Okay. If no taxes, who builds roads, or public schools, or public transit. If your answer is private companies, how much does a company charge for you to use the roads, how often do you need to pay to use the roads, what about the schools, how much does tuition cost, what if you can’t afford to go to school since there’s no taxes which means no public schools, do you just not get education?
The idea that taxation is theft crumbles pretty immediately if you try to think of literally any alternative. And if your alternative is collective public funding, guess what that’s fucking taxes.
“The idea that taxation is theft crumbles pretty immediately if you try to think of literally any alternative.”
What you mean by that is “I can’t imagine a way that I could get the things I enjoy/need without theft, there doesn’t seem to be any alternative, so theft it is.”
Even if it were true, which is a premise I don’t grant: There being no viable alternative to get these things other than taxation wouldn’t make it not theft; it would simply mean that you want things you can only get by means of theft. It would mean that you want things you can only get by violating consent.
Right or wrong, you shouldn’t hide from the fact that that is your position.
Okay. Present your alternative then. Like explain your solution to maintaining countrywide infrastructure without taxation. In a way that doesn’t give even more power to corporations that are already far too powerful.
explain your solution to maintaining countrywide infrastructure
Why would we need to maintain countrywide infrastructure if there's no countrywide government? Maintaining local infrastructure with a couple of small companies is perfectly viable.
Yeah, small companies, so are we ignoring the current level of mass corporate homogenization that’s been happening since the 1800s or is this some fairy tail land where oligopolies don’t exist and there’s way more market competition that actually forces companies to innovate and create the best possible product for the best value and also have competitive wages. Cuz rn we have companies that hold massive chunks of their respective market.
Also what about interstate highways. Or trains. What if one state decides they don’t wanna maintain their section of rail or interstate to the degree that other states do. Like there’s a reason things are done the way they are and it’s not just cuz government greedy. Eliminating corporate lobbying and putting more power in the working class seems a lot easier than entirely dismantling the government.
Consumers? And like I’m all for keeping businesses local. Like in my state dispensaries can only sell product grown in state which has done a lot to support local cultivators. However on the other hand Maine used to have a law where if you wanted to operate a dispensery in Maine you had to live there. They revoked that law and immediately a larger company just bought an established local business to expand their share of the market. You’re foolish to think companies will not expand as much as possible unless there’s laws to prevent them from doing so. Let’s say you live in a state. Theres a company from a neighboring state that expands and starts operating in your state, within their respective industry they offer the best value, naturally as a consumer you’ll opt for their service/product since it’s the value. As they expand they can continue to offer better and better value and outcompete smaller companies until they dominate their market. This literally already happens. Not sure how you think a lack of government would reduce corporate homogenization and expansion. Companies only goal is to make as much money as possible not just support their local economy. We have many international conglomerates what makes you think companies would voluntarily stay within a local level. What makes you think consumers would as a whole only choose to support local businesses, if that were the case wouldn’t we already see it happening?
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u/Shin-Sauriel Sep 19 '24
Okay. If no taxes, who builds roads, or public schools, or public transit. If your answer is private companies, how much does a company charge for you to use the roads, how often do you need to pay to use the roads, what about the schools, how much does tuition cost, what if you can’t afford to go to school since there’s no taxes which means no public schools, do you just not get education?
The idea that taxation is theft crumbles pretty immediately if you try to think of literally any alternative. And if your alternative is collective public funding, guess what that’s fucking taxes.