Replying to lucash.dev

One of the things that pisses me most about taxes is all the talk about “paying the fair share”.

You might argue that taxes are necessary — but there’s nothing fair about taking by force someone’s property and work for the benefit of others.

The “fair share” of taxes for every single person on Earth is **exactly zero**.

I can’t afford to own a home where I live, but if I had never paid any taxes I could be comfortably retired by now.

That’s pretty typical of middle and upper classes in most of the world.

How is that fair exactly?

Anyone who finds legal ways to pay less in taxes is just behaving like a normal human being instead of a mindless zombie.

Being a serf and paying taxes is just yet another sad thing we endure in this vale of tears. I try not to think too much about it.

But pretending it’s a good thing is too much to ask.
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lucash.dev 2y ago

Most of the popular support for taxation comes from people falling for the ludicrous trick of believing taxes are mostly paid by “them” (which most people believe doesn’t include themselves) for the benefit of “us” (which people are convinced include themselves).

Of course that’s almost never the case.

Taxes are paid by most people to the benefit of few in high positions who then sometimes spend a tiny portion of it buying the support of the population while the rest is simply for the benefit of the powerful and their entourage.

In ancient times people at least didn’t pretend otherwise. Taxes were imposed on those either defeated in battle or who begged for protection.

It was something the strong imposed on the weak — and while many claimed it was justified, nobody pretended it was the other way around.

Taxes are always to benefit the strong — those who are literally strong or have more and bigger guns.

You might make arrangements that incentivize the gun-people to give a little of it back to the general population, but that’s it.

No voting or court can change the nature of things.

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lucash.dev 2y ago

I’m not your typical “libertarian”. I’m more pragmatic than that.

I think that until we have an example of a working society with zero taxes that can resist an attack by a major super power like the US or China, it’s reasonable to say taxation is necessary.

Mind you people in ancient times also claimed slavery was necessary (and some even that it was good), and part of that justification is that there wasn’t a functioning society that could defend itself that didn’t have slavery.

People tend to rationalize whatever they need to do — and I think it’s unfair to judge people thousands of years ago who *couldn’t* have known better by our own standards (19th century slavery was *very* different and worse).

Perhaps one day our descendants will think the same way about taxes and the people who imposed and supported them. Who knows?

Or maybe we’ll fall into a deeper darkness, and people will invent new horrors worse than 19th century slavery and 20th century labour camps and mass murder combined.

History is full of pain and suffering of all kinds.

Let’s enjoy and protect whatever little peace and prosperity we can find.