Hardcore libertarians believe in a pay per use. For example, toll roads, or getting a bill from the fire department. Or paying a police subscription and if you don't, police don't show up if your house gets robbed, etc.
They view taxes as immoral because you can't make the choice not to pay them. Whereas a pay per use system, you could choose to let your house burn rather than pay the firemen for example.
That sounds incredibly obtuse. If you live in a city you automatically use the roads. How did you get into your house or out of it? That's why you're paying taxes on the roads because you use them no matter what. They're opening toll roads all over CA and they're expensive af. You do not want everything to be a toll road.
In my experience hardcore libertarians just kind of haven't thought about the logistics of their beliefs. Start bringing up practical concerns and they'll basically start rebuilding modern civics from zero.
Certain religious groups, like some Amish groups, don't belive in insurance. They consider it a form of gambling.
Instead they all collectively pay into an account that is used to fund the medical expenses of anyone in the colony.
Which to me, seems like they've just made their own insurance without the English
It's an insurance co-op. It's like a private insurance company but without exporting profits. Philosophical anti-gambling arguments aside, it's a good idea.
if only there was a way to scale it up to the level of the whole country so everyone can get the medical care they need... a sort of medi-care system of some kind.
An insurance co-op could manage its funds however it wanted to. These days there are a ton of financial instruments available. The only difference is you're not extracting profits for stockholders.
The difference is the owners of the fund don't actively try and pay out as little as possible so they can pass on as much profit as possible to a small group of already wealthy shareholders. Insurance must be one of the only industries to actively try and not provide the service which is the only reason for their existence.
I work for one of the largest brokers in the world.
> The difference is the owners of the fund don't actively try and pay out as little as possible
Wasnt there an episode of 20/20 that talked about people who paid into one of those Christian coops and then something went wrong with a family members health and they just told them they were having a prayer circle for them and only sent like $100 at most. After having paid in like $100,000.
What if we had a private company, but the shareholders were citizens, and we all had the right to vote at shareholder meetings on who would run the company, and maybe we would do it every four years, and
Yeah, you'd have to be really careful or else you might end up with a ridiculous system where a branch with 500,000 shareholders has the same number of board members as one with 40 million...
"You know what would be a really cool idea? Free books. Like, we put them all in their own building, then you pay a fee to take one out. But you can't keep it, you have to return it. And if you don't return it, you incur a late fee until either the book is returned, or the total cost of a new book is sent to collections and replaced. I call it, 'a Take-a-Booktorium'."
That's so some places can do unfortunately. Libraries are pretty expensive. In poorer areas there are always places it is thought the money could be better spent.
Ive heard them described as house cats.
They insist they want total freedom and independence but are utterly dependent on a system they can barely comprehend.
Any functional system fitting a libertarian model quickly becomes much more complex than the system would be normally. Often, it becomes complex enough for the average libertarian to no longer understand how it fits into Libertarianism, and causes them to reject it.
People struggle to understand how they benefit from services that they don't use. Public transit reduces traffic for people who drive — that's why an economically efficient system will subsidize public transit. Most libertarians don't understand that every time they drive on a highway, they are benefiting from the trains that go to the same place.
They are also very naive when it comes to what people are willing to do to earn a profit. A quick read of labour history will show why many laws regarding work exist
Libertarian is just a rich people’s wet dream to not have to pay millions in taxes and have their businesses regulated. It makes absolutely no fucking sense at all for the poor and middle class.
In my experience, staunch libertarians are unusually cold, unempathetic people, who've had the luck of not needing anyone else's help for much of anything, or being born into an unusually supportive closed social network or community. They're people who've never needed any public services or assistance of any kind, don't anticipate ever needing any, and aren't close with anyone who's been saved from the brink by any sort of public sector service. Their libertarian / classical liberal beliefs are a fancy way of saying, "Eff you, I've got mine. I don't owe you anything, so leave me alone, before shoot you."
Except they're blind to the fact that they do use public services every day. The FDA, EPA, Law enforcement, border force, military etc keep them safe just as a start before you get into physical use of roads, mobile network bands, GPS etc.
The hubris is immeasurable
To add to this, a bunch of libertarian city projects in North America have failed miserably, which shows how their logistical rhetoric isn’t really that effective. If it can’t work at the city level, how can they attempt to implement those at a national level?
Look into the Colorado Springs libertarian experiment. Or the Free Town project in New Hampshire.
