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"Show me a civilized society without taxes

s."

Vibes the same as someone asking in the 18th century:

"Show me a civilized society without blood letting."

It misses any creative solutions introduced with the advent of new technology.

"BuT yoU cAn'T show Me OnE!"

Is not a demonstration of intellect but rather an admittance that there is no evolution of thought beyond the Luddite answer of extortion and violence. The arguing party cannot advance the argument to one of "taxes" as "technology" to consider alternatives in the abstract but stays firmly fixated on being right with absolute concretes.

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Discussion

royster⚡️ 8mo ago

History is leeches all the way down. Time for an upgrade

Sjors Provoost 8mo ago

One problem is that many people advocate lowering taxes while not lowering government expenses, and also not implementing these "creative solutions".

That's politically the easiest sell. A more honest approach would be to say: the government should stop doing X even if it has plenty of tax revenue to pay for it. Any politician doing that will get voted out of office long before any creative solution appears.

average_bitcoiner 8mo ago

Correct. Because the incentives are misaligned. The inability to run abhorrent deficits should right size most goverment spending to where we can begin to talk a out tax relief.

Sjors Provoost 8mo ago

Just a footnote on Dutch coalition politics: typically when budget cuts are needed, coalition party A and B each have to take care of these cuts in their own favorite department. So e.g. a left leaning party would have to cut social security spending and a right leaning party the defense budget.

The current coalition doesn't do that, which is one reason it's dysfunctional. DOGE suffers from the same problem: only cutting things you don't like doesn't work in the long run, you have to cut things you do like. That said, things that work in one political culture may not work in all.

average_bitcoiner 8mo ago

Is that first paragraph something enforced in law? Seems reasonable to have to cut your own funding you carry through legislation.

Sjors Provoost 8mo ago

Nope, it's tradition - which the current coalition didn't follow (e.g. the anti-immigration party is in charge is dismantling the asylum system, and predictably doesn't get anything done).

average_bitcoiner 8mo ago

Yikes. Traditions are fragile.

Sjors Provoost 8mo ago

Many religious folks would disagree with that claim.

average_bitcoiner 8mo ago

They would be right but I see political partyism as a new form of religion. It's preying on our monkey brain's desire to have a tribe and for that tribe to win.

It's all so tiresome.

Sjors Provoost 8mo ago

The heavily polarized two party system in the US indeed has unhealthy tribalism. But it hasn't always been that way historically and it's not the case for all countries with a two party system (which itself is a result of first-past-the-post voting systems).

Multi-party systems have less of this problem. Perhaps because the need to make different coalitions each election, which means it's a bad idea try and obliterate the other side.

No politician party can ever fully represent your views. Having more choice helps, but when parties get too small you run into other problems (e.g. too much self promotion grand standing, not enough time to read a law before passing it).

Modern technology might be able to find a better coordination mechanism that political parties. Though I used to be more optimistic about that.

Dr. Bitcoin, MD 8mo ago

Approval voting makes the most sense to me. Less polarized outcomes…in this voting method, you vote for as many candidates as you would approve for the job. Disapproval expressed by not voting.

It would look something like: I really like RFK, but since he won’t win, I’ll vote for Trump and RFK to signal my disapproval of remaining candidates.

Neal 8mo ago

i understand what the “taxation is theft” crowd is getting at, the problem with that rhetoric is that it’s a category error and not true.

debating taxes though is like trying to understand the roots of plant through examining the petals.

even if every tax on the books unjust, that doesn’t mean taxes cannot have a place in a just society.

founders carved out some space with “taxation without representation” but still missed the mark because “representation” doesn’t determine justice.

I am with you, i think taxes will be an old relic based on how tech will change production.

and saying our tax system is absurd understates the problem significantly.

we severed money from value with fiat. that’s the root, that’s prime.

until we scorch and salt fiat, no one will be able to make sense of taxes

my 2 sats

John 8mo ago

No price is too high, no tax too burdensome to satisfy the statist's desire for mediocre, pothole-ridden asphalt. They would sacrifice their firstborn for a highway system that's perpetually "under construction" and recoil if you even ask if there's a better way to finance continuous strips of concrete than by compulsory payments bundled with innumerable other "benefits" instead of a-la-cart payments

TK SuitCoin.exe 80HpW 8mo ago

this is why Axioms of Liberty was started to read about these topics to better understand the rationale behind them.

listened to breedlove debate some dude today on his podcast about some rando from Argentina that came up with the rationale that you can not own land because your labor did not create it. the amount of skullduggery and mental gymnastics he went to in order to not have to admit the absurdity of his position was astounding

ede3d957... 8mo ago

There is no society with theft as its foundation. It's just the Mafia doing its gang wars.