Quote (cambovenzi @ May 21 2021 09:51pm)
Yes wealth and value are subjective.
Regardless of what you think money or something is worth, the act of taxation is taking an amount away from people. People use that money to get a variety of goods and services, and they typically used a number of hours of labor to acquire it. That is literally being stolen from them by the state.
If I have 10 pieces of green paper or 10 apples and the state forces me to give the IRS 5 of them I am materially worse off, regardless of what they are subjectively valued at by different people.
If you work for 100k a year and the state takes half through taxation you are materially worse off.
Not exactly. A house, car, TV etc are forms of wealth and people are acquiring those.
The state issued currency is the typical medium of exchange / what they get in a paycheck, sure.
I'm reading this a few different ways and not exactly sure what you mean.
This would seem to be presuming the state is responsible for all conditions and your labor.
There is also a trope that everywhere would be some sort of wartorn dystopia or something where work and production are impossible if not for the state taxing people, which just isnt true.
Police etc ostensibly attempting to keep the streets safe do have an effect on the business environment but I do not credit that for 100% of wealth creation, nor are tax funded police required for a safe business environment. I'm not sure anyone here would argue the police are doing a particularly good job these days.
Or is that not what you meant at all?
I think this next part is important for clearing up what might be some misconceptions that you are other people might have-
The green pieces of paper the government prints(or dollars it computes into existence) isn't the actual wealth itself. Its the things you can get for it that must be produced elsewhere.
If they double the amount of green paper in circulation the population isn't suddenly much better off. We owe the state no overwhelming gratitude for merely issuing a currency.
In its absence of USD there would be (and are) alternative mediums of exchange.
But as things stand people here are using USD as the medium of exchange. Depriving workers of a significant percentage of what they get for their labor reduces their material well being. They can buy less than they otherwise could in the absence of taxation.
labor and resources are redirected away from the desires and needs of the workers into the government.
If one guy is a clockmaker and the other guy a farmer, but they use USD as the medium of exchange when dealing with each other, the wealth isnt from the USD. Its the clocks, vegetables, meat, eggs etc and its a result of their labor and investment, not the state.
Taxation and green paper isn't required for them to create wealth and prosper.
I would say govt fiat currency is not particularly legitimate, depending on what you mean by legitimate. The US government removing the gold backing from US dollars and massively inflating the money supply is a huge issue that many libertarians have with the situation.
There is room for confusion when using dollar values to indicate how much a dollar is worth relative to itself. The dollar has been losing massive value relative to goods and services but is always the dollar amount it says on there.
Getting into tl;dr territory and guessing a bit about what you meant and where I think you were going wrong so ill stop there. Hopefully that was helpful.
Crypto is an example of an alternate form of currency that is not issued by the government. It is one potential solution to problems or challenges posed from a lack of government taxation/involvement that you brought up.
gold was used for thousands of years as a currency and is another example.
Thanks. I appreciate the honest inquiry. Refreshing change from the usual political discourse these days.
To that last part -
Libertarians seek to fundamentally change and remove some of the power dynamics you are probably referring to.
I do not want a state ruling over people's lives and confiscating huge percentages of their income.
Abolishing taxation or government completely changes the power dynamic. (or merely reducing intervention and taxation, for the more moderate or minarchist libertarians)
People being free to make choices for themselves and keep what they earn vs the government stealing a significant amount from them and often spending it on things that further restrict their liberty or on wars of aggression killing people abroad.
Voluntary action vs coercion.
This.
Why would i give my money to the government so he throw bombs on countries abroad simply to give himself and the others 1%ers more money through oil $/drug $/sex $ and all the other racket they controls over the cartels and street gangs which all work together.
Guests cannot view or vote in polls. Please register or login.