’t claim any ownership over the territories and resources of the Inuit peoples, for example. I would not go there (nor could I) and take their resources just because I claim to have some share over it, because I just so happen to live within the same border. Their land is owned by them, not the common public. It was once the state’s land, sure, all of which has been acquired by the divine right of kings and conquest, but I can no less work to receive my own parcel without stealing anything. The only one who stole land, in fact, is the state.
But again, this is all beside my point, which is that taxes are immoral.
To abuse Nozik’s argument, In order to pay a tax one is forced to labor for the benefit of others. If 20% of my income goes to the government, that means 20% of my labor is forced to serve the benefit of someone else. If 100% of my labor is forced to serve the benefit of someone else, we might call that some degree or other of slavery. Nozik calls it forced labor.
I don’t believe “forced labor” suffices, simply because I am not forced to work. In my own case, the government simply comes along like a loan shark and demands I pay what is owed to him (an amount only they can define), or else I receive some sort of punishment. So I prefer “extortion” or “theft”. Either way, this transaction is an immoral one because there is no consent and it is enforced by coercion.
By what mechanism?
Quoting Tzeentch
No.
The greatest atrocity of our history in terms of deaths was perpetrated by the board of British American tobacco. In terms of Poverty, disease and other measures of well-being it has been perpetrated smaller regional governments (as in the case of much of West Africa), or companies acting as colonial powers (like DeBeers). In terms of environmental degradation, it's without doubt companies like Shell, BP and Exon who may well yet yield a death toll higher than British American Tobacco.
The largest centralised form of government today is the UN which, in it's 55 year history has started a total of 0 wars, caused 0 atrocities but instead is responsible for the Human Rights, feeding billions of starving children and several worldwide disease eradication efforts.
Quoting Tzeentch
It's going to be used anyway. You can't prevent a bully by telling him you disagree with violence. Your 'disagreement' might as well be pissing in wind for the effect it actually has.
Quoting Tzeentch
Who said anything about giving corrupt governments more power? Why would agreeing with centralisation mean doing nothing about corruption? Again, if you want to argue that centralisation inevitably leads to irredeemable corruption, you'll have to do more than just hand-waive at it. Why can we not tackle corruption with better scrutiny and legislation?
So? Explain exactly what any of that has to do with the fact that part of your wage packet is the property of the government? Note, I've never claimed that wages cannot be negotiated have I? The claim is that your wages have been negotiated with the expectation that some portion of them will be paid to the government, hence that portion does not belong to you by contractual agreement (it doesn't belong to you ethically, nor legally either, but those are other arguments addressed separately).
Quoting NOS4A2
Again, what has this fact got to do with the argument here? Honestly, if you can't follow a line of argument there's little point in contributing. The argument here is against the notion that your wages are rightfully yours because they have been negotiated by mutual agreement. The argument that they are not yours on moral grounds is a different argument. That people do not negotiate morally, or pay tax morally has absolutely nothing to do with the current line of argument. The tax portion of your wage packet is not your by right of mutual agreement because that mutual agreement assumes tax. That's all.
Quoting NOS4A2
Indeed it is, which is, I suppose, why no-one made such a claim.
Quoting NOS4A2
Who gives a shit how 'appealing' it is to you?
Quoting NOS4A2
See, this is why I impute you people with ulterior motives, because the alternative is to believe that you really are that stupid. Do I have to spell it out for you like we're in Primary school? Do you understand how the atmosphere works, the oceans... anything?
Quoting NOS4A2
Completely false, in the case you're citing settlers stole the land with the backing of state armies, the state never took ownership (or when it did it was transitory). But nonetheless, this is the crux of the matter. So, if I steal your car and then sell it to my son, that's no longer your car, right? It's his - all done and dusted and you no longer have a claim to it, right?
Quoting NOS4A2
Not even a bit true because, as as been shown to you ad infinitum now, the remuneration you get for your labour assumes tax. Your gross wage is not the amount of money which reflects the labour you put in, not by any metric at all.
Your net wage is the amount of money that has been negotiated as being the value of your labour.
Whether you see that agreement as being derived legally, or by negotiation, or by market forces, it does not change the fact that it is your net wage that everyone involved knows you will take home in compensation for your labour. Your net wage is the amount your employer thinks your labour is worth Your net wage is the amount you can obtain by marketing. Your net wage is the amount you're legally entitled to... Whatever means you use to determine remuneration it is your net wage that is being considered, the difference between that and your gross wage was never yours, not in negotiation, not legally, not by market value, nothing, It was always the government's.
The fact that you expect or assume a portion of my wage will (or should) be payed to the government is question-begging. Your expectations, assumptions, and other mental furniture do not factor into any contract unless it is written or stated explicitly and agreed upon. If there are such explicit expectations then maybe you can furnish an example.
While it is true that employment contracts often contain a note that a salary is subject to deductions and taxes, this is to inform the employee of what will happen to a portion of his salary, not to declare any right or property of the government. Employers deduct from an employee’s compensation because they face fine and punishment if they do not, not because that compensation is in fact the government’s property. And the question as to whose compensation they are deducting from is a silly one.
It doesn’t matter what “everyone involved knows you will take home in compensation for your labour” unless it is explicitly stated in the contract or agreement. Again, your assumptions, expectations, and what you think you know is merely question begging. The “gross wage” is what is agreed upon as the compensation. The “net wage” is what’s left over after the government has its way with it. If you and your employer negotiate $100,000 a year, that is the gross salary, the total from which taxes are deducted. It doesn’t mean you tacitly agreed to a less amount.
At any rate, payroll deductions and taxes are calculated after the wage is determined, as the determined wage is required to calculate the cost of deductions in the first place. These deductions are determined by the government, are enforced by coercion, in most cases extorted by fine or other penalties.
So if all parties agree to the wage, the wage is then payed for services rendered, the money will exchange hands from employer to employee, and what was once the employer’s property is now the employee’s property. Finally, the government takes the employee’s property.
Incorrect.
I don't think it is a stretch from philosophy to say this (do they call it realism? Not sure. Maybe I can be schooled on that). But let's just cut to the nut: We are taking other's money against their will under threat of force. If they don't like it, they can get the fuck out. The door is open, they are free to leave. It's not like we captured them, chained them, threw them on a ship and brought them here against their will. It's not like they were living here, minding their own business on their land, and we invaded their land, threw them on a reservation and stole all their shit. Oh, and if they are not Americans, living in America, and think this analysis doesn't apply to them? It does. We don't care where they live. It applies there too. Just ask those who tax.
P.S. In the mean time, they can quit using our shit. That would be hypocrisy, would it not?
:100:
You did do all of that. You enslaved human beings, committed genocide, transferred their wealth to yourself, and used the funds to consolidate your power and spread war.
I didn't do any of that. But I damn sure benefited from it, as did you and everyone else in the world.
Our treasury minister planned the so-called “solidarity tax” which consists on:
Two-year wealth tax that would apply to those who own more than €3 million in assets. The scheme would see around 23,000 people paying on a scale of between 1.7% and 3.5% of their riches in extraordinary taxes, according to the plan.
With that wealth tax, Spain hopes to raise around €1.5 billion annually from the country’s 0.1% most affluent segment.
In parallel, those earning more than €200,000 per year would see income taxes raised by one percentage point.
Meanwhile, small companies earning less than €1 million per year would see taxes decrease from 25% to 23% (23% of your revenue applied to taxes is still a lot...)
I still think we pay a lot of taxes here and in the other hand those benefits not always are good managed by the government.
Sy?d, if people are grumbling about taxes it means the government hasn't quite explained the rationale behind taxes. If income tax is say x%, the powers that be have to provide an exegesis on why x% and not y% or z%. If taxes vary with income, this too has to be thoroughly worked out and made public. If this isn't done, you'll never see the end of complaints about taxes. :snicker:
They never explain the rationale behind the taxes because they have the risk of losing votes. This is what makes me upset... The public expenditure only cares when national elections are coming up.
Sy?d, if governments can play around with taxes to win votes, it means taxes have no logic to them. I would recommend that taxes be well-reasoned to, eliminating a powerful bargaining chip from the politicians' arsenal.
Agreed! :up:
Quoting Agent Smith
I don't understand what does it mean but I like when you use that word
The forceful transfer of wealth from private to state hands is one of the less talked about tyrannies in human history. A little math might explain the apparent arbitrariness of the amount of taxation, and a budget of some sort might explain what the state plans to do with its newly found wealth, but nothing can explain away the unjust transfer of wealth, the outright theft, that is taxation.
A company earning more than a million has to give a quarter of what it earns to your government. To cover that cost while at the same time covering the overhead the best one can do is lower wages, raise prices, cut corners, lay people off, and so on, just to be able to pay such exorbitant prices. Even if we let the state get away with the act of theft, it’s hard to look past the effects all this has on the poorer among us who have to deal with the rise in the cost of living, a large amount of which is used to cover any offsetting. A tax on the rich is also a hidden tax on the poor, in this sense.
Yes and I think it is abusive. Nonetheless, socialists say this is the right thing to do... because the rich and businessmen need to be solidary with the working class or the poorest (meanwhile those taxes always end up to cover the costs of minorities... But this is a subject of a different topic). My country is a example of what happens when political correctness is in power.
Quoting NOS4A2
Conclusion: The state creates a thief model which pick up the private earnings of both businessman and workers to just feed their political lobbies.
Oh, and:
Taxation isn’t theft.
The problem is plutocracy. All the rest is window dressing.
Common sense is to pay 23 % of your earnings in taxes? I would call it expropriation, and that's what happens when political correctness rule a country.
Taxing the rich more is common sense, yes.
They should be paying even more. Or production should be nationalized— better than what we have now. My own aim is to have the workers take over production.
Political correctness has nothing to do with it.
It’s odd reasoning, if there is any reasoning in it at all. Solidarity with the working class will never result from raising someone’s taxes. It’s pure socialist propaganda.
I noticed they are slashing the 10% sales tax for feminine hygiene products. You’re right. Political correctness is in power.
But who do you consider as "rich"? Because those tax payers barely holds around 200.000 € in the bank. I consider them as a middle class workers not rich or millionaires.
Completely. Political correctness is a big problem inside a country's administration. It is a wasteful pit without control. There is a public administration called "equality ministry" and this lobby has promoted a law that when women has the period they have the right to stay at home until it finishes... imagine the recession of many industries which have female workers in.
“Two-year wealth tax that would apply to those who own more than €3 million in assets. The scheme would see around 23,000 people paying on a scale of between 1.7% and 3.5% of their riches in extraordinary taxes, according to the plan.”
I consider them rich. And they should be taxed much more.
Better yet, let the workers run the factories and companies themselves.
It’s no surprise that those who favor plutocracy— and who are anti-democratic through and through — find ways to condemn anything that benefits the majority of the country, or the world.
Now it’s “political correctness.” Come on.
I see it as impossible. Every factory or company needs a hierarchical structure. You can run a company when you know how to do it because you have a big knowledge on economics, law, strategy, etc... it is not so easy. I think it is populist to say that "all the owners or stakeholders are abusers of working class". That's not true.
Imagine you start a company based on print books. You need to hire some workers to help you to produce X number of copies. Are you a "tyrant" if you perceive more revenue than the workers when the company is yours? Come on...
Quoting Xtrix
Facts: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND.
GDP of USA: $25.35 trillion.
GDP of Spain: $1.435 trillion.
The GDP of your country is 24 points bigger than mine.
Do you still think a country ruled by socialism is a good idea? Taxing factories is common sense? Where? We are just a soft country with a mediocre economy.
Sy?d/Syat = Maybe/Perchance/Perhaps.
Visit anekantavada (non-one-sidedness) page, Wikipedia, for more.
Interesting terminology! :up:
I'm a big fan of skepticism. :grin:
Understandble and you are in the right path. It is normal to be sceptical in nowadays due to the spread of fake news in media and press.
Yeah but that’s mostly nonsense. You don’t need a plutocracy. You need organization and structure, sure. Perhaps even a hierarchy of responsibilities and roles — but one that’s set with worker input. Mondragon is a good example. Co ops generally are a good model.
So not only possible, but already done.
Quoting javi2541997
What does GDP have to do with anything? China has a bigger GDP too— so what? Should we be ruled by authoritarianism?
“Socialism” has become rather meaningless. The US has PLENTY of socialism— for the wealthy.
I have used it as an economical fact where it shows why some countries are wealthier than others. USA is an example that a country can works with private ownership and a few taxes because it is clearly a world leader towards industry and technology. Meanwhile, in Spain you would not get rich or wealthy. Our government is against private property and stakeholders.
Imagine the United States Secretary of the Treasury saying to Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, Real State owners, etc... to pay 23 or 25 % of their revenue in taxes. That would be expropriation and your country would not be as rich as it is nowadays.
Trust me: expropriation and tax abuse doesn't work. Just look at Latin American or ex Soviet countries.
Quoting Xtrix
It is a Rara avis country. They do not even know what they really are. Nevertheless, they are the primarily leaders of worldwide providers and suppliers. They created a very complex economical structure. China is subject of a different topic.
Neither is true. The US has socialism for the wealthy— whether it’s a leader in anything anymore is questionable.
China has high GDP too. By your argument, that should count for something and perhaps we should model ourselves after them.
