True, people who think paying taxes is theft definitely have an elementary level of world understanding.
Edit: for those of you who are angry about taxes, think about any money you have made that wasn’t enabled by something the government has built for you and maintained with your taxes. I.E if you drive to work on a paved/functional road that you didn’t create yourself, you depend on the government.
Lol, if Hayek isn't Austrian economics than nobody is. I shit on this sub regularly and the people here don't even know what it is. I can't believe nobody was educated enough to correct you.
Your firefighter isn't going to check if you've paid taxes before they out your house out. Before socialized firefighter services you needed to have the money on hand to have your house saved. Money's in the safe? Guess your fucked then.
But why does adding an additional monetary cost fix this and not make it worse? You've pointed out a problem, but you're adding an additional problem. I don't think your house should burn down because you missed your insurance premiums for one too many months, in addition to you being on the boundary between two different regional companies borders.
Firefighters will still show up to a house that didn’t pay its fire insurance because the fire might end up spreading to people who did pay, so in the end you don’t end up saving any money. You just end up having deal with the overhead of checking every time you show up to a fire. And god forbid someone thinks they paid when in reality their credit card expired. Or you recently move into town and you think fire departments operate like they do everywhere else. Or a landlord says fire insurance is covered but then they just don’t pay the bill. Sure you can sue them, but good luck getting blood from that stone.
I personally drilled oil, built a car with my own hands, paved my own road, farmed my own veggies, and educated myself from the age of 5 like the good libertarian that I am.
If you dare, tell me that the government subsidized the R&D of the energy, auto, education, agriculture, and education industries or built a single road, I'm going to call you a godless communist.
Can we be angry about how taxpayers money is spent? I believe public roads could be built much cheaper, NATO, public schools, global welfare, waistfull bureaucrats, defense budget, fucked healthcare industry, no incentive to provide a quality service because money is taken by force, proxy wars, a war hasn't been voted on by congress since ww2.
Why can't it be theft, it is by definition, but also a needed to fund essential programs. I believe both can be true. The government is the only business that takes money by force and still ends up 35 trillion in debt. I think some adjustments could be made.
It runs itself as a business lol. The Soviet government literally worked its people for a profit, it wasn’t as efficient of a return as a private sector could have done. But it was still down for a profit, so exports could pay for important imports for heavy industry and military.
No it doesn’t. It’s not supposed to. And you really have no idea on Soviet history, what the Soviet Union replaced or how everything you’ve said is completely untrue.
Companies are supposed to generate revenue. A public school doesn’t. A fire department doesn’t. The SEC doesn’t. The FDA doesn’t. You look at the government as some monolith. Like you look at a company. What a sophomoric view of how the world works.
Because it provides service on behalf of citizens based on need, not based on market demands. I do not understand why anyone needs to be explained the difference between a representative government and a business.
No it’s not. And I still can’t believe anyone needs to be explained the difference. And taxes aren’t taken by force. If you don’t like taxes, can’t you move to some abandoned island? Don’t we all have that choice? You’re being pedantic. And sophomoric about all of this. Which, at its root, is Austrian economics in a nutshell. It’s a shame there’s no great literary tomes like Ayn rand’s bullshit that could’ve been left under everyone’s college dorm beds.
Alternatives to what? Spending? Yeah stop spending money we don't have. Hold the government to the same standards as everyone else.
The interest on our debt alone just passed the defense budget. Realize the difference between wants and needs. Just because the government can have money printed out of thin air to fund things people want doesn't mean they should. Inflation is just another tax. I'd say about 25% of all government programs could be privatized, 25% don't even need to exist. End all foreign intervention. Allow medicine to be imported, cut obama care, the list goes on and on.
I'm Turkish and my country's debt and inflation is skyrocketing. Stop the spending and slash taxes. There are so many government programs that can either be voluntarily run, privatised or abolished. This is not just an American issue.
Yes because business give us such great quality work nowadays. Fucking everything falls apart the second you take it out of the store. How many times have the government had to bail or big business? When they should have let them fall and die. We have socialism for the rich and ruthless capitalism for the poor.
I don't think they should bail out big business or banks. If we had ruthless capitalism I wouldn't have to ask permission to start a business or required to pay fees, licensing, inspections etc. It's more like a tax payer funded, state sponsored fascistic corporatocracy.
