If taxes are robbery then using public infrastructure like roads without paying taxes is also theft.
Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts. Your taxes pay for roads and public transit which are used to get people to work to create wealth for a community. It turns out the thing that makes humans great is community and banding together. Taxes are a formal way of doing that.
Now, we need equitable taxes, but that would involve taxing the rich proportionally. This is economically sound because wealth doesn’t trickle down and the mega wealthy are, well, mega wealthy because they hoard wealth. That money would be better spent creating better roads, better public transit, better education, or in short, a better community. The prospect of a better community only upsets those who are not members of the community, because their insane wealth puts them in a different class, and those who think defending that class will somehow get them privilege. The only privilege we need is a better community.
Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone.
Taxes raise money for transfers to special interests and public employees. Why would you trust an oligarchy of politicians (the State) to decide which goods are useful “for a community” and which don’t?
In contrast to private businesses that supply the goods that consumers voluntarily want to buy, public officials lack of the capacity to pick data as to what people truly demand, much less how to go about meeting those demands economically. They don’t have direct feedback of what every individual in the community want; they don’t pass the test of economic rationality.
If the Monopoly of Violence can’t act economically, they have no other choice but respond to interest groups, so tax money will necessarily end up with narrow interest groups rather than the provision of “public goods”
The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts.
The end does not justify the means. The mere existence of taxation is detrimental (and antithetical) to the very source of economic growth, that is, voluntary exchange.
Goods like education and roads, for example, are goods like any other: they can be supplied by markets and markets alone.
The only privilege we need is a better community.
A better community will be formed if it’s achieved by voluntary means. Moral obligation is not the same as legal obligation. How can individuals be virtuous? By letting them act freely.
I don’t believe that demand is solely driven by voluntary consumer choice. On the contrary, demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing. It’s driven by making cheap products that don’t last and encouraging a throwaway culture. It’s driven by planned obselesence.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary. People who live in food deserts don’t have choice.
If the thing you want is not popular with the masses then the capitalists have no incentive to make it. Endless growth and all that…
demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing.
It’s driven by planned obselesence.
Consumer products develop through experimentation. Consumer preferences also change and develop gradually through time. To meet them requires entrepreneurial judgment.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary.
Aside from a few innate demands concerning hunger and temperature, consumer preferences emerge as a result of interaction between many individuals.
Each consumer regulates the consumer products he consumes by spending money. There is no good substitute for the market process concerning the development and dissemination of consumer goods.
If taxes are robbery then using public infrastructure like roads without paying taxes is also theft.
Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts. Your taxes pay for roads and public transit which are used to get people to work to create wealth for a community. It turns out the thing that makes humans great is community and banding together. Taxes are a formal way of doing that.
Now, we need equitable taxes, but that would involve taxing the rich proportionally. This is economically sound because wealth doesn’t trickle down and the mega wealthy are, well, mega wealthy because they hoard wealth. That money would be better spent creating better roads, better public transit, better education, or in short, a better community. The prospect of a better community only upsets those who are not members of the community, because their insane wealth puts them in a different class, and those who think defending that class will somehow get them privilege. The only privilege we need is a better community.
Taxes raise money for transfers to special interests and public employees. Why would you trust an oligarchy of politicians (the State) to decide which goods are useful “for a community” and which don’t?
In contrast to private businesses that supply the goods that consumers voluntarily want to buy, public officials lack of the capacity to pick data as to what people truly demand, much less how to go about meeting those demands economically. They don’t have direct feedback of what every individual in the community want; they don’t pass the test of economic rationality.
If the Monopoly of Violence can’t act economically, they have no other choice but respond to interest groups, so tax money will necessarily end up with narrow interest groups rather than the provision of “public goods”
The end does not justify the means. The mere existence of taxation is detrimental (and antithetical) to the very source of economic growth, that is, voluntary exchange.
Goods like education and roads, for example, are goods like any other: they can be supplied by markets and markets alone.
A better community will be formed if it’s achieved by voluntary means. Moral obligation is not the same as legal obligation. How can individuals be virtuous? By letting them act freely.
I don’t believe that demand is solely driven by voluntary consumer choice. On the contrary, demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing. It’s driven by making cheap products that don’t last and encouraging a throwaway culture. It’s driven by planned obselesence.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary. People who live in food deserts don’t have choice.
If the thing you want is not popular with the masses then the capitalists have no incentive to make it. Endless growth and all that…
Consumer products develop through experimentation. Consumer preferences also change and develop gradually through time. To meet them requires entrepreneurial judgment.
Aside from a few innate demands concerning hunger and temperature, consumer preferences emerge as a result of interaction between many individuals.
Each consumer regulates the consumer products he consumes by spending money. There is no good substitute for the market process concerning the development and dissemination of consumer goods.