Quoting javi2541997
It’s kind of ridiculous that on the one hand we’re supposed to accept that the US (and any other supposed “successful” country) is “capitalist,” but when China is mentioned things suddenly become very fuzzy. “Who knows what they are.” They know: they’re communist.
The US is far more socialist than China. The bailouts they’ve given to private tyrannies is second to none. There’s been a wealth transfer of 20+ trillion dollars over the last 40 years to the top .1%. That’s real socialism for you. If only we had given them a taste of “free market capitalism.”
Quoting javi2541997
I don’t have to imagine. The corporate tax rate in the US has averaged about 32%, and at one point the income tax for individuals making $1.7 million or couples making $3.4 million (adjusted for todays dollars) was upwards of 94%. The top rate today is about 39%.
But the wealthy always find ways around these taxes.
When society is being destroyed so that a few people can have more money than the bottom 50% of the WORLD population, I’d say it’s time to do something. Higher taxes on wealth is a good start. I hear no alternative suggestions from you.
No. They are not communist since the 1990s. The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up is the program of economic reforms termed "Socialism (?) with Chinese characteristics" led by Deng Xiaoping, often credited as the "General Architect". In 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and in 2017 overtook the United States by becoming the world's largest economy by GDP. Only a capitalist country can reach such improvements in just two decades.
Quoting Xtrix
It is not a good start and here is another solution I put on the table: spending cuts
If we are living difficult times with inflation and prices rising, it is time to remove all the things that make debt to the state's budget. So, it is needed to reduce the public expenditure.
For example: Highways and transport (instead of 5 buses, we only let 3 buses per hour). Local authority spending (reduce the number of seats in Congress, Senate, City hall, etc... or less number of ministers and secretaries). Centralisation (all the public organisms or buildings relocated to the capital city instead of having a lot of public representatives along the country)
I know this would sound "selfish" but yes, it is necessary to freeze pension payments. We can be attached a big public debt if we decide to increase it among the consumer price index.
As you see there are a lot ways to reduce national debt. Raising taxes to stakeholders or businessmen is not the solution. They even would transfer their money to a tax heaven country anyway...
Yes. They’re communist.
Quoting javi2541997
Yes, they are.
Quoting javi2541997
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Citing a Wikipedia entry doesn’t do much to change that.
First: China is a communist country, ruled by a communist government. I wouldn’t call it truly communist myself, but that’s what they claim. Whatever we call it, however, it’s not democratic or republican form of government.
Second: there’s been massive state intervention in the economy on all levels. Almost all business is state owned and run. But because you’re apparently a capitalist fundamentalist, because there’s been success in China it must somehow be due to “capitalism.”
A nice story to tell yourself. Anything bad = Socialism. Anything good = capitalism. Simple, easy, and complete bullshit. See Ha-Joon Chang to educate yourself, if of course you’re willing to break out of neoliberal delusions.
Lastly, the US is a mixed economy— like nearly all countries. Many economists describe it as a bailout economy, with heavy socialism for the wealthy. Hardly a role model.
Quoting javi2541997
Right, more neoliberal nonsense that’s been tried for 40 years and has been a complete disaster. Because “cuts” always means social programs.
But yeah, sure, let’s cut the military budget by 90%. That’ll more than pay for what we need. I won’t hold my breath for that suggestion.
Quoting javi2541997
Terrible idea. We need the opposite: more and better public transportation. Good for the environment, and what people want.
Quoting javi2541997
There it is. In predictable fashion.
What a shocker there was no mention of military expenditure — the most bloated of all discretionary spending. I wonder why?
Quoting javi2541997
Yeah, so in your world what’s needed is for everyone else to tighten their belts, lose their pensions, and live even shittier and more precarious lives.
But let’s not dare tax billionaires.
By the way, you’re misusing “stakeholder.” Either you mean to say “shareholder,” or you’re not making sense. Stakeholders include employees and the community.
I think you are mixing politics and law with economics. Yes, China is a communist/Marxist country which controls all the population with induration and persecution.
In the other hand, from a economical point of view, they act as a pseudo capitalist country. It doesn't matter how the state can take part in the market because as I said previously, they are the first developers and producers of the world. It doesn't make sense to be a "Marxist economy" while your GDP increases each year thanks to the principles of world trade and international market.
Cuba (for example) is another Marxist country. They are poor as hell and their economy has no future. Exactly for doing old communist acts as expropriation and removing the private property. This is a real communist country, not like China.
Quoting Xtrix
I knew you would be agree with me towards spending cuts.
Quoting Xtrix
Because in Spain we are not used to spend in military forces. That's why I forgot to put it in my examples. But yes, I am agree it is another expenditure which needs spending cuts.
Quoting Xtrix
According to your own criteria, how can we live "good?" Before answering, think deeply if the state can assume the way of life you are referring in your "world"
Quoting Xtrix
I am not neoliberal. I am just sceptical on the way a state is wasting resources and increasing the taxes on the middle-class workers.
No, they’re not capitalist. They’re not pseudo-capitalist either. Attributing their successes to capitalism is meaningless. It’s a state-directed economy with extensive state intervention in the economy at every level. To call that “capitalist” is absurd. The only reason for doing so is the irrational belief that capitalism (whatever it means) is a universal good.
China rejected neoliberal policies. The reforms in the 70s and 80s may be said to be neoliberal in part, because of reliance on foreign investments and markets, but that has nothing to do with neoliberalism.
So again, if not neoliberal — then how is it capitalist? It’s a state-directed economy. The state is a communist one. Yet somehow communism doesn’t get credited with pulling millions out of poverty and achieving growth rates that blow the US out of the water? Odd…
Quoting javi2541997
So an economy is only Marxist if it’s failed, poor, and has no future. Otherwise it can’t be Marxist— it’s gotta be something else…it’s gotta be capitalist, at least economically.
Is this really an argument?
Sorry, but you really don’t really know what you’re talking about. There’s a lot of literature to read on this if you’re interested. Ha-Joon Chang, Alice Amsden, Robert Wade, etc.
It would do you well to broaden your perspective. You’ve been brainwashed if you truly can’t see how silly this is.
Quoting javi2541997
By providing healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing for people. Plenty of work to be done. This creates jobs and growth too.
Or we can decide to allow the wealthiest people to continue to collect 90% of business profits and accumulate more wealth than the bottom 50% of the world population. Ignoring this is ignoring the problem— and so far you’ve ignored it and instead talk about spending cuts, which is more trickle-down economic / neoliberal talking points.
Quoting javi2541997
I haven’t once mentioned taxes for middle class workers. I’m talking about taxing the wealthy, and I’ve defined what I mean by “wealthy.”
The state does indeed waste resources — because the state is run by corporations and the wealthy. Which is why passing wealth taxes is so hard. That too needs to change. As does the propaganda that says that the state is the problem— it isn’t. The problem is greed and plutocracy.
It's a mixed economy. They gave a very robust and powerful private sector.
Meaningless? Are you serious about such claim? Ok let's check the facts and statistics about Chinese GDP and economy in both Mao's China and Aperture China in the 1990s.
The Economy of China under Mao's leadership (1949 -1969): The economy of Communist China. [i]When the Chinese Communists assumed power in October 1949, they inherited an economy that can be called backward by any quantitative criterion. Prolonged external war and subsequent civil strife had inflicted immeasurable damage. Confronting this
situation, the new government set forth two major economic goals: first, to restore the deteriorated economy as soon as possible, and second, to begin a rapid, forced-draft industrialization program to break the vicious cycle of backwardness and poverty. In the course of industrialization, the economy experienced acute inbalances, strains, and supply bottlenecks, which forced the planners to alter their scheme. In terms of scale of priority, rate of capital formation, and investment technique, the development strategies followed between 1949 and 1969 can be roughly divided into four consecutive stages.[/i] (I will not quote all the stages because the post will be so long but you can see it in the link I have provided previously)
Chinese pseudo capitalism (as I said): Since the late 1970s, China has undergone transition towards a market economy. In terms of economic growth, China has achieved an impressive record. The average annual growth of GDP per capita was as high as 8.4 per cent during the period 1978 to 1997. The human development index also indicates an improvement in well-being on the average for the Chinese population (UNDP 1998). China has become strongly integrated into the world economy. China's exports grew an average of 16.7 per cent per annum over the last two decades. China absorbed US$205 billion as foreign direct investment during the period 1990-97. Transition towards a market economy and openness has not been without its problems. link: Changing income distribution in China
Quoting Xtrix
Give one example of successful Marxist economy.
Quoting Xtrix
You would need wealthy companies and entrepreneurs to do so. A sick poor state cannot promote all what you are asking about. Whenever the state can't assume the debt it starts to raise the taxes to those who work hard to promote infrastructure and education. It is like an endless vicious circle.
Quoting Xtrix
So, according to you, the state always wins and acts ethically. That's despotism and it is even worse...
Exactly.
How?
We could let them sure, but what compels them? Or are you suggesting we leave it up to chance? If not, talk me through the mechanism which ensures everyone has adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing via "wealthy companies and entrepreneurs".
I know it is a simplistic example. But what I want to argue is that we should not be so sceptical with private sectors.
Quoting Isaac
No. We can reach successful businesseses using the reason and strategic plans. Promoting laws where the private sector can act according to comprehensive benefits and try to avoid the interaction of the state the less possible.
Quoting Isaac
Not everyone can take part on it because not everyone deserves it. Everyone having the right of taking part in those goods is a typical fallacy of socialism/Marxism ideologies.
Yes. Might as well attribute the success to God.
Quoting javi2541997
Why? No one is claiming there hasn't been a change in GDP. We're talking about what we're attributing it to. That's a complicated question, and one you haven't looked into much. Waving our hands and saying "It's because of capitalism" is, as I said before, meaningless.
Unless we want to attribute any economic success to the amorphous term "capitalism." But then, again, you might as well attribute it to God.
Quoting javi2541997
Give one example of a successful capitalist economy.
Meaningless.
Quoting javi2541997
That's like saying you need guys like Bill Gates and Microsoft to have the Internet. Complete nonsense.
Who said anything about a "poor, sick state"? What I had in mind was the United States. A pretty wealthy country, all things considered. What's the excuse there?
Quoting javi2541997
"Wins" what? States don't act -- people act. What people, who comprise a government, do is influenced by the wealthy and powerful in any country -- some more than others. In the US, it's a joke. Both parties are essentially beholden to corporate interests. The republican party is unapologetically corporatist; they make the democrats look reasonable, even though the last 40 years they've abandoned the working class.
But no -- I'm not saying anything like that.
Japan and South Korea.
Quoting Xtrix
I don't understand this argument...
Quoting Xtrix
You are contradictory here. Because you said previously that we should limit the wealth of rich people. But now you are claiming that everything works thanks to people. Well, inside this criteria of "people" there are rich too. You don't like corporate interests but the only way to avoid it is with expropriation or the limitation of the market and the pure control of the state on every economic reform.
Quoting Xtrix
But it is a fact that they increased their economy thanks to the transition to a market economy. If this is not capitalism, what economical system we are talking about? Plot twist: it is not socialism...
I'm sure they can. My question was what mechanism ensured they actually did.
Quoting javi2541997
I see. So what is it that entitles someone to adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing?
A consumers' co-operative could be a good mechanism. Everyone takes part in the project of developing healthcare, infrastructure, education programs, transport, etc... with a common stock.
People who join cooperatives often have the same shared values, meaning they are willing to work together towards a common goal. One of those goals is to create a better services by working together and by shifting the focus of the business to place people over profit to build a more inclusive economy.
Quoting Isaac
I understand those "rights" or goods are so difficult to measure. What I wanted to say is that I consider unfair the fact of how many people who don't do anything for the state still consuming the benefits of it. I guess someone is entitled to take advantage of education or infrastructure (for example) when he/she is a formidable citizen who works or studies hard, doesn't commit crimes, respect the authority, etc... everything what we should expect from a regular citizen in a democratic country.
But... do you know what? Even the prisoners take part of the resources of the state because each convicted costs around 2.000 € per month. It is crazy... there are salaries of honest people lower than that digit.
Again, I didn't ask how it might happen. I asked how we ensure it actually does.
Quoting javi2541997
Who would those be then?
Quoting javi2541997
So someone who inherited their wealth ought have it taken away, as they don't deserve it, yes?
Or someone who worked only moderately hard but got lucky should only get the keep the proportion of their wealth which reflects their work, but not their luck?
And all the white collar crime - the tax dodging, the insider trading, the backhand payments, shell companies, illegal trading.... Those people should all have their wealth taken away too, as they don't deserve it either?
....I think we might be beginning to agree.
Quoting javi2541997
...with...
Quoting javi2541997
Doesn't sound very respectful of the authority. Or did you have a different authority in mind?
Respecting and keeping the law. Simple.
Quoting Isaac
Convicted criminals, lazy people who spend their money in gambling and drugs, all of those who don't respect the basic laws and pillars of a democratic state.
Quoting Isaac
No. All of those who inherited their wealth are just taking advantage of all the efforts did by their parents, grandparents, etc... otherwise, it would be expropriation.
Quoting Isaac
I am agree with you in this point.
Quoting Isaac
Judges, Courts, police officers, prosecutors, lawyers, military officers, and all the authorities who ensure the application of law.
I mean it is so easy to find out some authorities. Just look at what political correctness is against.
Go on... Which laws ensure adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing and how do they do so?