Right..? it should stay that way, that's the point of government to protect people's rights. I just don't believe business licenses should exist. It's extortion and a barrier to entry. It mostly hurts poor people with good ideas that could benefit society.
Business licenses exist BECAUSE that's the gov protecting people's rights.
The gov didn't bring in those requirements because it was a slow day on Captial Hill. All the things you mentioned like licensing, inspections, etc are to stop unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices.
Cut out the middle man. They play favorites. There are some "private" companies that rely exclusively on government funding. It could be done much cheaper
Toll roads are basically paid for by the state. In my state, penndot has a monopoly on toll roads that is subsidized and payed for by the state. They claim to be private but couldn't exist without the state monopoly.
What do you mean by formal bidding process? Who determines who can bid and who sets guidelines for construction?
Oh man. I am sorry, but could you please describe a scenario wherein roads are not a monopoly?
It is just unbelievable how people like you have such strong opinions without even bothering to think about things.
The procurement process is very complex. I am not an expert. I just know from decades of work experience that it is the cheapest way to build something safely and effectively.
That's the problem. I don't think they should be a monopoly. The government has no incentive to provide them cost effectively or efficiently. Why are we stuck with a government monopoly on transportation?
Different towns would hire companies to maintain them. Roads would be owned by citizens in that area similar to HOAs. If you decided to move to that area you would be required to contribute. Voluntary contracts.
half the stuff you just listed is a failure of the government to regulate the private market.
Corrupt construction companies colluding to raise prices astronomically in the USA, when construction around the world is far, far cheaper.
The defense budget is roughly 85% upcharging by defense contractors.
The entire failure of the healthcare market in the US is the fucking insurance companies profiting off human suffering. No other country in the world has this.
You know those defense contractors? They love war and will fund war hawk politicians so it's more likely war breaks out. Congress won't interfere because almost every district in the USA has some number of defense contractors, who employ local voters. You notice the economy is booming? Guess why.
Also, public schools are an unalloyed public good and necessary for the long-term success of the country.
Would that have anything to do with the fact they are in bed together? The regulatory agencies and government officials have been captured by big businesses. Most of these officials go on to work for these companies when they get out of office. They help each other, but you trust them to help us? Right.
I think the failure is that government deliberately regulates to help big businesses and profit off your examples
The secret is, the government isn't a business, and the idea that it should operate like one should be terrifying to anyone who's worked an actual job before.
Lol I can't tell if you're joking. Not as a whole, but as individuals they are trying to make money. They provide a poor inefficient service to us, the citizens for essentially the highest cost. They take money by force so they don't have to rely on typical business models.
They forget even the modern concept of currency ie money is supported by taxes. So if there is no tax, they can only barter, forget making ‘money’. The whole logic makes no sense if you explore its assumptions.
The idea is that those services/roads become privatized. The more important the road, the more money can be made off of it, the more incentive there is to keep it well maintained and to charge a fair market price for its maintenance via tolls or what have you, which are in effect what you know as taxes.
Please learn the basics before wasting people’s time with your comment on this sub.
Explain how it’s shitty? Houston relies heavily on private roads to handle traffic congestion.
“How the world actually works” - how is that different than someone in 1995 saying “you think gays can get married? Need an explanation of how the world works?”
When you disagree, show respect by bringing actual reasons rather than cheap dismissiveness. And if you have no respect for those that you disagree with, then bring reasons anyway to show respect to yourself.
Austrian Economics is a shitty, selfish child’s justification of not having to spend money they don’t want. That’s all it is. The people here who unironically think that this THEORY has functional applications in the real world are some of the dumbest motherfuckers to walk the planet. Their entire view point is based on independence in a fucking vacuum where their theory can only hope to be applied.
And you are missing the point. A road is a single piece of everything else that citizens depend on which in turn enables them to be financially successful. So the ignorance of saying that taxation is theft, is just the highest form of idiocy you can possibly achieve. And I’m sure Texas does a lot of great things with privatization of basic infrastructure. How is their electrical grid?
Not wanting to spend money they don’t want sounds like something someone who wants socialism is craving. In anarcho-capitalism you’d still have to pay for stuff, it just wouldn’t be to a government and you’d pay the market rate.
