pic unrelated.
do you ever feel like this government imposed on you as grown so powerful we cannot rid ourselves of it, especially in such a large population, do you feel like the IRS is racketeering you. How do you feel about the statement "taxation is theft"
As a minarchist, I feel taxation is fine, but it is being so abused in our current system, especially so the senators and so on in their triple digit salaries.
>>918175
Taxation is theft, but so is property.
>>918182
How is property theft? Ownership of property, in of itself does not imply coercion.
>>918198
How do you personally benefit however? Assuming the taxes, in most cases are at a national level instead of local, how do you know the money is going towards projects that will benefit you in any meaningful form? Take for example, the large highways the US built in Alaska, which see little use today by anyone. It was a pure waste of human, and regular capital/.
>>918196
Property requires coercion because it takes away one's control over his own labour. When you have to work for the proprietors to get your fill of what you need to survive you're being coerced.
>>918208
That is not coercion because the exchange is voluntary. Whether you are working PURELY for survival (Which in even sweatshops in china, excess wealth is accumulated most of the time), no one is forcing the exchange on one person to work or not.
>>918204
Well, that is getting into a more grey area.
SC said "Tax is not an assessment of benefits...(but) a means of distributing the burden of the cost of government" and goes on to say "the only benefit which the taxpayer is constitutionally entitled to is that derived from his enjoyment of the privileges of living in an organized society"
The highways probably are a waste but a few people use them. The tax system is honestly fucked up but because gov't bullshit it would be hard to reform.
>>918216
I am not in disagreement, on taxes for things such as military, and government maintenance, (Such as taking purely what is necessary for lawmakers to work). Even at that, logically taking the libertarian belief system, taxation is still theft.
>>918214
If you're not entitled at least to the basic things you need to live like food, housing etc, you're not entitled to live in any meaningful sense of the word. A choice is only voluntary if there's an alternative. In a proprietarian economic system there's no chance for any one person to refuse to work more than he needs to, otherwise he'll die. It's all based on beliefs and subjectivity, not knowledge. The Austrian School rejects the scientific method, but the needs that people have and the means of meeting them can be studied and quantified.
>>918220
No I feel you its just such a beast now idk how US would handle it if we broke down to much lower levels of tax and cut so many programs. I actually was more libertarian before taking my income tax class
See taxes as a thing to be manipulated (my teacher would repeat "Tax avoidance is not evasion")
>>918227
By that reasoning then, nature itself is coercion. You have no "choice" but to work or die, in any economic system, even the communist/socialist one. Moreover "Basic things' change radically depending on the society and living standards in question, s Mises said "The luxuries of today, are the necessities of tomorrow".
>>918214
Actually you could argue a lot of those manufacturing jobs in China was the hallmark of an order of society trying to impose their economic institutions on other countries. Veblen would say this sort of a thing is indicative of a dual headed society, productive and non-productive workforce and the formation of a leisure class. The existence of this leisure class requires institutions which are going to increasingly define and restrict the transferrance of their own private property. This is why Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, always complains about a ubiquitous issue in legislation: the preferment of merchants and manufacturers over the productive labor (the claim at the end of Book one). And although Smith's definition of productivity is more restrictive than Veblens, their points are correct.
>>918246
Nature is coercion, and that's not a good thing. We as humans first banded together to fend it off. Kropotkin also said something similar, but that it's a good thing if we discover that we need more to live a good life and can provide it.
>>918261
Why then, should coercion, be economically enforced within the framework of a human society, supposing that no one would have a right to their own labor in the socialist society? Since all means and goods of production would go towards the community, instead of any individual. Also, your definition of a "Good life" is not set in stone. An african native will have a radically different idea of a good life then a western woman. It's subjective based off person to person, and even factory workers from these two different countries (So called, "Working class") will have different views of a good life.
>>918261
With Nature is happiness. Coercion is not such a good way to describe the acquisition of private property by the leisure class. Maybe exploitation.
>>918285
Exploitation? How can you exploit something which someone has never owned? By purchasing the property and offering work, they are increasing the general living standard in the area.
>>918279
To say that coercion is economically enforced in a communist society is to assume that people are inherently selfish, but that they also don't want to be provided with all they need in exchange for a minimum amount of work. A good life might not be set in stone, but it's the job of economics to find out what people need and how to meet those needs. We can quantify scientifically several basic needs already, we all need water, food and a place to live. Those things aren't subjective at all. The other goal of communism is that the individual can take as much as he wants after basic needs are met, too.