Quoting javi2541997
So most stock exchange workers, bankers, CEOs...where gambling, illegal prostitution and cocaine use are endemic?
Quoting javi2541997
Are they? What about if those parents/grandparents merely inherited their wealth? And even if they didn't, the people in question are still taking advantage of someone else's hard work. That contradicts your statement that those deserving of adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing are those who...
Quoting javi2541997
Quoting javi2541997
So let's start there then. The volumes if money involved in white collar crime dwarf welfare payments by whole orders of magnitude. Why are taxes your target?
Quoting javi2541997
Why?
Exactly. Their command economy was stagnant and left hundreds of millions of people in extreme poverty. Transitioning to a private, profit based system turned things around dramatically. For all it's faults, we have to give this to capitalism: it works.
Positive laws published in codes. If there are some doubts on their application we can ask to the Supreme Court to establish a basic sense of basic positive law. This is called jurisprudence and it is very effective in terms of helping the law operators and authorities to achieve those benefits and goods such as: adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, etc…
Quoting Isaac
No. When I said I exclude them? In the other hand… why do you think all CEOs or bankers act viciously or waste their resources on gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc…?
Quoting Isaac
Because at the end of the day taxes only affects middle class workers. It is unfair. At least, if we cannot get rid of taxation we have to find out a system that is not oppressive to the wealth of normal/regular workers. You say we should prosecute billionaires for tax fraud but there are a lot of workers who would suffer the consequences. Those billionaires or CEOs would put their headquarters in a tax heaven countries and we will end up in a scenario of not collecting anything…
Yet taxation affect people who only have around 150.000 or 200.000 € in your bank. That’s a regular digit that you would get along your life.
Quoting Isaac
Because they are authorities who promote the application of law. We should not disrespect them. If we start to not to value those operators we will end up in a chaotic society.
I don’t like how taxation is based so I will start to not paying it This sounds stupid right?. It is a typical argument which comes from someone who doesn’t like righteousness.
Note: as I said in a previous post to Xtrix, I am not neo liberal. I am skeptical about how the state waste all the resources while chokes the middle workers instead of promote the spending cuts
I couldn’t have said it better :sparkle: :up:
Which ones? And how do they work?
Quoting javi2541997
You said....
Quoting javi2541997
... I asked...
Quoting Isaac
...you replied...
Quoting javi2541997
...so I assume you include the majority of bankers stock traders and CEOs who use prostitutes and cocaine? Or engage in illegal trading, or tax avoidance, or insider trading, or any other illegal activity, yes?
Quoting javi2541997
Workers would also suffer consequences if we don't. So?
Quoting javi2541997
You do know where most tax avoidance comes from don't you?
Positive laws based on taxation, the role of taxpayers, limits on the fees of each payer, compensations if they have personal issues (handicapped persons for example)
It is easy how they work. It is mandatory since they are published in a public bulletin. In my humble opinion, it is easy to respect the law if we see it in a objective/positive way.
Quoting Isaac
But why do you assume all CEOs act viciously or against the law? We can consider a "CEO" a normal person who owns a business of exporting vegetables for example. Not all CEOs are rich...
Quoting Isaac
Better collecting a brief taxation than nothing...
In the other hand, why you do you assume the CEOs always "win" and the workers always "lose"?
They win or lose on what? I only see a common responsible and it is the spendthrift state.
Quoting Isaac
Well it is still an enigma. I will not say the responsibility of tax avoidance is always on CEOs shoulders.
Neither are capitalist. Not even close.
Quoting javi2541997
The point is that the word capitalism is as meaningless as the word God.
Quoting javi2541997
The “only way”?
No. Corporations are the creations of states. Their interests can be avoided in multiple ways. One of the better ways is to make them co-ops, like the Mondragon Corporation in your country. That’s a good example: let the workers own the company. That’s one example of an alternative.
Quoting javi2541997
First, that’s far from a “fact.” That you’ve read it from the opening paragraph of one article doesn’t make it factual.
Second, markets exist in any society. If the existence of markets and private property is the criteria for defining capitalism, then Cuba is capitalist too. (But it’s “failing,” so I guess it can’t be.)
For the umpteenth time: “capitalism” and “socialism” are so amorphous as to be meaningless.
Attributing China’s state-directed economy’s successes to “capitalism” is just childish and stupid. The only thing it shows is that the person making such a claim doesn’t have a clue about what capitalism is, and has defined it into oblivion. I’d suggest reading the sources I’ve mentioned.
Why not just make it easier: any successful economy is a capitalist economy. Any failed economy is a socialist or communist economy. Heads I win, tails you lose. Brilliant.
God is undefeated, according to them.
Same is true of the apologists for capitalism: successful economy? Capitalism! Simple principle.
Take a look at Chile under Pinochet’s “reforms.” I guess the disaster must be attributed to something else. Can’t be capitalism, because capitalism always wins.
Go on then... You've yet to connect any law by any mechanism to ensuring the provision of adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing.
Quoting javi2541997
I don't. Drug use and illegal behaviour is nonetheless rife in those fields. You claimed that such people did not deserve adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing. They nonetheless have such things, so a tax on those people would be just, no?
Plus you've neglected to answer the question about how the wealthy 'deserve' their inherited wealth when they haven't met your criteria of someone who...
Quoting javi2541997
But let's start with those laws. If you can show how a low tax government can ensure adequate healthcare, education, infrastructure, public transportation, and housing without taxing the rich then we're good. The rich can keep their money if everyone is adequately housed, fed and cared for.
One example out of 1,000 which really works. Mondragon is a tiny city in Basque Country. Yes, the use the co-ops model and it works but it is easier if you do not have a big number of employees. Imagine using this way on macro business as Zara or Microsoft with thousands and thousands of employees.
Quoting Xtrix
The markets and property don't exist in Cuba.
Quoting Xtrix
I still waiting for an example of a successful socialist economy. I put a lot of examples of successful economies which operate on market and capitalism but you just considered them as "meaningless"
If you consider "meaningless" the huge development of Japan and South Korea is your problem not mine.
Quoting Xtrix
I think you are not aware of how lucky you are of living in a developed country as the USA. If you don't like capitalism, you can try another life in Cuba, Bolivia, Angola, etc...
Looks like a market and some property to me
As a punishment, yes why not. Nevertheless, I never said the CEOs should not be taxed. I just complain about how taxation works. Collecting a lot of money through taxation don't lead us to solve all the problems. That's fake.
Quoting Isaac
I don't pretend to remove all taxations but reduce the fees or the payment. You are misunderstanding. I am complaining because paying around 25 % or more of your revenue in taxes is abusive. 5 % or 10 % would be OK.
But I going to use an example of how we can ensure those goods without abusive taxation.
Education = Private schools and universities are always there. You pay a fee to join such educational system.
Infrastructure = I already put the example. We can let some companies to build up the highways. They assume the management and administration. We the citizens only pay for this service whenever we use it.
Houses = it is always better to let the real state companies to do so. Public administrations only speculate with the price of houses and plots. This is a big fact indeed.
What about those who can't afford the fee?
Quoting javi2541997
What about those who can't afford the fee?
Quoting javi2541997
What about those who can't afford the price?
If you call that as "markets" this is prosperity then:
So pessimistic. I guess everyone can afford those basic fees...
Quoting Isaac
There always will be people who can afford it. You arguments are pessimistic and catastrophic. I am talking about purchasing a normal home not a yacht or helicopter...
And in the US...
Quoting javi2541997
I see we've descended into lunacy. Well, it was a pleasant chat...
Microsoft has consulted with Mondragon, in fact.
What does the number of employees have to do with it? I think Wall Mart workers do just fine without the input of the Walton family.
Quoting javi2541997
Both markets and private property exist in Cuba. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Quoting javi2541997
I’m still waiting for an example of a successful capitalist economy.
That you continue to miss the point isn’t my problem. I’ve been fairly explicit.
Quoting javi2541997
I haven’t once denied the development of either. Nor of China.
Quoting javi2541997
The US isn’t capitalist.
Oh you mean like this:
Yeah, Cuba is pretty bad.
Oh wait, that’s the US.
Again? I already pointed out Japan and South Korea as a good examples of developed nations but you consider them as "meaningless". I think the one who is missing the point is you because you think that a country like Cuba has markets and private property. How do you know that? Because the official website of the dictatorship say so? Come on... they don't even have medical supplies.
Quoting Xtrix
What is "meaningless" according to you then?
Quoting Xtrix
Yes, in USA poverty exists too. But it is not even compared to Cuba... more facts (which you would treat them as "meaningless")
40-51% of the Cuban people live in poverty.. Literally the half of the population.
In 2020 the poverty rate of USA was 11.4%.
Roughly more than a 10 % of Americans.
Yes both countries are so similar... come on man.
Thank you for debating with me. Appreciated it.
Quoting Isaac
The US too ;) (waiting for images of Cuba like the following ones)
Japan and South Korea are not meaningless.
They are not capitalist.
Quoting javi2541997
Because Cuba does have markets and private property.
Quoting javi2541997
They have medical supplies as well.
So are you just going to talk nonsense now? If so, I’m not interested.
Quoting javi2541997
Try reading what I wrote again.
But if that’s too hard, I’ll repeat it yet again: the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” are so amorphous as to be meaningless.
Quoting javi2541997
I didn’t say they were similar, I was just highlighting how stupid it is to point to pictures of poverty as if it means anything. The reason for Cuba’s poverty isn’t socialism or communism.
The statistics you give are estimates, but there’s a lot of poverty in Cuba, no doubt. The United States has helped create that poverty, in fact. For decades. You can read about this, of course.
So now you want to compare pictures? Are you 15?
Simple google search of Cuba:
Looks good to me. I guess that proves something…
What next? Should we measure penis sizes?
:roll:
Try growing up and educating yourself before embarrassing yourself online repeatedly. Deal?
According to your own economical criteria what the hell are they? Because they are so far for being communist. If you want to see a good indicator just check the differences between North and South Korea. It will terrify you...
Quoting Xtrix
What is the main issue of Cuban poverty then? They are been living in a establishment which they cannot get rid of. It is damn dictatorship. I think it would be shameless not to point Bolivarian communism for being responsible of the main problems and calamities of Cuban people.
Quoting Xtrix
No, they haven't. Go on and search some information about Cuban markets or private property. Oh you will not find it because it is an opaque dictatorship. It is impossible to find data.
Quoting Xtrix
Those are fake and have a lot of Photoshop.
Quoting Xtrix
Only if you leave of your comfort democratic capitalist zone and go to Cuba to prove how good they are living there :yum:
Somebody needs to tell Honda they're state owned. :lol:
:rofl: ! HAHA.
Nintendo, Toyota, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Suzuki, Sony, Fujitsu, etc… all of them are controlled by the Japanese diet and the sacred figure of the Emperor :joke:
He's a genius!
I never said they were communist.
Japan too developed as a state-directed economy, with a huge shot in the arm from the Korean and Vietnam wars.
There’s plenty of literature on the true history of development: Ha-Joon Chang, Alice Amsden, Robert Wade, many others. The fact that from England, to the US, to Europe and Japan and the recent Asian “tigers,” large-scale state intervention and radical interference with markets has been a leading factor in economic development. In the US it’s so extreme that it’s laughable.
So they’re mixed economies— like the rest of the world.
Quoting javi2541997
The United States.
Quoting javi2541997
Cuba has both markets and private property. That’s a fact. You can do a simple Google search to educate yourself.
Or continue embarrassing yourself. Your choice.
Quoting javi2541997
I’ve been to Cuba. I liked it a lot, actually. I like Jamaica as well. I noticed a lot more poverty in Jamaica, but both were nice.
So let me know when you’ve done the bare minimum of homework on issues you have no clue about.
Or feel free to continue spouting nonsense. Your call.
Two mental giants. One thinks Cuba has no markets or private property, the other thinks the existence of a corporation proves the economy is “capitalist.” :lol:
The Japanese government is very much a servant of private owned industry. This gives Japanese companies a bit of an advantage over American ones where there's the legacy of conflict between government and manufacturing.
Quoting Xtrix
omg. Please stop
There's no need to get personal. :lol:
Possibly helpful:
A nice non sequitur. Feel free to read what was said and try again:
Quoting Xtrix
Sure. Japan and S. Korea are capitalist countries. That statement does not entail that the government has no role in the economy. It just means industry is privately owned and profit driven as opposed to a centrally planned.
We're only talking about this because you want to divert from your misinformation about China. China's prosperity is a direct result of the adoption of capitalism. Again, this is not controversial.
Average argument of a socialist. The United States of America is guilty of all the disasters of this world. Keep with your brainwashed claims!
Quoting Xtrix
Yes, ok. We can be agree here. They are mixed but closer to capitalism than other economical doctrine.
Quoting Xtrix
Hey, one advice: do not believe in everything you find out in internet or Google. 90 % of data are fake news or Marxist liars who want to spread their fundamentalism.
Quoting Xtrix
Conclusion: you enjoy poverty and you see formidable the struggle of a country which suffers from dictatorship. Cool.
At least Jamaica is a democracy and they can vote whatever they want. Or you will now that Cuba is more democratic than Jamaica? Because you seem obsessed with this country.
At least we recognize Japan and South Korea as capitalist countries and we condemn communism and the Cuban dictatorship. I think we are in the right path not like you.