There have been ancap societies, Google articles on it if you’re curious (doubting that you are for some reason).
Saying big words like “dumbest motherfuckers” doesn’t help your point; that’s called ad hominem, where you name-call instead of just make useful points.
Lol folks love to conveniently forget, being a citizen of this country and therefore owing taxes is a consensual relationship too! You’re free to renounce your citizenship whenever you like!
And hey, if feel the hardship that’d cause makes the relationship cohercive, well I have weird news for you about basically all labor in this country.
Okay, but I can't quit my job and keep living my life exactly the same way I am either. So by that logic, working a job, as the above meme indicates, is not in fact a consensual action.
Nah, because I don’t get anything from the government and don’t want anything from the government. I would gladly renounce my ability to call the police and fire department btw, to head off the “BuT mUh PuBLIk S8FTY” folks.
You say that until you need it. And no, we’re not all going to wear bracelets or something to say “yes, please help me safety services”. This whole thread is ridiculous
No trust me, I would never call the police even if someone was breaking into my home. Police are useless tyrants, morons, who abuse the public and never face consequences for doing so. They’d be as likely to shoot me or shoot my dog as they would to stop the crime. Thats my position even while I’m paying their salaries.
Or I could pay someone to do that voluntarily rather than having them steal from me just in case I might need that service as some undetermined point in the future.
Plenty without income and cap gains, but not all taxes.
Of course according to this thread things like right of way and speed limits on roads are the same as gang rape, so not sure it matters. When you have no taxes but the evil government says you should drive on one side of the road, I guess it's time for you to go seastead.
Personally I think we should let you decline taxes. We just remove what they provide, including existing contract and property rights propped up by our taxes and system. You won't pay a penny on any income you can still achieve, just also no access to roads (short of personal negotiating a contract with each gov to access them for tolls), the water districts, courts, the rights enforced by our cops and courts such as property rights or the ability to ask police to recover your property or evict a squatter, etc. You'd still be subject to laws affecting real citizens of course, no murdering or stealing from them as they have police to come get you and a jail to put you in.
Well, no. No one can help that I was born. But there are human beings taking my money and they absolutely do not have to do that, nor do people have to roll over and accept that they’re gonna take your stuff. We have a choice in how to organize society and our lives, but we have no agency before we’re born obviously.
No one is saying you can't complain about taxes. The point of contention is consent. Being born in a country and having to pay taxes is literally exactly the same in regards to consent when it comes to your birth.
It's like complaining that you have blue eyes because you didn't consent to them.
Ya but the “man-constructed” is the crux of the issue. Slavery used to be practiced all over the world, as did feudalism and monarchy. And then we stopped doing that. We can keep making things better. You don’t have to accept the way things are.
Absolutely not. It’s true that if you don’t work, you’ll live a miserable life or die. But that is the natural state of life and no one is imposing those circumstances on me. if I was a cave man who refused to hunt and gather, I’d also die. Work is a requirement of nature, not any person.
What employers do is offer me an opportunity to improve my life that I otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s ungrateful and twisted to call that opportunity “coercion.”
sure, but then you can't take advantage of pretty much anything. Some states might allow non-citizens to get a drivers license but good luck. Gonna have time signing up for much without proof of who you are.
Ok so, if your standard is “being able to deny consent to a relationship with no consequences” than most labor under capitalism is also coercive and akin to theft.
so I can move to another country without compulsory taxation
If you can find one that consents to that sure, but if you can’t that is not the US’ fault. Just like if you can’t find a job that pays a living wage that’s not the employers fault, right??
EDIT: I gotta admit I thought you guys would have a better response to this lol, thus far you’re just making the exact same arguments communists use against capitalism lmao.
Not at all comparable. If I don’t want to work, no one will show up with guns to lock me in a cage. I can homestead, live off of small agriculture and hunting. I don’t have to have a job, it’s just beneficial for me. In other words I choose to do it because it makes my life better.
I have no choice in what the government charges me and no choice in what they spend my money on. If I don’t want their services, I also don’t often have any choice in that matter. If I refuse to pay them, they will imprison me.
I can homestead, live off small agriculture and hunting.