>>918297
Why then, does the communist society NEED to exist? The capitalist society exist to provide goods for people who are willing to work for them, and wages are often set towards the living standard in whatever area where they are set up. Someone would not work, if his labor did not provide enough to at least, at the very least, live. As such, we can assume that people will be provided with the wealth needed to leave, in the overreaching majority of capitalist states. Secondly, would not the same rules apply in a communist society? Even such a society would have provisions for those who CHOOSE not to work, and produce nothing for the rest of the community.
>>918293
Exploitation of private property is done through the pecuniary institutions in a society. In a very basic mode of our culture, we would fight tribal warfare for our exploits. Now we just organize society so the predators are determined to win in the end.
>>918309
A communist society needs to exist because bosses, landlords and anything that subjugates a living, thinking human being to nothing but the labour or profit of somebody else is wrong. The profit motive also is completely irrational and we have, instead of doctors who set out to make us better, doctors who see that as the less important than making money. A job is done best when it is done to do that job and nothing else. A communist society might exclude people who choose not to work, but there's a difference between choosing not to do unnecessary work for a boss and choosing not to do the necessary work to provide your community with what it needs. It makes sense that somebody who refuses to do the latter would be expected to provide for themselves.
>>918319
You assume however, that because someone is rich, someone else HAS to be exploited. For example, just because a doctor works for profit, doesn't mean they will not work for good results. Since people will visit, the best doctors, and be willing to pay more money, ANY doctor will try his best to operate as good as he can for profit. How is the profit motive "irrational" in this case? That is the same applied for any human institution. A job is best done, when you have an incentive to do it. This statement, is economic 1 fucking 0 1. Secondly, why does it "need" to exist, when a society that operates off the communist system, would not expunge more resources in uneconomic policies, and what makes the bosses of this society any better?
>>918327
To add unto this, before you claim "We will have no bosses"! You must have someone who will coordinate where goods go, and what their end results will be, making them the bosses of the ends of the means of production. They, ergo have extra rights over the other people around them, regardless of whatever manner they are chosen.
>>918327
I don't assume that, in communism everybody will be rich. I differentiate between doing something for profit and doing something for its own sake because they take different skill sets and approaches. Making money is a matter of immediately appealing to somebody's desires, whereas endeavouring to do something correctly requires knowledge and not just belief. If desires are subjective, how are incentives objective? A communist society has no bosses at all, a lot of people assume that so-called "communist states" acheived communism when they never claimed to have done so. They weren't even socialist because socialism means worker's control and control implies agency.
>>918335
Sorry, I didn't refresh before posting. The way anything is run properly is that true ideas are followed and not people. It's not wrong to claim that there won't be bosses when we stop dogmatically endowing whoever is popular with constituted authority and start looking for the truth as the only matter of principle.
>>918335
Yes but there were many writers in the 19th century who appreciated the structures of Joint-stock companies as opposed to corporations because of the salutary effects they had on the flexibility and responsibilities/morals/perceptions of the people working in them. A more horizontal hierarchy for these companies was obviously preferred. The ideal structure would be like a sphere, not a pyramid. There is a definite center, and from it does all good spring.
The prevailing mode of organization for joint stock companies allowed the members of the companies to replace the leader if they so felt it was desirable.
Mill and Veblen are examples of two such writers.
>>918182
Property is a spook.
>>918344
That presupposes however, that humans have a concept of anything relating to an actual "Society". Psychological studies have shown time and again, that humans can only really identify with groups of 150 people, or less. How then, would a communist society of say, 100,000 people have ANY connection, or any incentive to work? It's counter-scientific reasoning (Funny, considering you implied austrians to be unscientific).
>>918175
>triple digit salaries
>>918204
Those are strategic highways in case we ever get into a war with Russia.
>>918363
They would have an incentive to work through self-interest, and through the collective interest of those groups of 150, whose confederation would be called "society".
>>918354
Isn't this an impossible ideal? The spontaneous power structure that arises will not be ignored. It is to deny human nature to say that there will not be exploitation of this power by those in control of the ends of the means of production.
>>920714
There won't be any spontaneous power structures or anything like that because power won't be given out as a matter of principle.