:up:
One of the main important facts of this debate indeed. But according to Xtrix China becoming the most powerful country in the world thanks to the aperture to market and capitalism is just meaningless.
Quoting javi2541997
Quoting javi2541997
Quoting javi2541997
Quoting javi2541997
:ok:
“Or feel free to continue spouting nonsense. Your call.”
So you went with this option. Oh well!
It's very meaningful. Capitalism is a two edged sword. Capitalist economies tend to run hot. When the population adapts to a hot economy, there's pressure on the political system to keep it hot. Sooner or later it will melt down.
Bottom line: capitalism is dangerous, but it does create prosperity. That's the reason it's so enduring.
Sure. Japan and South Korea are socialist countries.
Quoting frank
Massive state intervention on every level is…capitalism. Got it.
Quoting frank
:lol:
China isn’t capitalist either.
But you’re welcome to your fantasies.
How can you prove with facts that Japan has massive state intervention? You don’t stop to replicate this argument but you are not proving it.
Quoting Xtrix
Educate yourself please: What Is the Laffer Curve?
Anyway- This thread is a good example of how important (and clearly unexamined) one’s self-serving definitions are. And how quickly capitalist apologists devolve into laughable incoherence.
Successful economy? That’s capitalism.
Failed economy? Socialism.
Easy. Simple.
This is the level of thinking among supposed adults on a philosophy forum. ::shrug::
You could engage others in discussion to find out what they really think. And grow a sense of humor...
Sure. And you could keep your Twitter-level posts out of conversations in which you’re not involved and have no interest in keeping up with. So I guess we can all improve ourselves! :wink:
sigh
Why the Laffer Curve Is Garbage
The GDP of Japan and South Korea holds the 8 % GDP of the entire world. Meanwhile Cuba only 0.12 %. You will not imagine who are the capitalists in the equation.
Quoting Xtrix
It is my thread not yours. @frank can argue whatever he wants. At least he sees the amazing developments of China. Something you seem not to understand what is the cause yet.
Your obsessed with the capital, Jesus! You are delusional if you think we solve everything taxing the damn capital. Leave the capital earners alone!
Quoting Xtrix
Imagine calling “nonsense” to a scientific research which takes years to develop it.
Are you opposed to income tax? Or just capital gains taxes? Or what?
I am opposed to abusive taxation in both income and capital gains. I just want to justify that we can live formidably with less fees of taxation
Are taxes abusively high where you are?
Yes. They are so abusively high. Our socialist government is destroying the middle class.
Is this driven by Brussels?
No. Brussels even recommends to Spain to try to reduce the debt with "inderect" taxes such as "Value-added tax" and not by taxing income or capital earnings.
A value-added tax would fall on manufacturers? Maybe Spain is afraid that would chase off jobs producers?
Why the heavy emphasis on reducing debt?
Because the European Comission is worried about the high debt of Spain. Between 2011 and 2018 a conservative government promoted spending cuts policies, reduce taxes on incomes and collecting as much as possible from indirect taxation. This policy was welcomed by European countries as Austria and other European commissioners.
But since the new government is ruling the country they are doing exactly the opposite. They have increased many points the income taxes because the president and treasury minister think that the previous measures only benefit the richest citizens. I am not agree at all. For example: My parents paid around 28 % or 30 % of their income in taxes five or six years ago. But now the percentage increased to 43 % because it is time to be solidary with the rest of the citizens. I don't consider my family as "rich"as to pay such amount of taxes. I see it unfair.
Quoting frank
No at all because those taxes are paid ofently. It is worse the capital earning tax because those entrepreneurs have to pay 23 or 25 % of their revenue in taxes each year...
It sounds like your family is pretty well off?
No, we are not. I promise we are a normal middle class family. I don't even understand why the fees increased that much in contrast to their income
It's a bad idea to diminish the economic standing of the middle class. I'm guessing the tax was meant for the rich, but the rich were able to shove it down hill to the middle class. That's not good.
The line between middle class and rich is vanishing. It is difficult to distinguish a real rich person from a middle class worker. For example: I do not consider "rich" a person who owns 200.000 € in the bank. It is an amount of money you can earn working hard along your life
Spain doesn't have a wealthy elite?
Not as other countries such as Japan or USA. Yes we have an elite but these are only bourgeois persons whose rents come from king's favours or Fraco's era.
I see.
Tax hike plan for defense spending OK’d, despite lack of schedule
Kishida on Dec. 8 announced that Japan would need 1 trillion yen (ONE F*CKING TRILLION) ($7.3 billion) more in tax revenue by fiscal 2027 to fund the defense spending increase of 17 trillion yen over the five-year period from fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2027.
Although the research commission agreed that personal income, corporate and cigarette taxes would be raised, it put off until next year a decision on when those increases would kick in.
The government, in turn, could end up planning specific programs and projects to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities amid uncertainties overhow the measures will be paid for.
Under the research commission’s plan, a 1-percent tax will be tacked on to the personal income tax to pay for defense, while the special tax for reconstruction from the 2011 natural disasters will be cut from 2.1 percent to 1.1 percent.
The cigarette tax will be gradually raised for a total hike of 3 yen per cigarette.
For fiscal 2027, the government and ruling coalition are seeking to secure between 700 billion yen and 800 billion yen in corporate taxes and about 200 billion yen each in cigarette and personal income taxes.
But with no specific start for the tax hikes, it is unclear if those figures can be reached.
Japan to increase defense budget by ¥1 trillion in fiscal 2023
The ease with which a government can squeeze money from the citizen’s wealth is profound. You just tack it on and you’re 1 trillion yen richer.
Zelensky's selfishness and Putin's incompetence is destroying all the savings of workers in many countries.
Defense is more acceptable than any other expenditure, and is arguably one of the few jobs of government worth paying for. Anything else would be much worse, in my opinion.
Here in Canada the government is raising taxes all the time. We’re getting a beer tax here in April, for heavens sake. Meanwhile the government sends vast sums of cash to other governments. It just sent Ukraine $115 million so the country can fix its electrical grid, while here the government services such as healthcare and policing are struggling to do their most basic tasks.
And don't forget about "mystery" inflation that just so happens to evaporate government debts at the expense of the citizen's buying power.
And spending never slows…
Never will... it is frustrating to see how modern states borrow themselves far more than they can afford.
It is true that in Spanish perspective is different. Sadly, our sh*t ass tourism economy says that you are rich if you earn more than 65.000 € per year. We are clearly poorer than Japan. They are the 3rd economy of the world and we are 16th.
A filthy pit of tourism and restaurants.
But hey this is not about richness but efficiency: while Japanese government offers 7.500 euros to help families live outside Tokyo, here our reckless government only offers 200€ to pay a rent. Our politicians don't care about us and they waste the public spending in stupid stuff.
You are grossly overestimating the cost of living in Tokyo compared to say Madrid (and Barcelona is pretty close to that). That's, as far as I know, the most expensive city in Spain.
On 65k EUR I could comfortably live in Amsterdam and support 2 kids and a wife, which is more expensive than Tokyo (and Madrid) but not stay in the best neighbourhood. Median income in the Netherlands is about 40k (pre-tax) in the Netherlands. So yes, 65k EUR is "rich" - especially if you move to the suburbs or away from the most expensive parts of the biggest cities. I think you're spending too much time on Instagram and have a skewed idea of what rich is. Rich is being able to provide comfortably for a family. It's not having a second home, a yacht and a bugatti.
The 1 million yen per child offered by the Japanese government is not to meet cost of living but a one-off incentive for families to move out of Tokyo to less populated and ageing areas. It's not comparable to rent support at all.
I don't have instagram...
Quoting Benkei
I am agree, when did I considered rich was the ability to buy a yacht?
Again, it is not about the notion about what is being rich but efficiency with public spending. For example:
Mark Rutte was sceptic about European Funds (also called as "Next Generation") aimed at Spanish crisis. He had a lot of doubts regarding our public expenditure and ability to control the waste of money by corrupt politicians. I was completely agree with your PM. Probably in Netherlands the economy is built and controlled with more sense but here is the opposite.
So, taxing the middle class without a serious control would only make the disappearance of it.
You put a good example: "Rich is being able to
provide comfort in a family". Exactly, but here our government is not doing so. Something is going wrong when we pay a lot of taxes but the public administration is not capable of promoting houses for families or increasing the salaries of the workers for being able to raise kids...
I understand from your post though that taxes aren't the issue but how the government spends its money. I think I already stated early on in this thread that the really relevant question is: what should governments do? And then in a democracy we say that's whatever people vote for. Resulting in a situation where nobody gets what they want nor believes the government does what it should and everybody complains (even the filthy rich!). The alternatives are living in authoritarian regimes, where an elite gets what they want, one way or the other but not likely either of us will be in the winning side. Long live democracy I suppose...
Edit; correction, 85% and 52%, more or less.
Every government has corruption. It is something wrong have to accept. I don't know how to explain it but when politicians reach the power they get corrupt.
But, one of the paradoxes here, is the fact that Spain when was ruled by a very corrupt political party, our economy was between 10th and 7th worldwide and the salaries were ok. The current government kicked out the previous one just for being corrupt not in terms of efficiency. This is why there are some Spaniards who have nostalgia about the previous prime minister. So it is interesting, there are people who rather have corrupt politicians than useless ones.
In the other hand, please let me show you a good example of efficient politics.
Naoto Kan was the PM of Japan when Fukushima nuclear disaster took place. Kan was always been a politician focused in the ending of Japanese nuclear power. After the disaster, his reputation had decreased a lot. Nonetheless, before his resignation (just the act of resign is very honourable) he approved two important laws in japanese parliament to help the people recover from this disgrace. After the resignation, he said sorry to japanese citizens for not reaching the end of nuclear power.
He told a parliamentary investigation in 2012 that the nuclear industry had "shown no remorse" for the disaster, and was trying to push Japan back to nuclear power.
This man is a good example of a politician: honesty and efficiency for the people. Naoto Kan.
(I am even nearly in tears while writing this)
It reminds me of the universe 25 experiments with mice basically.
I couldn't have said it better.
one of the main problems is our educational system. We don't have the culture of group and community. If Japanese people were able to recover from TWO nuclear bomb attacks is due to their millennial culture. They quickly thought that they only way to promote themselves was act collectively. Now: they are a country to consider of without any doubt.
I wish we copy more aspects of japanese culture rather than stupid "survival" or "entrepreneurs" savage capitalism prism...
[quote="Thomas Sowell, "Trickle Down" Theory and "Tax Cuts for the Rich", Hoover Institution Press, 2012,"]The very idea that profits "trickle down" to workers depicts the economic sequence of events in the opposite order from that in the real world. Workers must first be hired, and commitments made to pay them, before there is any output produced to sell for a profit, and independently of whether that output subsequently sells for a profit or at a loss. With many investments, whether they lead to a profit or a loss can often be determined only years later, and workers have to be paid in the meantime, rather than waiting for profits to "trickle down" to them. The real effect of tax rate reductions is to make the future prospects of profit look more favorable, leading to more current investments that generate more current economic activity and more jobs.
Those who attribute a trickle-down theory to others are attributing their own misconception to others, as well as distorting both the arguments used and the hard facts about what actually happened after the recommended policies were put into effect.[/quote]
According to the authors this is a “conceptual problem”, later viewing it condescendingly as a confused delusion. They explain:
In following their reasoning one can end up at a cross-road, maybe a dead end. There is no government without taxes, and no taxes without government. There is no market without government, and no government without a market. At what point on this circle should we jump on and jump off?
They explain in the following passage:
The circle is squared. The tax system is not an “incursion on a distribution of property holdings that is already presumptively legitimate”. It is not something that cuts in after our transactions and takes our property. Rather, the tax system creates the “legitimate expectations” that, like a feeling, “arise from our transactions”. The system is in the background, just there, perhaps everywhere, providing us all with the conditions that create a set of property holdings, like nature itself. So who cares if they take your income? In fact, your pre-tax income was never yours to begin with.
We can first contrast “everyday libertarianism” with Nagel and Murphy’s “everyday statism”, the feeling that what we have earned belongs to the state without qualification, in the strong sense that what happens to that money is morally speaking entirely a matter of the State’s say-so. In doing so it makes clear that there is a competing property claim between everyday libertarianism and everyday statism. Whose income is it?
The authors state that it is “logically impossible” that someone should have entitlement to their pre-tax income. Without a system supported by taxes there wouldn’t be markets and income in the first place. The question-begging character of Everyday Statism begins to reveal itself upon a cursory glance at history.
It isn’t true that the tax system is not an incursion on legitimate property holdings. It is, in fact and in practice, “something that cuts in after”. In America for example, the 16th amendment, which gives congress the right to levy income taxes, didn’t arrive until the 20th century. Until then “pre-tax income” was just “income”, and income in the form of remuneration distributed between consenting adults was a legitimate property holding, and a legal one. The government “cut in” to the distribution of legitimate property holdings by giving themselves the constitutional right to do so.
If there is no market without a government, why was the second law of the United States a tariff? Why would they lay duties on imported goods if there was not already a market? We know why. There was a market, a distribution of wealth, of property holdings, and the government was willing to restrict the market in order to get some of it, to pay debts, to fund wars, or otherwise to take from people their income in order to benefit the state.