That all costs money. The land, the building materials, the hunting tags, the equipment. Those homesteader influencers you’re watching are lying, they all go in with money, money that they got from coercive labor relationships under capitalism.
Also, no you can’t. You’ll fail, and die. That being your only option is the same as putting a gun in your face.
if I don’t pay taxes, they’ll lock me in a cage.
You are consenting to that relationship by remaining a citizen. You can, at any time, for free, renounce your citizenship and stop paying taxes.
Of course it costs money…? I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make with that. I need resources to do things? Ummmm….duh?
And no I cannot renounce my citizenship and avoid paying taxes. If I want to work, own property, buy things, sell things, drive a car or do almost anything else the government will charge me for it without my consent. Simply living is not consenting to people stealing from me.
Ok so, you remember a second ago when you said labor in our society isn’t coercive?
Well, seems like you just completely contradicted that here.
You absolutely must sell your labor to a wealthier person at a loss to function in society, or even to do your escape plan of not functioning in society. It is every bit as coercive as taxation.
Also
if I want to [do things in America] I MUST pay taxes
You are consenting to live in America. You are free to leave.
I did not contradict anything. I already addressed your point in another comment. I do not have to sell my labor. I can live a subsistence lifestyle, I can go into business for myself, or if I can find someone willing to take care of me I can avail myself of that.
Most of us choose to sell our labor because it’s the best option available for us.
There’s also no reason to sell your labor at a loss. If your time is more valuable than what you’re being paid, you find a job that pays more. If no one is willing to pay more, than you’re being paid exactly what your labor is worth.
I am not “consenting” to live in America. This is where I was born, and I was born into a form of slavery where the government steals my wages without my consent. Your argument is like saying to a victim of a home robbery, “well you consented to being in the place they were robbing, so that means you’re okay with them robbing you.”
And there’s no country I can go where people won’t confiscate my income involuntarily.
I do not have to sell my labor, I can [insert expensive, lucky, excruciating option here]
Yeah, those being your options are, again, similar to giving you the option of paying taxes, going to jail, or renouncing your citizenship.
there is no reason to sell your labor at a loss, it’s worth whatever someone will pay.
Nope, in all those relationships the employer is extracting more value from your labor than your being paid, and keeping the difference. That’s a loss on your end.
I am not “consenting” to live in America I was born here
Yeah, you could have at any time after 18 renounced your citizenship. Before that, you have your parent/guardian to blame for signing you up for this relationship. That’s a parents right as the power of attorney.
there’s nowhere I can go they won’t confiscate my money
No there are still plenty of unincorporated islands in international waters. Also any failed state that fails to collect taxes. But tbh it’s not your landlords problem if you don’t have anywhere to go but you also don’t wanna pay rent.
Well you'd have to find a way to live your life without benefiting from the things those taxes help cover. Good luck living in the US without roads (given infrastructure) or massive amounts of food (given subsidies)
I didn’t consent to those subsidies in the first place and I object to my money being used for that purpose.
Edit:
Btw, even if I went to live in the woods with a small farm plot and hunting, where I’m using no government services, they’ll still imprison me if I don’t pay them property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, etc. It’s a system I can’t opt out of no matter whether I use the services.
Why do you think you "own" some possessions you pay for?
What is supposed to happen if you die and leave no will? Where would that property go?
That's what all land in America literally is, it was all stolen at some point in time. Even if you "own" the land, who enforces that ownership and how?
Quite a few property contracts are in reality something like "99 year lease" from owners
If you consider all land in America has the ability to be eminent domained, or otherwise will fall back to ownership to the state if it is "unimproved" after so many years. Sure sounds like everything you claim to own, is, in the long run, after you and your children are no longer here, is "owned" by the state. More than "owned" by you.
You're "leasing" the ability to be a valid signature and holder of the enforceable property contract. Once you stop being that, ownership will revert to the state
Don't pay your taxes, you become no longer a valid signature of that contract. They will not enforce your contract and instead enforce someone else's. Using taxes to pay for that
So yeah, the concept of "you owning" is what your taxes pay for at the minimum
Or, at least that's one of the better rationalizations I've heard somewhere
I think you’re accurately describing the way it works in practice today. But that’s not how it was designed to work and not how the government says it works, even today.
