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Low Information Voter

Politics is "the Art of the Possible", my friend, and sometimes "the perfect" can be the enemy of "the good".

An hour's labour stolen through tariffs empowers the State far less than an hour's labour stolen through "income tax".

Karadenizli 9mo ago 💬 1

The value of all imports in 2023 was 3.3 trillion.

The revenue from income tax was 2.2 trillion.

The more tariffs you impose, the less return you get on it, since if they work at all, it will result in less importing. The potential revenue from tariffs is a fraction of the income tax. One is not an alternative for the other.

The more important point is that trade deficits as a whole are a myth that is self contradictory if you stop to think for a second. Also protectionism does not work in any way, and tariff heavy countries are genuinely a terrible dystopian place to live, as someone who has lived in a tariff heavy country. There is no good whatsoever that comes from tariffs. Even if the counterparty is imposing them on you, you still lose more by imposing them back.

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Low Information Voter 9mo ago 💬 1

You are rebutting points I haven't made, and that are tangential at best to the OP.

Whether tariffs "work" depends on who is using them, and with what end in mind. We could trade historical examples and future scenarios all day, but they would be irrelevant to the OP.

My point remains: tariffs require no more State power than is already required to secure a territory, or even, if low enough, just its major logistical hubs.

All other forms of taxation require more pervasive State information-gathering, bureaucracy, and threat or use violence.

Karadenizli 9mo ago

But since you have both, you will have both forms of surveillance. They don't spy on you less when income tax is 10% less. As far as privacy is concerned, it's better to have full income tax and no tariffs than 10% less income tax with the rest in tariffs. And as opposed to income tax, the surveillance and imposition from tariffs scale with the amount. The more tariffs you have from more locations and product categories, the more nosy border patrol and customs will be, questioning your personal belongings and anything you bring with you.

This is not to mention that they are economically terrible for everything they propose to fix. Even if you believe the purported goals they are taxing everyone to save a few thousand jobs in some swing states. It's a terrible deal all round.

Low Information Voter 8mo ago

I strongly disagree on the desirability of a "full income tax" being preferable to anything. Income tax is the most intrusive of the taxes, and the strongest disincentive to productivity.

When State bureacracies were weaker and less pervasive, they didn't charge income tax because they couldn't.

Bitcoin circular economies, if established, will make income tax collection hard again. Governments will lean back into easier-to-collect taxes. I'd like to put a stop to that, too, but one marathon at a time...