The conceptual and moral problem for Everyday Statism is this: the tax system is an active and ongoing incursion on a distribution of property holdings that was already presumptively legitimate. It is not an essential part of the background. It is something that cuts in afterword, imposed upon the background, and upon all dealings which have heretofore been legitimate.
Except this doesn’t happen. We’ve seen the “real effects” of tax cuts over and over again. The latest round in 2017 resulted mostly in stock buybacks. Real wages and investments and job growth — not so much. Predictably.
Sowell. Another market fundamentalist in the Friedman tradition who gives cover for the wealthy to continue their fleecing of the American people. No thanks.
- Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia, a graduate of Columbia University, in response to a blog post by the Keynesian Paul Krugman about the"incomplete recovery" of Estonia from the European recession, June 6, 2012.
Yet, the paper is ten years old and now Estonia suffered a decreasing in both GDP and tax recollection.
- OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann.
Maybe when it says "protecting labour flexibility" some economists defend a reduction of tax income. At least, it helped them some years ago...
The study analyses different East European countries. The economists and law experts agree on the big problem of corruption inside public entities: Hellman et al analyzed the BEEPS I data on both the frequency of firms admitting to paying bribes and, conditional on that admission, the percentage of revenues paid in bribes. They report summary statistics for each country in the survey. The percentage of firms admitting to ever paying bribes spans the range from approximately 45% in Slovenia and Belarus
One of the most interesting analysis is the situation and social context of Moldova. The paper warns: [i]Furthermore, the complexity of fiscal reform has involved a limited ability to quickly implement a broad-based low-rate tax structure that is effectively administered. The challenge has been that of instituting a new tax system that fosters compliance among new and restructured enterprises, before they are driven
underground.[/i] In one study of tax evasion Anderson and Carasciuc examined evidence from the Republic of Moldova and found quite predictable effects, with greater measured tax evasion in sectors of the economy where audit frequencies were lower and/or where the real value of fines and penalties were lower.
How this situation can end up?
There is an empirical evidence that fiscal reforms are effective in reducing the amount of tax bribes paid by firms. Nonetheless, those firms do not hesitate to keep corrupt behaviours, because the study proofs: Of course, the fact that firms pay less in tax bribes in countries where fiscal reforms have been more extensive does not mean that the firms pay less in overall bribes. Further research is needed to consider whether the reduction in tax bribes is accompanied by a change in other types of bribes and unofficial payments. It could be that a reduction in tax bribes is accompanied by an increase in other types of bribes.
So, we can conclude that fiscal reforms are not the solution if the enterprises and communities are already corrupt. Even, there is evidence that in some countries with soft taxation have better and transparent public administration such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, etc...
Maybe the solution is on ethics and not only in taxation of the richest.
This is a very old old post, but I can't help but note that this seems like cherry picking. First, Switzerland has the fifth highest top marginal tax rate of any country in the world.
Second, countries by HDI today are:
Switzerland, 47th highest taxes to GDP
Norway, 12th highest taxes to GDP
Iceland, 15th highest taxes to GDP
Australia, 49th highest taxes to GDP
Denmark, 2nd highest taxes to GDP
Sweden, 4th highest taxes to GDP
Ireland, 73rd highest taxes to GDP
Germany, 16th highest taxes to GDP
Holland, 9th highest taxes to GDP
Finland, 5th highest taxes to GDP
The countries at the top a predominantly are near the top on taxation (and other high tax countries have high HDI), even when accounting for their high incomes. Two of the exceptions are major tax havens, and obviously not every country can run that game, while natural resources extraction makes up a huge share of Australian GDP in comparison to most developed countries.
Of course there is a "chicken and the egg" problem here because only high functioning states can actually collect a large share of GDP in taxes. But to correct for that we can look at US states.
US states look similar. Massachusetts would rank 5th on HDI of all nations (it and Connecticut were ahead of ALL nations until recently), third in education, and has a per Capita GDP of just under $100,000 (more than twice the poorest state), but one of the highest state and local tax burdens (and because income is higher, people there also pay higher federal rates).
The list of states by HDI is even closer to the list by tax burden when looking just at the US. This is despite the fact that the low HDI US states tend to get much more in federal aid than they pay in federal taxes, while the reverse is true for the high HDI states (e.g. Kentucky where I live gets $1.89 in funding for every $1 tax dollar paid while in Massachusetts it's $0.56 per $1).
Obviously, high taxes don't necessarily lead to high quality of life, but they are more common in the happiest/most well off countries.
That all said, part of the issue is that people only support high taxes if there is a competent state. At the same time, competent states are expensive, and they also do better at stopping tax evasion, so it seems like there is a bit of a positive feedback loop that likely exists.
The State? You mean that thing that educates and feeds your children, maintains your roads, public infrastructure and media, provides you clean water and sanitation services, provides you a safe (enough-usually) society to walk the streets without a club in your hand, always watching your back so you are free to relax, mentally focus on something other than the primal mindset of killing and being killed, and pursue your desires, dreams, and goals freely and would provide your kid a safe and healthy home if you and your spouse were to die or become incapacitated? That state?
I know people who would do all these things for free. Thing is. In modern society, very few would. In the United States, any and all taxpayer funds not allocated to classified government agencies or functions can be requested by any citizen by a FOIA request and shipped to your doorstep. Often for free.
I don't know what race has to do with anything other than if you are a citizen you are equal under the Constitution for all intents and purposes and if discriminated against have an array of legal and in these days social options to rectify any perceived wrongdoing be it real or imagined. Any non-citizen be they black, white, or what have you naturally has a different set of rules and restrictions.
It is close to universal empirical evidence that the countries with high income tax are, at the same time, the ones which work better and society is more advanced. Having these premises... should we implement tax reforms in transition countries? Does this help them to become more democratic?
Well, some countries have experienced good results, such as the Czech Republic or Slovakia, but others don't, like Moldova or Romania. The essays prove that controlling the taxation of enterprises in those countries, don't prevent them from paying other types of bribes and "unofficial" payments.
What is wrong then? They are making the effort of raising taxes to become a more developed country.
Understandable. Yet to see if each state really provides the goods you are talking about. High taxation doesn't lead to effectiveness. There are other parameters that we should take into account. High income taxation countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc... are, at the same time, countries with high democratic and cultural values. It goes further than just collecting a lot of amounts just to taxation.
The paper that I shared previously shows such a fact. They agree with the principle that a good tax reform has positive effects, but this is not the only solution. Moldova shows that, despite the effort to implement high taxation on firms, these enterprises tend to pay bribes in other sectors of the society. What is wrong with Moldova then? Why aren't they becoming a welfare state like Denmark?
Well, it is obvious that democracy is pretty recent in Moldova and there are a lot of things to do... not just taxation.
Does the "state" - as you imagine - exist in Moldova? Because they are increasing taxes but the state doesn't work well yet...
And what is noteworthy is that Estonian population has decreased during this time substantially. No easy task for a country to grow economically while losing a lot of it's population.
Then, the PM of Estonia replied: Let's write about something we know nothing about & be smug, overbearing & patronizing: after all, they're just wogs... Guess a Nobel [i.e. Paul Krugman's] in trade means you can pontificate on fiscal matters & declare my country a "wasteland." Must be a Princeton vs Columbia thing. :lol:
An important distinction is "high tax rates" versus "high tax revenues." High tax revenues relative to GDP track much better with quality of life. A high rate that no one actually pays is indictive of an ineffective or corrupt state.
Again, this is a chicken and egg problem. Just changing tax systems won't give you a state that can effectively collect those higher taxes, although it can help. You get endemic corruption in places like the DRC due to bad corruption enforcement, sure, but also because government employees don't get paid for long periods and so bribes are their only means of supporting themselves. I recall some qualitative paper about people not minding bribes as much because "they need them, our government will never pay the employees in this region anyhow." And of course you can actually pay your employees easier if you collect more taxes.
The other confounding problem is that it is much, much easier for a handful of very rich people to avoid paying taxes in any state than it is for millions of middle class people. The US has high marginal rates when you combine the higher state rates and high federal brackets, but the wealthy have innumerable ways to avoid paying their taxes. Corporations have it even easier, e.g. Apple does almost all their value added work in the US still, produces in the US, but is an "Irish" company now.
Another feedback loop. Higher taxes = greater redistribution is possible = higher share of taxes actually collected because high income helps you avoid taxes. The US could chop its massive debt down by almost a third ($8 trillion) by just collecting prior year taxes already owed to it; taxes owed mostly by the wealthy.
Of course, in the US case, when the bottom 50% of your population only earns 8-12% of all income and only holds 3% of all wealth, while the top 1% holds more wealth than the 91-98% bracket or the bottom 90% (the ranking going bottom 90%, next 9%, 1% at top, with the 1% holding 15 times the wealth of half the population), it makes collections far harder because you need to get a lot of your revenue from a small cadre with lots of resources. But of course, inequality is only so bad in the first place because the wealthy can often pay lower marginal rates than the middle class and even the poor.
I personally think the OECD needs some sort of tax alliance for individuals and organizations that can help enforce taxation across wealthy nations and small tax havens. These states can easily freeze assets on the Cayman Islands, etc. If billionaires want to chance running off to China or Russia they can show themselves the door. Given Jack Ma, the Chinese Bezos, made some very mild critiques of the Chinese banking system and got disappeared, while Russian oligarchs around the world need to be wary of "falling out of windows," I think the elites will learn the value of rule of law their taxes help support very quickly. There is a reason the rich in China either flee outright our buy up "lifeboats" of property and citizenship in the West.
Exactly. This is the point I wanted to share in this thread. If the accounts of the state are in deficit and they even collect low taxes... how do they maintain literally everything? Well, the paper I have read explains that in some countries like Moldova they are just used to such living. Between 1999 and 2002, this country did ambitious tax reform. Yes, it had positive effects, but the problem is still there. There is empirical evidence that rich firms and lobbies can pay bribes in other circumstances, making an imbalance in the effort of collecting to taxes. Then, it creates a vicious circle that seems to not have an ending. How can we help those citizens? Do their institutions need to be managed by others?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I disagree and there is empirical evidence that proves exactly the contrary. Paying public employees depends more on the management of public spending, not on collecting more or less taxes. We can perceive millions or even trillions thanks to taxation, but if we live in a dictatorship, what is the "real" value of those digits? I guess this is the problem that exists in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, etc...
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Good purpose, but I see more chances not to achieve it. In the European Union, there is supposedly a "common" law and market. But, in practice and real life, each country holds its own competence and some countries are soft in taxation and others heavy. For example: the Spanish company "Ferrovial" just changed their headquarters to the Netherlands because of taxation. Are they evil? Should the Spanish government do something in this matter? What about the freedom to choose whatever country for your headquarters?
There is a lot of complexity regarding this issue, and many authors and experts have debated about it since 1648 when the "modern" state was born.
You are correct. I was thinking specifically of states like the DRC of CAR, extremely low income and patchy state control of territory, where the state simply lacks the revenue or means to pay public employees. Obviously, when you per capita income is below $2,000 per year you also run into an issue where even high rates of taxation can't provide that much in services, while any taxation is quite literally taking food out of people's mouths. Simply put, you can't pay for services if total revenues, even before misuse is factored in, aren't adequate.
However, I think natural resource revenues are a confounding variable for the overall trend anyhow. When a state can extract revenue from natural resources it has fewer incentives to invest in the population and it is easier to siphon off revenue since it is highly concentrated. So, in low capacity states part of the problem is that resource revenues aren't even fully realized because they cannot regulate extraction and armed groups take control of resources.
There is a wealth of literature on "the resource curse," and how high amounts of natural resources are associated with poorer quality government and slower economic development. Clearly, it's not always a barrier, as Norway, the United States, Canada, and Australia all have a huge amount of natural resource revenue, but it can be.
So, here it is states having poor public management because of their high revenues, rather than the other way around. Pilfering revenues doesn't undercut profiteers in the state because the meaningful revenues come from foreign companies taking resources in exchange for funding.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Good points and clear argument. That's why I think the only way to solve the problems of those countries is to look into ethics, rather than just taxation. Collecting money from the richest is important and it causes positive effects. Yet, there are a lot of factors which we have to consider. You put the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an example. Well, this Central African country is a failed state, so we cannot expect that much from their public management. Their GDP is $128 billion, but the Human Development Index is low, 0.479.
Mobutu institutionalized corruption to prevent political rivals from challenging his control, leading to an economic collapse in 1996. Mobutu allegedly stole up to US$4 billion while in office (War, Hunger, and Displacement: The Origins of Humanitarian Emergencies. Nafziger, E. Wayne; Raimo Frances Stewart, 2000)
...
Imagine how much development could be accomplished with US$4 billion, right?
It's a mystery to me why this country, which is both developed and industrialized, is facing a significant amount of inflation and a government that is heavily indebted.
Japan budget requests likely to top 110 trln yen as rates rise.
[i]The annual budget requests, to be submitted to the finance ministry by the end of August, highlight the difficulty of streamlining spending for the industrial world's most heavily-indebted government.
Under persistent pressure to reflate the world's third-largest economy, the finance ministry will scrutinise the budget requests before it compiles the draft annual state budget in December. This fiscal year's budget stood at 114 trillion yen.