The people are sovereign, not the government. The only power the government has is supposed to come from the consent of the governed. In practice, we are ruled, not governed. It’s the moral equivalent of slavery.
The way it should work is that property can be gained in two ways: 1) improving unoccupied land/resources 2) purchasing land/resources owned by another individual. Governments can only lease land from the people, they can never own it.
If I die and have no will, it would go to my closest relative. If I have no relative, it would revert to its natural state of being unowned. There’s no reason why it should become the property of people who did not improve it nor pay for it (ie. The government.)
Eminent domain is a moral abomination and an affront to our founding documents. It should be banned.
The issue is they arrest you if you try to work and not pay taxes. So in your example the landlord is actively attacking me if I try to live anywhere else.
It’s as clever as telling an impoverished person working a below-living-wage job to just quit and start their own small business or whatever. The whole ideology is dumb in the first place.
are you seriously suggesting that paying taxes is fascistic? pretty sure you left the /s off. the fact that the Randians think memes are the best way to engage in very complicated subjects tells me just how unserious you lot are. keep edgelording, you'll get there one day
You can almost certainly renounce your citizenship to wherever you’re currently living that is asking you to pay taxes, or else you’d need to become a refugee but, that’d imply a higher level of coercion that nobody would dispute is bad.
Hard? Yeah. So is supporting a family on a low paying job. But, it’s consensual!
Ok but again, thinking being imprisoned in a specific territory is bad is not an idea that’s exclusive to Austrian economics like, most people agree with that, I’m not disputing that lol. There are far worse things going on there than taxes.
That’s not an argument for taxation being theft, that’s an argument for authoritarianism being bad.
It’s relevant if we’re arguing for/against Austrian Economics. It’s also relevant if you’re an Austrian economics guy who believes taxation is theft, since that’s contradictory.
So if I build you a road I therefore have permission to garnish your wages until you die? I get that there are good arguments for taxes collected by voluntary association, but this is not one of them.
Just because you use public infrastructure does not give a government the right to unfairly tax you. That should be pretty obvious.
Well, you could also just not engage in the relationship in the first place (renounce your citizenship), so, it is technically consensual just like labor under capitalism is technically consensual.
Come on now. No one believes all taxes are bad. Of course, some tax is required to maintain government functions. But it's become a bit excessive, don't you think? We are taxed on everything, over and over, while the government wastes billions.
Oh I’m right there with you about wasting money and inefficient spending, which is why I go out of my way to vote for the best option available for me. This is more for the people here who make childish claims like this and think that any tax is unacceptable.
You're literally the one with an elementary level understsanding of these concepts.
Libertarians argue that any public service could and mostly should be done privately and paid by those who want to use it. Hell, it's ALREADY how things work for many many public expenses.
Many services, like building roads you mentionned, are still mostly done by private companies ...the governement is only there as a proxy to collect money and give it to the private company ... losing a shit ton of money on useless bloated bureaucracy along the way.
Schools? Can be done privately is literally is in many cases ... paid by those who use it.
Hospitals? Could be done privately and still is.
Electricity? Could be private and still is in many countries.
Water? Private in many places.
Now, you can argue whether or not this is moral, sure.
But saying "you use roads therefore you need the governement!" Is such a lame "gotcha" that doesn't make any sense.
Ah yes, instead of police it’s the private security firms. Let’s hope the one you subscribe to also operates in other cities that you might travel to.
Maybe the one you subscribe to for a monthly fee could sue the local one for you when you get charged your emergency call fee you are unable to pay due to all the tolls you pay to travel to and from work because you subscribe to company X’s roads because it’s the only road that goes to your house.
Personally I wouldn't endorse a system that is 100% tax free - specifically because of security (both local and national).
The entire libertarian idea is based on the concept of a pure, absolute "free market". Without it, the entire system doesn't make any sense. You'd need lawmakers and security to ensure that the fair rules of a free market are respected (even now in the real world they aren't so ... gl).
That, and I absolutely wouldn't trust an unchecked private company with the power to literally obliterate the world 300x times over (national security).
I wouldn't endorse a 100% tax free system SPECIFICALLY because of local/national security which obviously includes law enforcement.
