That is interesting. I had not heard of a non compulsory tax. If the tax is non compulsory, at what point is it paid?
Discussion
If there's no compulsory tax and you're living in a village and the village board want to build a road, they have to present this idea to all villagers. People who feel like a good idea will contribute to it.
But if the village board tells them they want to send a couple of soldiers to a country, you've never heard of, how many people will contribute?
Income tax in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_income_tax_in_the_United_States
I don’t think that that would work though. People could choose to not contribute to build the road but still benefit from the road after it was built. It would become a game of chicken to see who could get away without contributing. And it’s terrible for poor people; they have the least to contribute but the most to gain from it. In this road example, rich people could afford to continue to pay their way around the inconvenience of not having a road, while the poor could not do that. If taxes are collected from everyone, then everyone pays for the service that they all benefit from.
You are assuming that if taxes arent forced then no one will pay them.
Lots of philanthropists today donate to causes they wish to support, as was normal before compulsory taxes. You vote with your consumer dollar, why not also vote with your tax dollar?
Yeah, I don’t think the philanthropist argument is really strong.
Compare an employment model where you are guaranteed to never be fired no matter what, to a model where your compensation entirely depends value-for-value on your performance.
Which produces the better performance and life for you and others?
If 100 years of compulsory taxes led to the current unsustainable financial situation and debt spiral, then of what use is it to double down on the same failed approach?
To be clear, you are supporting state violence against any citizen for simply disagreeing over financial management. Shoplifting under $1k is de facto legal in California, but if I withhold my property taxes you'll look the other way while I get evicted, imprisoned or shot by police.
The 'civilized society' in America is beholden to the people, not vice-versa.
I don’t think that is an analogous comparison though. If the government fucks up, they get voted out of office, so their incentive is to not fuck up. If the issue keeps getting worse among all political options, eventually riots and civil unrest happens until the fuckiness unfucks itself.
You know it’s possible there could be other causes to our current unstable financial situation besides tax collection, right? Corruption, terrible financial planning, terrible trade agreements, terrible regulation, deficit spending… it’s possible to collect tax and run a balanced budget. What evidence do you have that it is only taxes that are entirely the cause of the current financial situation?
And to be clear, no, I am not supporting state violence against citizens who disagree with financial management. I disagree with a lot of the things that the state does, and they are not committing violence against me.
I have yet to hear a compelling alternative to tax collection.