Debt-servicing costs and defence spending will increase 10% each from this year's initial budget, while social security outlay, estimated at 33.7 trillion yen, will rise due to the snowballing costs of supporting Japan's fast-ageing society.[/i]
I found out the following information on Chinese tax policy: Taxes provide the most important revenue source for the Government of the People's Republic of China. Tax is a key component of macro-economic policy, and greatly affects China's economic and social development. With the changes made since the 1994 tax reform, China has sought to set up a streamlined tax system geared to a socialist market economy.
But the main paper is critized for not being clear regarding citation style and needs more verification.
I would be very appreciated if you can share with us your perspective on Chinese tax system.
Hence when they have just experienced the "capitalist" modernity, socialism, and with that I mean Western social-democracy and not Marxism-Leninism, seems understandable and fair. It's all about curbing the "excesses of capitalism", right?
It's always the devil you have experienced that makes you want for something else.
On the other hand, I agree that Baltic states and Eastern European countries are good examples regarding this topic. A few months ago, I read a paper calledReform and its Firm-Level Effects in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by John E. Anderson. Sadly, one of them is that despite of having reforms on taxation this doesn't lead necessarily to a "fairer" country. Culture depends a lot on this issue and some states as Romania or Moldova are facing this problem which they drag since the Soviet era. It is very common the use of bribes on whatever public administration activities. So, it is a solution that depends more on cultural matters than tax policies.
Austria and Netherlands ban Romania to join EU. We do not really know the aims of these countries in their refuse, but I guess the opacity of their collection is one of them...
It's all about curbing the "excesses of capitalism", yes. Yet, I want to highlight Ireland as a good example of equilibrium. Personal Income Taxes and Corporate Taxes are high, but consumption and property (where the use of wealth really goes) are low. I think this is they key of a successful tax policy.
Tax laws just like laws in general don't have same results in different societies. Hence it's not just to change the laws if you have severe problems, huge wealth gaps, weak institutions, no social cohesion etc. in the society. Comes to my mind that actually Liberia has a very similar Constitution as the US has. Just having the same Constitution doesn't make countries similar.
Quoting javi2541997
That picture is very interesting. Because it assume's the opposite of what you're saying (if I understood you correctly).
And aren't in Ireland corporate taxes low, actually? It's like 12,5% whereas in my country the similar tax rate is 20%and in Germany 29,8%. Only Hungary has a lower corporate tax rate in Europe (9%) than Ireland.
What makes it interesting is that consumption taxes are the ones that hurt people who are poorer starting from the fact that everybody has to eat and the amount needed doesn't actually differ. Hence consumption taxes, VAT taxes etc. hit the poorer and poorest people.
Yet in a World of Globalization, meaning extremely low transportation costs and ease of trade, raising corporate taxes indeed will make corporations look for less expensive places (ie lower taxes).
I agree, but I put Romania and Moldova as examples because they want to be part of the European Union and one of the main characteristics of this community is trying to work together in the same direction. Despite that those states are doing their best to "behave" like an EU member, it is clear that the problem is deeper than we tend to think regarding East European countries.
I think it is fascinating how European Central Bank and European Commission rule on very different countries. When they raise Euro area bank interest, it produces effects to each of 27 members, but the results in the long run are clearly different. Over the course of just over a year, the ECB has increased rates from -0.5% to 3.75% in order to combat a surge in inflation. Yet, this Interest Rate policy will affect each state differently. It is very complex to achieve a common path.
Quoting ssu
I know I explained myself with an amount of complexity. I tried to meant that direct taxes (income and corporate ones) are high in Ireland while indirect (property and consumption tax) are low. Maybe this is a good equilibrium and I think that Ireland has been increasing its development since the big crisis of 2008, where the so called "P.I.G.S" suffered a lot. Ireland is no longer part of this club.
Note: I just realised that the image I posted above has a title that says which tax affects economic growth the most? I understand know why you didn't understand me. I didn't put the title and of course I disagree with the title itself. I guess I didn't see it when I downloaded the picture to post it here.
Quoting ssu
Exactly. The Corporate Tax Rate in European Union stands at 21.30 percent. Ireland Corporate Tax Rate is 12 % that we should not consider it as "low". It is not equal the amount of collection of Corporate Tax Rate on Germany than in Ireland. Different purchasing power.
Quoting ssu
I agree. I think VAT is one of the most complex to put in practice. Here in Spain is 21 %, that it is similar to most of the EU members. While in Hungary, they hold the higher percentage with 27 % paradoxically. They are just doing the opposite of why I try to defend with my arguments. :lol:
Ummm....Romania is part of the EU. It and Bulgaria have been EU members since 2007. What Romania isn't is part of the Schengen treaty and in the Euro-zone.
Moldova's situation is hugely different: It has the frozen conflict of Transnistria and hence Russian forces are still in the country. It is really not a member of the EU and cannot be in NATO, hence Putin has a lot of influence in the small country.
(For Transnistrian's, Soviet Union still lives...sort of)
Quoting javi2541997
Ok, you got my point.
Quoting javi2541997
VAT's effect is obvious when we think about for example food: higher food prices mean a lot to a poor person, but for a rich person it's just a nuisance.
With corporate taxes and wealth taxes one has to understand that money can move around easily and if these taxes are really punitive (let's say 75% to 90% tax on profit), people simply won't sell and wait for the taxes to be lowered while corporations can also postpone profits.
I apologise. I mixed up Schengen Treaty and Euro-zone with the European Union. There are many organisms that I tend to confuse which countries are part of all of them, and others just in some.
I guess the main issue regarding the ban to Romania of joining the Schengen Treaty is related to immigration then.
Quoting ssu
Exactly.
There is another problem with punitive Corporation Tax: companies leaving out the country where they were established. Sooner or later, if they see that taxation is heavy, they would establish their quarters in a more attractive country regarding the Tax policies. On this specific issue, there is also a huge competition among the states which some attract foreign investment while others don't.
We can assume that the countries with punitive taxation have the risk of "losing" GDP if their companies or entrepreneurs decide to fly out to a country with low taxes.
Is this ethical? To "steal" the headquarters of companies of some countries because the taxes are low? There is always this kind of debate...
As this is a philosophy forum, let's think about this from the beginnings and from the theoretical approach, not so much as from the legal approach.
First, what is a company or a corporation?
A company or corporation is just a pile of advanced permanent contracts, yet you could simply buy as a customer every service and every item you need basically on a one-to-one basis. Now only every service you buy is done by a fixed contract and hence the person you are buying the service is now called the company's employee. Then the company itself, can own machines, real estate etc.
Hence with taxation the question is how this entity is taxed and do you tax the company or it's owners. But notice, a lot of taxation happens where the actual work is done and were the products or services are bought: taxation of the employees wages, the value-added-taxes and so. We have to remember that the average margin profit of companies (for example in the US) is 7,5%. That is far less than people actually think companies make profits. But that lets say one tenth is what we are talking about. Yet we shouldn't forget the nine-tenths too. Also, the real economic impact happens there where the physical manufacturing or service happens.
So is it ethical to move away your corporate HQ to avoid corporate taxes? Well, I think the question is if tax havens are ethical. And tax havens are created by government, starting from countries like the US and the UK. And since for example Ireland has profited well from having low corporate taxes, then this competition between countries is simply going to be a fact. Luckily not all corporation / companies prioritize low taxes or paying no taxes when it comes to where they put their Company HQs. It's still a legal gimmick, which could be easily change and it doesn't create confidence in a company when the owner is a postbox in the Bahamas etc.
I understand that this debate is far from the legal frames. In the EU, it is completely allowed to change and move the HQ to any country of the Euro zone. Some states have lower corporate taxes, others high. I fully respect it. Who am I to say to Hungary or Ireland to switch their tax policies as well as Germany or Spain? It is true that one of the main aims of the European Commission is to reach a common tax policy, but this will be one of the toughest tasks to be done. I am even skeptical and I do not think that is available. Here also pops up the classical breach between north and south. If we say:"hey let's raise the Corporation Tax to collect more and expend," maybe the north-centre countries would say: "here we have the Mediterranean countries spending a lot instead of managing the budget wisely."
The debate will still be there. Which I find fascinating and I do not understand why the people of my age (millennials', I am 26) do not care that much when it is clearly a topic that we have to focus on.
On the other hand, I do not know if tax havens are ethical, but I understand that it is the only way to survive in globalisation. What can Andorra or Bahamas do in a complex system of transactions? They need to be attractive to attach foreign investment. But, to be honest, I do not consider them a real problem because they are tiny territories, so it is very easy to be a tax haven with small population groups. The real question is how to manage the public budget when there are millions and millions of people in the same nation.
I don't think we would have a big impact if we block transactions and international market in Andorra as well as our governments have done with Russia.
The EU is a de facto confederation of independent states, which desperately tries to be an union. Perhaps something similar to the US by some visionaries in the EU. But everybody knows that isn't going to happen.
I don't remember if it was with you, javi, or some other Spaniard, that we talked about how simply different is the geostrategic security environment of Finland and Spain. For Finland the security threat is Russia, Russia and Russia... , but for Spain it's how narrow the strait of Gibraltar is and North Africa with all of it's problems is the real security issue (as Spain even has Ceuta and Melilla in the other continent). And I guess both Finnish and Spanish authorities totally understand these differences between them. Yet that's just the tip of the obvious iceberg. And when it comes to a "common tax policy", I think "common EU defense policy" might be far more easier to plan and to get everybody behind it.
Quoting javi2541997
Remember it starts from places like the City of London and the tax havens inside the US. Trade is good, it does really create wealth, yet we must understand just how fragile globalization is too. Tax havens are perhaps an annoyance, but getting rid of them, what else do you throw out with the bathwater?
And globalization can stop rapidly. War between the US and China and that's it: the end of present day globalization. And UK's experiment with Brexit shows just how much our wealth and prosperity is based on EU membership and how difficult it is to opt out of the system. But what will remain sovereign are the nation state members of the EU. And they'll have different tax laws. That's a fact in my view.
Not really accurate. People, even those who argue for taxes, generally don't want to pay taxes. It's just that millionaires or billionaires have the means to organize such a tax evasion. If I were to do that on a normal income, I would have to pay a lot to manage such a transactional flow that avoids taxation.
I find the entire "eat the rich" movement today rather hypocritical. It makes sense when it comes from actually poor people, but today there are a lot of people with decent incomes who lives by some kind of false identity of being poor and fighting the rich has become their "blame it on those people" output. The fact is, however, that almost all of these people would behave just as bad or even worse if they suddenly became a billionaire. Because they will use their new money as some kind of ironic further argument to the rich with a message that the rich can't touch them anymore because they are now rich themselves.
The bottom line is that it's not the difference in income or wealth that matters, it's that people are generally ignorant about their own hypocrisy. People project an image of their identity as morally superior, but when they, themselves, are within the group they fought against, they change to justify the same behavior they previously criticized. Sometimes they even behave much worse, becoming the worst kind of wealthy people in the world.
Quoting javi2541997
First, a nation/state, need to have a taxation system that makes sense and isn't corrupt. Most examples made by people arguing against taxation usually just argue against corruption and stupidity among the people handling tax money and public funding.
It is very important to separate taxation as a system with the problems of corruption and stupidity/incompetence. Many people against taxation frame the problems of corruption and incompetence as an integral problem to that of taxation as a system, which is obviously a false connection.
The truth of the matter is that high taxation is actually the best way to improve the living quality of a nation. For instance, conservatives who remember the best time to live in the US (for white people), usually mention something like 1950-1970. This era had a taxation level around 90%. But people can't seem to fathom this, and yet it was crucial in order to boom the economy and living standards after world war II.
Then there's another big reason why we find high taxation nations at the top of the list of living standards and living quality. It's because they are simultaneously low in corruption. The Nordic nations of Island, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland have always been in focus when it comes to high taxation and living quality, but they are also very low in state corruption.
If there's less corruption, with higher taxes, that means the money actually goes to society. In that position, the people actually reap the benefits in the form of free education, free health care, free infrastructure, instead of that money going into the pockets of the corrupt.
The biggest problem that we face in the Nordic nations is not so much corruption, but rather incompetence. An irrational level of red tape bureaucracy combined with a lack of vision and competence in planning can create a spending spree on projects in society that does not have enough relevance or need. This may provoke people into blaming things on high taxes, but in truth, it is the incompetent of the people at the helm that's the problem.
So, if these criteria are met it will generate a truly good place to live in:
- High taxation
- Low or no corruption.
- Competent people with less red tape
- An educated and carefully thought through vision of tax spending.
Tax should go back to the people and as long as each and every penny funds something that benefit the population and society as a whole, it is good to have it high.
It is also an illusion that high taxation means less profit. Profit can only be generated by the company as a whole and the company is made up of the employees more than the owner. It is a classic master/slave dichotomy, in which the "slaves" know more than the "master". If the workers are the fundamental part of profit generation, then the best way to generate more profit is to make sure the workers ("slaves") have a good life being workers. The best way to do this is to outsource these benefits. Instead of you, the owner of the business, having to manage and fund time to take care of each and every employee, society can manage it through tax funding. So with higher taxes, you, the owner, benefit from having a society that funds workers happiness through free education, healthcare etc.
That is something many rich people don't seem to understand. That if people who can't afford the privileges of the rich, still can afford the necessities of a foundation for a good life, then they will happily be the workers for your business.
It is only when we treat the workers like shit, as a society and as a company, that we lose money and profit. Because not only does the workers have less income, they have more stress because they need to actively think about healthcare and schooling for their children, they need to actively worry about losing their home and screwing up their entire family. Do owners really think that their workers would care for their work quality if they had all that extra baggage with them when going to work?