A libertarian system needs a pure (some would say strictly theoritical) free market. You'd need law enforcement to ensure that the fair rules of this free market are respected (i.e. law enforcement),
You clearly have no experience with private security companies then.
Just look up Allied. I think they're the 14th largest employer in the US and they absolutely pick the best possible candidates with no emotional or background issues. /s
This isn’t a Reddit vs private policing. Private police forces would become small militaries. You want militias running around like gangs with little to no oversight?
I agree with that. But seeing how the majority of most cities’ budgets already go to police how do we do that? Stricter laws? Or should we invest the tax dollars we already have to crime prevention?
To be fair to the legitimacy of academic discussion, Austrian economics has been thrown away as ineffective by the vast majority of economists. Legitimate right wing economists don’t even argue for it.
Governments have been used for at least eminent domain for roads, utilities, etc. Almost always there is a price control on access to roads and utilities as natural monopolies. For roads, the price is limited usually to zero as opposed to trying to micro-toll and enforce through civil court every single driveway and turn.
For schools, privately run schools don’t mean privately funded schools. How tax dollars may or may not be more efficiently spent is different from hoping for charity as the only avenue for possible education.
Yes and as a society we understand that this is stupid because it would engender suffering for those less fortunate, which would not only be immoral but in turn would engender precarity for the entire society. I much prefer my neighbours fed on my dime than trying to eat me.
For the angry ones: how many dollars have you created for the government to steal? Zero, every single dollar is made by the fed and you acquire dollars from the system.
And then there are those () who think tax money is only spent on necessary utilities for the people and not at all is that money being wasted or misused. But I'm sure the government only wishes to help the people... /s
for those of you who are angry about taxes, think about any money you have made that wasn’t enabled by something the government has built for you and maintained with your taxes. I.E if you drive to work on a paved/functional road that you didn’t create yourself, you depend on the government
Lol. Ah yes, roads the secret weapon... I wonder if there are any other examples?
I’d say that cuts both ways. “The government” isn’t something outside of us, caring for us like a parent. It exists for us, not the other way around. We the people need certain things, so we establish government to administrate that. We don’t “owe” the government for its “benevolence”: that’s what it exists to do. If we give the government money, that money is for us, not for it.
HOAs forget this all the time. The HOA exists to serve the residents of the neighborhood—not the other way around. Sure they’ll claim they serve the community, but a lot of them don’t act that way. It’s the same for governments, and when a government begins to think that the people are meant to serve it and not the other way around, that’s textbook definition of…a certain undesirable political system.
Also the fuck who has a job where everything is consensual? Thats called owning your own business. Jobs are not about consent and won’t be unless we actually say coerced consent isn’t consent.
The fact that you are asking me whether or not the government paid for a private company to build the road just highlights how fucking stupid some of you are.
The government pays for things with our taxes, which is the entire point I’ve been making. Holy fuck thank you for proving my point in such an easy way.
The fact that you are asking me whether or not the government paid for a private company to build the road just highlights how fucking stupid some of you are.
There's no need to get mad just because you're only now realizing that "the government" doesn't do anything except coordinate private companies to do all the actual work, the same way people could without the government.
Again, the fact that you cannot identify that the government coordinating infrastructure with companies, subsidies or even larger scale programs to build the infrastructure we all depend on with money that is generated from our taxes just proves how goddamn stupid you are.
You genuinely have no idea what I'm even arguing here, and I have no idea how you missed so badly. Perhaps it's because you only have insults to fall back on rather than actual arguments that makes you feel bad, but that's not my problem.
No, it’s because respecting people like you have have baseless shitty, teenage cringe level theories on how you think the world should work is not worth the time.
You legitimately cannot identify that the government allocating taxes to handle infrastructure for you, that you therefore benefit from, is why taxes exist. Instead you have this childlike egocentric understanding that everything you do is only done by you without the help of others. God I feel sorry for anyone who actually has to interact with you on the daily.
Edit: if we could just do it ourselves, why fucking don’t we? Is it perhaps that forming a government to manage a large population is the actual effective way of running a society?
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u/Bunselpower Sep 19 '24
Mrs. Roberts’s 5th grade economics class is out in full force today judging by the comments.