This equation is almost infantile in its logic, but people still don't seem to grasp how simple this balance is. The bottom line is that happy workers generate profit, and having society making workers happy is much easier than the company trying it. So why would any capitalist oppose high taxation? That's a foolish stance that only the most privileged rich morons would support out of their inability to understand anything other than their rich lifestyle.
High taxation leads to a better life quality. It requires low corruption and competent national economy planning, but there are no statistics that shows anything other than this conclusion. The ones opposing this does not act out of logic and knowledge, but out of ideology with a lack of interest for what is good for the whole and more what is good for themselves.
When the abolitionists came after slavery there was no shortage of beneficiaries who extolled the benefits of slavery. No doubt slave labor generated a better quality of life for those who profited from it, but some of those defenders even claimed it led to a better quality of life for the slave. In the US, some argued Slaves were better clothed, protected, fed, than their free brethren, who had no such institution to rely on.
The same sort of utilitarian arguments defend taxation, leaving the morality out of it. The point is: the benefits of taxation can only ever serve to mask the evils of the entire enterprise. It is exploitation on a mass scale. It is forced labor. It is theft. If exploitation on a mass scale, forced labor, and theft leads to a better quality of life from those who benefit from it, it’s not worth it.
Taxation to provide for the collective defense is evil? How else would you fund a military?
It’s evil to take people’s property and force them to labor for your benefit without any just and voluntary compensation. Do you think there is there no other way to fund an enterprise without this method?
In the kingdom of NOS4A2, what would your military look like? How would you fund it?
I wouldn’t. But a moral means to funding anything is through just and voluntary transactions.
Is there any country on Earth that funds it's military that way?
Militias, private militaries, security contractors.
Paid for through voluntary donations by the people?
Voluntarily paid for by those who purchase the services, sure.
Has there ever in history (or now) been any decently sized country that has run their military that way?
Note that I didn't deny the existence and validity of taxation. It is obvious that our nations/governments need to collect to provide the basics. This is not something new, and even the Roman Empire already worked with those. But the act of taxation itself is complex. It is not a perfect machine where you put a lot of money into the public budget and then you get quality services. This doesn't work in every state, sadly. It is worthy to look at East European countries. Despite the fact that they are making a big effort regarding tax policies, the public administration itself is still opaque, corrupt and the use of bribes is very common. So, even though taxation is a good tool to provide public services, it cannot be applied to every country. You cannot go to Lebanon and say: "hey if you you promote taxation maybe your country's functionality wouldn't be too backwards"
On the other hand, what is the real amount of high taxes? Can all the employees or businessmen bear such big taxation?
Let me explain myself: The incomes here in Spain are pretty low and maybe one of the lowest among the EU members. Yet, the Income Tax is pretty high to be honest... 19 % of an annual income of 12.450 € goes to taxes. From 35,200 euros to 59,999 euros, a 37 %. From 60,000 euros to 299,999 euros, a 45 %. 300,000 euros and above, a 47 %. According to these facts, it is clear that I live in a country that doesn't like rich people or families with decent salaries. I call this expropriation. (Note that I only referred to Income tax but there are a lot of different types obviously).
Although I agree with your formula and argument of high taxes + zero or low corruption + competent + careful spending, these are difficult to apply in every EU member. I fully believe that this works in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, but not here. It is sarcastic when our Treasury Ministry says that rich people should make a plus effort in this difficult times of public expenditure. Are we so? We are not in a position to demand high demands when our economy is fragile.
We have an average of 42 % tax pressure on our incomes and I do not know where all the profits go.
Oh yes... We are a highly-debted country because of the incompetence of our politicians. We are literally forced to pay taxes to reduce the debt, not for better services.
I’m not sure. Is the absence of something an argument against something, in your eyes?
Yes, governments everywhere run protection rackets.
Yes. The absence of a non-tax funded military for a sizeable nation suggests it's not doable. Why do you think it's never been done?
States have historically begged for, borrowed, or stolen money to fund wars. War bonds, donations, money-printing, slavery, conscription, economic revenue and other methods besides taxation have been used by governments to fund militaries. So it has been done.
Those methods have been used ON TOP of taxation.
So?
Obviously. If it wasn't for them, then you surely would have genuine protection rackets being run. At least in the long run.
Actually this would be an interesting topic, because usually if the police for some reason doesn't work, then people will quite easily form vigilante groups and militias. I think it's an universal thing and will happen quite quickly if there is no police to call. But it isn't formed like a business transaction (meaning you pay for the service, just like you pay for an electrician or a doctor), but starting with fellow minded people who have something to protect. It tells a lot about the society how "the police" or call it anyway you want is formed in the society.
Quoting RogueAI
Organized violence and protection against other nations and states is the first actions that nations need to organize and fund for their own survival. Every nation now has been formed from another prior nation (or more) and the violence between nations is as old as history. That's the first thing. Now, if you really outsource this and pay for instance mercenaries for this "service", it's likely that you will end up with the mercenary leader (or other country) in control of your nation. City states in Italy in the medieval times had many instances of this happening.
That's my reasoning.
My theory is that governments need to plunder their populace to sustain their activity because they do not have other means to do so. They possess the monopoly on violence, and therefor criminality, so it is indeed a point of fact that they will use the spoils of their plunder to finance their wars. None of this is evidence or an argument that it cannot nor should not be otherwise.
Or simply the payment for the services they provide is called taxes.
Quoting NOS4A2
You are intentionally dropping crucial things here that the sociologist Max Weber pointed out.
In his definition of a state, it is a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory". Legitimacy comes from the acceptance of the people, and behind a state is a human community. Not some others like zombies who make up the government, who somehow aren't part of the people.
Yet perhaps for an individualist liberal, it's hard to fathom people functioning as a community, but it does happen.
You've got this backwards.
The reason classic liberals argue for a smaller state is because they assume people can take care of themselves, without the need for state coercion. It's the statist who believes people must be coerced into 'functioning properly'.
I think the we all should take care more about ourselves. The State is not our parents, and despite that maybe such functionality is only available in small countries, we should expect more individual behaviour and responsibility.
I can take as granted that the Police and Defense are needed to be managed by a public administration. But, transportation and expenditure (for example), could have an equilibrium of both private and public sectors.
When states stop functioning, people don't panic and start fighting each other as individuals especially when there is a community that they belong to. If there is no community, absolutely no social cohesion whatsoever, only then people will start to behave like it's a dog-eat-dog World. But usually that doesn't happen, especially not in communities that do have social cohesion.
This makes security so different from the other "services" we buy and it's wrong to assume that "safety" is similar to buying any other service there is a supply of.
I would consider that a gross mischaracterization because paying for services does not require involuntary methods of exchange. Not only that but everywhere I've lived I have never been given a receipt of what exactly I payed for. I'm not sure if I've payed for garbage pickup or for Trudeau's socks.
A better way to look at it is racketeering or some other criminal activity. It's a complete scam.
It could be characterized as skimming, a form of fraud. Assume you could follow just one dollar through its tax cycle. For example, I don't know if it's the same in Finland, but here government employees are taxed just like any other private employee. So a tax dollar might find itself in the wage of one over-payed government worker, but then that money is taxed again and goes right back into government coffers. If it was you or me doing that it would be skimming, but when the government does it it is just how we pay for services. This is why the government not only has the monopoly on violence, but also the monopoly on crime.
In Economy and Society Weber defines the state as such:
"A "ruling organization" will be called "political" insofar as its existence and order is continuously safeguarded within a given territorial area by the threat and application of physical force on the part of the administrative staff. A compulsory political organization with continuous operations (politischer Anstaltsbetrieb') will be called a "state" insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order. Social action, especially organized action, will be spoken of as "politically oriented" if it aims at exerting influence on the government of a political organization; especially at the appropriation, expropriation, redistribution or allocation of the powers of government."
I haven't read the lecture you cite, so the claim I was intentionally leaving things out is dubious, but I believe the "human community" he is speaking of in your quote is the "administrative staff" of the sate. No one else in your group "the people" claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.
It's no doubt that you find the state's authority and legitimacy sacrosanct, but conflating the will of the state with the will of the people is mistake. The only human community behind the state is its administrative staff.
It's hard to fathom how one can be so loose with the term "community", that it would contain both the ruling class and its subjects, as if they shared a common interest. But that's collectivism for you.
I agree, here in Spain it happens exactly as you explained. It is like a vicious circle. I'm not sure if this is the case in your country as well: Whenever a citizen receives compensation, they must pay the tax corresponding to the amount.
For example: I gained 100.000 € playing lotto. Well, I don't perceive those 100K entirely. I must apply a taxation because according to our laws this a benefit to be shared. I end up perceiving around 89K or 91K, the rest goes to the public budget. The main paradox, as NOS pointed out, is that this happens with public compensations too.
I perceive the same vicious scheme. The government gives you a sum, but it forces you to pay taxes to recover it.
Here we do not get taxed for lottery, but the lottery corporations are all run by provincial governments, so they get all the revenue anyways. But recipients of welfare or employment insurance are taxed on what they receive from the government as if it was a wage and as if it wasn't already tax revenue.
Examples are myriad. Think of a sales tax. If you and I were to sell a product to one another back and forth and back and forth in perpetuity, with the government profiting on each sale, theoretically the product would produce more tax revenue than the product itself is worth, and will do so until the sales stop. It really is a corrupt system.
Lol. Obviously coming from an American. Well, in smaller expandable countries where the people have to have fought just to survive as a people, the feeling towards one own nation is a bit different, should I say that. That doesn't mean our politicians cannot be bad and incompetent and the government can suck big time.
Quoting NOS4A2
It's hard to fathom how far Americans have fallen from the ideals of their state. Perhaps it's spoon fed in the media, by your politicians, by Hollywood that the first and foremost enemy and threat to the citizen is the state. No really, I believe you. I went with my family to Capitol Hill (in the Trump years) and hearing with my own ears how a Republican member of the House speaking during a Session what a danger the FBI constitutes to the US and Americans made me see just how deep the utter mistrust and hatred for the state Americans have. So it isn't any surprise that you think the way you do.
Quoting NOS4A2
Ok, Why don't you first read what was my point.
The point was this: Communities and families that people belong to matter to people. Their actions and work inside these groups aren't the same when buying or selling or trading something. Everything isn't materialistic and connected to money. And since the security starting from our own families is extremely important, so does our attitudes toward security in general are different. It is naive to think that security is just a service you can buy.
The fact is that if the state's authority collapses, the police doesn't work, then communities organize themselves and perform a similar function. This happens quite universally. Also it's actually not surprising that in many countries the history of the police has evolved from watches made up from citizens (or loyal subjects) who have been volunteers at first.
What's your role in your government?
American institutions in particular do not have the greatest track record, to be fair. But it's true; the mistrust is present even in the founding documents and much of the subsequent literature. The mistake was to organize these founding principles on roman and republican ideals of statehood, in my opinion. These ideals are as statist and collectivist as they come.
While I think it's true that some individuals seek state-like authority in any given community, and that a vanguard might arise as an authoritative organization, I don't think that is the case with all of its members. In other words, only a part of a community, a ruling class, seeks power over others and organize themselves in a similar function. In other words, it's not as universal as we like to say it is.
Yes, it's as it is. The unemployment subsidies are taxed here as "Income taxes". It is one of the main paradoxes and stupidities that I hardly can understand about the system. Frankly, I think the government is kidding us... You consider it as corrupt, but I see it as senseless.
I don't work for the government and am not an official. Yet as a reservist I have voluntarily trained other reservists, so that's I guess the closest I come to working with the authorities. It's been quite popular now especially after last year. And when your government in these voluntary exercises train reservists how to detonate a VBIED by a text message (as how in the Big World it is done), you know there is trust between the government (the armed forces) and it's reservists.
Quoting NOS4A2
That is a very interesting point of view.
Care to elaborate what's the mistake with Roman and Republican ideals. I thought the "Republican" part of the US system avoided the democracy becoming something like in the French Revolution.
Quoting NOS4A2
Those that seek power are a minority, I agree. But those who take part in a voluntary street patrol or militia are usually those that do other community work and are respected in the community. Of course there are criminals too who obviously see an opening in a protection racket, but well, they are part of their own community.
It's quite similar to the people that show up to help if there is a natural disaster, actually.
I've heard the stories of White Death and now I view you in a different light. But there is something to be said about reservists and a combat-trained populace.
Notions of statehood and sovereignty flow directly from the genealogy of the republican system (not to be confused with the Grand Old Party), and I believe most if not every state, no matter its founding ideals, are based on republican foundations (even communist ones, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, People's Republic of China, for example). Terms like "Head of State" (in the early-modern period, literally the head of the the political body), and systems of representative government (rather than rule of the people), mixed constitutions, parliament, the senate, the social contract etc. are republican ideals. Even the French revolution sought a republic. Given that republicanism on the one hand and liberalism on the other are distinct, though often conflated, I would argue that it is republicanism rather than liberalism that is the dominant political and state ideology throughout the world. I would even argue that liberalism has never gained any foothold anywhere in the world, as far as I can tell.
Lol. If there wouldn't have been conscription in this country, I would never, ever have gone to the military voluntarily. Not because of opposing the service, but because I had so low self esteem that I considered to be totally unfit for military service. I thought it would be living hell (as I wasn't at all good in sports in school), and really didn't think I'd find myself as a reserve officer.
Quoting NOS4A2
I totally agree with this.
Quoting NOS4A2
Many would have an opposite view. Liberalism, the classic liberalism, is a political movement that was very successful especially in the 19th Century, but had started in earnest in the 18th Century. It was so successful that the movement basically waned after achieving it's main objectives. It's like feminism after women getting the vote and have equal rights to wealth: after the most important issues are fulfilled come "new waves".
Hence saying that liberalism hasn't ever gained any foothold anywhere in the world sounds like the often heard argument here that "Marxism has never been TRULY attempted in the world".
Didn't you read the arguments provided at least? :roll:
The exchange between ssu and NOS is interesting, and we can learn a lot.
On the other hand, keep in mind that my intention in this thread is not to undermine the taxation itself. But trying to understand why some states manage public budget better than another, and explain that paying "high" taxes doesn't always provide better public services.
I’m aware that many or even most would disagree. Liberalism may have had some brief inroads, like a 50 year presence in England, but it was all in opposition to the general rule and how things were actually run. Herbert Spencer wrote about how the Whigs were Tories of a new type, detailing how they took steps to curtail freedom instead promote it during their brief surge.
Either way, wherever one looks there has been no liberty, no laissez-faire, and no individualism anywhere in the world. No one can point to a liberal place or liberal time period because the closer one looks there lies the law, regulation, military, and the statism present in all other ideologies.
They shouldn’t be.
The simple fact is that democracy is the cause of this, and I would say rightly so. (There are naturally other reasons, but this is a structural reason for this in the West)
If we assume that all citizens have a vote, then always people will have different views. It's totally absurd to think that everyone will want the laissez-faire liberalism. They'll be happy if the economy and the society works, but that won't change their ideas. Enough people will want safety-nets and a welfare state. Other people will crave for strong leaders. Don't think that the most liberal success story of a society won't have it's leftists that are critical about it the whole system. Social-democracy just thrives in a capitalist liberal system: there's always the lure of "curbing the excesses of capitalism" for many. Marxism-Leninism was a failure, but Social-Democracy and overall leftism survives very well in a functioning capitalist society.
Thinking otherwise would be as delusional and mad as the Marxists thinking that somehow with educating new generations, all people will be happy Marxists. You won't get everybody to be a liberal.
We have to make of the World what we really can, not daydream about people being different. Yes, radical thinking is good, striving for the values of liberalism is good. I don't complain about that. Yet we shouldn't forget reality.
Ah yes, another "something for nothing" dreamer.
I have no illusions. I don’t think any statist wants any sort of freedom, that much is clear, nor would I expect anyone to accept any ideology. At any rate, I don’t think anything like liberalism or Marxism can exist on Republican terms.
You might be surprised but you don’t have to always pay for things with stolen money. Another crook.
Marxism yes, liberalism, ummm... now just what to you is liberalism? I think you are simply disillusioned or disenchanted about the current state of the Republic (of the US). Yeah, who don't be? Or then you feel better the more ultra-liberalist you think you are. More refreshing?
We should start from the role of family in society here, perhaps. That's where community and the collective start I guess.
Still waiting to hear about the details on the acquisition of "nonstolen" money...
Have you ever paid for something voluntarily, for instance for a product or service? We do it all the time.
No sense trying to figure anything out unless you first reject democracy and the idea of social concern — while accepting as legitimate the institution of slavery.
But if you do that, Trump-supporting fascists make perfect sense and are very consistent.
Well, one does buy insurances for various issues and hope one isn't going to need the services.
Yet even in the case of the fire department this is a bit tricky. If / when you opt not to have that "insurance", then by logic the fire department will not come to help when your home catches on fire. All fine, if the house is in rural area. Yet if it's in a tightly built up city center, the adjacent building owners might not be so happy that your building/home, if caught on fire, will be let to burn down. They might insist that you take the insurance to protect also their property. Again, as in multiple cases, individual freedom can harm others.
But then the "insurance" against another country attacking your country, the "buying a service" of the armed forces, the mentality is even more weird. Many libertarians will do an exception with the military and defense (and briskly move on to other issues), because here the individual freedom viewpoint loses reality. What if you opt out of paying for that "insurance"? Is whoever from ISIS to Putin free to do with you whatever they want? These libertarians, who have opted out not to pay for the police/army/security "insurance", can you start hunting them down from helicopters as an extreme sport? (A gunship is required because many of them have shotguns to protect themselves)
I would not pay for the Dept. of defense or the fire department given the chance. How much have you payed for either service and have you gotten your money’s worth?
And does it make you feel better about paying for health insurance if you get a serious illness?
The ridiculous thing is folks posting such nonsense using the internet, when the internet would never have existed due to a lack of research funding if money was only ever spent on "products and services"
How much have you payed for the Department of defense and have you gotten your money’s worth? I wager you have no clue what you’re paying for or where your money goes, whether to the fire department or into right into a politician’s pocket.
Yeah the 'ol won't/can't answer questions, so throw out random ones of your own. I have to admit I used to do stuff like that a long time ago.
As to your queries: I don't know and I (pretty much) don't care or worry about it. I have received a huge amount from my tax dollar, even though I am paying more total taxes than the vast majority.
Used to? That’s the second time I asked that question, right after answering yours. So you still do it.
What have you received?
It’s true. Crime pays. Taking people’s money can have its benefits.
Hey, the fact that some nations are worse than us, doesn't mean that our system works perfectly.
Just like the highway system, many things have become into existence because defense matters.
You know who made it that way, bubba?
If you like government so much, maybe you’d like Somalia better when they had one. It had all the regular stuff: totalitarianism, corruption, political oppression, and of course they turned their weapons on their own citizens and committed genocide. I guess they got their tax dollar’s worth.
Ha ha. First, Somalia isn't merely "worse than us", it's total chaos. Why? Specifically because of a lack of government. As to working perfectly, that's a fake goal. No one claims it does, or reasonably should.
Well son, historically the British and Italians colonized what is now Somalia, so have to take the lion's share of the blame. As to it's modern history, it kind of started with it's internal warring factions back in the 60s.
As well as here in Spain then. :roll:
It is not necessary to go to Africa to see chaotic nations. We have a tumultuous public administration too.
We are just lucky because we are the summer resort of the rest of the European Union members. We would be completely ignored otherwise...
It's total chaos because after the first set of 'great' powers finally left it alone, the next set of 'great' powers got involved and tore the country apart again.
So comments like this...
Quoting LuckyR
... make you seem rather ignorant.
Just because some governments fail (and actively hurt their people), that doesn't mean government in general won't work. That situation wasn't caused by the inherently negative effects of government, but rather the poor hand the nation was dealt (economically, historically, and socially). And as if there wouldn't be oppression, mass murder, and exploitation without the government, which generally minimizes chaos. The problem is indicative of deeper social divisions and an unstable, dysfunctional political environment.
I think your argument is pretty state/government dependent. You are trying to give as granted that we cannot live without state intervention, despite that even most of the cases this operation ends up terribly. One of the main points is that most of the governments, in the long term, become useless and they will not work to make the things altogether.
Deep social divisions and dysfunctional political environment are big issues and they affect the management of the state. But this is usually caused by governments and not citizens who try to live individually and they cannot do so, because the state (or local government) forces you to have "ideologies" to be part of a "community".
Part of the problem with criticizing "government" without providing an alternative is it leaves one open to the assumption that one trusts corporations and/or powerful individuals to act fairly or even charitably towards the public, which is, of course naive in the extreme.
It might work. But the utilitarian argument for government doesn’t cut it for me. Slave plantations worked. Some treated their slaves better than others. But none of that eliminates the immorality of the plantation system.
It’s the same with government. No state has ever began with any sort of voluntary social contract or disinterested view of promoting justice and order. Any attempt to do so was always ancillary to their main purpose. States are imposed in order to protect power and exploit those under its dominion, enabling a small class of beneficiaries to satisfy themselves through various confiscations, like the taxing powers and legal system.
While we can live in smaller communities (which tend to have their own, if small, form of government), the fact that the state persists throughout history shows its necessity, originally a defense against the outsiders, and more recently, a protection of the citizen. Of course, the state also exists to defend itself, which can be achieved through violence or tolerance. You say that in most cases, this "ends up terribly". In what way do you think that is true?
Quoting javi2541997
Most things in the long term become useless. For governments, that could take centuries. After that, a new government almost inevitably takes the old one's place. The important thing is what occurs while the government is still effective (does it defend the people's interests), whether it is sustainable for a decent amount of time, and whether the transition of power to the next government is successful.
Quoting javi2541997
Again, humans naturally form communities as an inherently social species. Even apes form tribes, and without a discernible form of government, they still participate in warfare (and sometimes, genocide). To say that this is solely the state's fault is to forget human nature. That does not mean that a government is not complicit or responsible for doing terrible things; only that individuals are, too.
That’s true. But we could trust ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, without seeking the blessing from some distant authority. We could fully and easily reject corporations and powerful individuals, especially if there were no state mechanisms with which they could achieve monopoly, subsidy, contracts, and power.
I would argue large corporations want high taxes. They have the means to game the system, find tax havens, employ teams of lawyers, lobby the government, while the smaller businesses suffer the high costs of doing business, eliminating much of the competition. And there are many ways to avoid the rise in costs, like raising prices on consumers or freezing wage growth for employees.
Which was the sole result of economics. It was profitable, it was immoral, and it was done. This is exactly what would happen without the protection of the government. Yes, governments can worsen crises if they also behave immorally, like the European governments who encouraged the slave trade. But at least the government (in its democratic form) is accountable, while individuals are not if a proper justice system doesn't exist.
Quoting NOS4A2
This may be true, but at least citizens can modify the contract via voting. Because of this, the nature of government has changed drastically in the past two centuries, with an increased emphasis on social welfare.
Quoting NOS4A2
Does that not occur economically? I'd much rather a government, which I help elect, take 20% of my paycheck than have rampant monopolies price-gouge the consumer with poverty wages, or literally sell my life to make ends meet. And at least that 20% funds the livelihoods of millions of government employees and the unemployed, and provides me with essential services that would otherwise be monopolized, rather than feeding the incessant greed of a few thousand robber barons.
This juxtaposition makes little sense to me, because I don't think governments prevent monopolies from forming, rather monopolies seem to form way more easily as a result of government regulations.
I agree. In the “short” term of generations. In the longer term, we really should abolish the state. Not governance or social organization, but the state.
What our libertarian friends don’t seem to understand, and which ultimately makes them apologists for illegitimate power, is that the real power doesn’t currently belong to the state. It belongs to the plutocracy who own and run the state.
Rather than going after the real rot and the socioeconomic system that allows this rot, they blather on about the far-off goal of eliminating the state. It’s like dealing with an adolescent who’s latched on to a fashionable belief and dogmatically abides by it, all the while ignoring the evidence all around that points to something different.
If we want to solve the problems of the day, we have to recognize the main causes.
If it’s corporate power, we should be encouraging the labor movement— they’re against “big labor.”
We should encourage unionization— they’re against unions (“collectivism!”).
We should be pushing our leaders for progressive policies — they’re against this too (“Government is the problem”).
The plutocracy must love these people. They get to act like they support small businesses and workers and communities, while advocating for goals that completely destroy them. What gets proposed as solutions?
First, blame the state for all the world’s ills. Then destroy and dismantle the state and leave things to the magic of the “free market.”
The way they tell it, one might be convinced that this may actually work. Friedman did it better than any of them — and they’re all illegitimate little Friedmans and Randians anyway — but it was always a fantasy on par with communist fantasies (which they have no problem recognizing).
When policies based on these ideas get tried, and fail, they can always fall back on the fact that it was never “really” tried or implemented, or didn’t go far enough.
It’s a great religion. Can’t be refuted, some half-truths, a few simplistic principles to memorize, etc. This way one doesn’t have to analyze the real world. Because that’s too messy.
The slave trade occurred with the protection and intervention of government, with the granting of slave-trade monopolies and charters, the treaties, the slave codes, the military protection, to the funding of colonialism and mercantilism that required all that cheap labor. It was only begrudgingly and under great public pressure that such efforts were eventually abolished. And so it is with anything that tends to human rights and welfare.
The Hobbesian notion that justice is a one-to-one ratio with a state legal system is a mistake, in my opinion. Justice systems are more often than not unjust. In order to discern whether a system is unjust or not, one must first form a sense of justice in order to compare it to that state system of justice, and this must occur outside and beyond any state justice system. At any rate, I hold that it is easier to pressure and affect change morally and economically than it is to pressure and affect a government and its laws politically.
The nature of government has changed drastically insofar as it has grown in size and has monopolized, captured, and converted social power into state power. So far has it gone that we cannot imagine achieving social welfare without government. The result is a people conditioned to seek state intervention rather than to develop their responsibilities to one another. The result is a people who believe consuming, working, paying taxes, and voting for more state power, is tantamount to compassion and welfare. I fear that, as far as welfare is concerned, people only want government do what they themselves refuse to.
All I can say is that the government is the monopoly [I]par excellence[/I].
Which would work in the pre-industrial era. But society benefits from large public works projects that small groups of families or even neighborhoods don't have the resources can finance. Thus the role for a "distant authority".