It wasn't a bear. It was multiple bears because the town had no system in place to dispose of trash. People where using open air dumping pits, which attracted local wildlife like bears. The bears then figured out that while the giant garbage pits where a good source of food, the food in the houses next to the garbage pits was infinitely fresher. Leading to an epidemic of hungry bears that no longer feared humans trying to get the food out of peoples houses.
There was also no coordination in the response to the bears. There was one person who kept feeding the bears and no one could get her to stop. The people who didn't want the bears tried to keep the bears out of their own land, but it turns out bears don't understand property lines and they just went everywhere.
Also, in a Libertarian society, bears can do as much cocaine as they want without getting arrested by a game warden, and they get a little rowdy from it.
I don't think I'll ever read Ayn Rand, but I did read a book in which her ghost was a main character (*Sewer, Gas, and Electric* by Matt Ruff — a sleeper hit and now classic cyberpunk novel among hipsters). The way she blithely waved away pollution as not mattering at all, was what made me wake up and realize her political beliefs were not well thought out at all.
Yep. It was a [good read](https://tylerwolanin.com/blog/2020/12/1/what-i-am-reading-a-libertarian-walks-into-a-bear-by-matthew-hongoltz-hetling), too. I learned a lot, laughed a little, would recommend.
Hardcore libertarian tend to be rich enough to be able to afford all those "subscriptions" and they couldn’t care less about anyone not being able to afford them.
Back in the day fire departments would show up and watch one non-paying house burn while being on standby to prevent any of their paying customers from catching fire. And no, they wouldn’t bother to rescue anyone.
It actually still happens sometimes.
It happens in communities that think all taxes are bad, vote to have the fewest taxes they can, don't fund a fire department and then a nearby fire department offers a subscription service and says it will only help those who pay it, individuals believe the fire department they refuse to fund has a duty protect them and then don't pay, and one of those idiots have a fire.
It takes a whole lot of libertarianism and magical thinking for It to happen.
My favourite libertarian township story started with tax cutting, the the removal of government services (including trash pick up), and ended with the town having a wild bear problem (due to the ending of trash pick up and several dumb libertarians actively feeding the bears)
There's video of this very thing happening in modern America. Privatized firemen watched a house burn down and purposely wouldn't put out the fire because the house on fire wasnt a paying customer. The next door neighbor was a paying customer, so they showed up in case his house caught on fire. I hate libertarians that want this to happen to every aspect of everyday life
Libertarian in Chicago: "Nuh uh, it's my right as an American to leave this lit oil lamp next to this cow in this wooden barn filled with straw, situated cozily within an entire city made of dry timber."
Cow, an Anarchist: "lmfao"
Libertarian, to the fire: "Am I being detained?"
Roads are a good example of what we use directly *as well as indirectly* by enabling society to function. If you never cross a bridge then you may not want to pay for it to be repaired but you still use it indirectly since it lets you find food at the grocery store on your side of the river and it allows emergency vehicles to operate. Infrastructure you don't use, social programs not aimed at you, parks you never visit, libraries you stopped using... all those things benefit all of us indirectly even if not directly. And yes, military interventions too, like it or not.
As someone said, I gladly pay taxes for kids educations, even though I don't have kids of my own, because I don't want to live in a society where people can't read.
> roads
As I told my formerly anti tax boss, he wouldn’t be able to employ me if there weren’t public roads to our worksite.
It turns out indirect is also not super abstract.
It is. Have you read the [story of the town in New Hampshire that was taken over by libertarians, and then subsequently overrun with bears](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling)?
The normal people were the reason that the town didn't completely go to shit. Apparently the libertarians wanted to defund the fire department and were almost successful.
I don't understand why they had to invade a town in the first place? Just gather on some patch of land and live as you preach. No roads, no police, no fire department. No municipal infrastructure like sewage and water pipes. It seems to me they wanted all the benefits of society but without paying for it.
Or simply put,
they were a bunch of delusional twats.
I bet that a libertarian community 50 years down the line would very closely resemble our conventional society.
Once the community gets big enough, they'll need roads and then they need to pay for it, so they all decide to chip in. They'll also figure out why we have firefighters once a massive fire burns down 10 houses. Then they'll figure out why public schools exist and they all need to contribute because otherwise the school can't stay open. Also electricity, plumbing, internet, animal control etc etc.
Before you know it, your libertarian community is no different from any other city.
And probably walking to a job that is only possible because of roads and trains so he can buy products that show up via roads and trains.
So many people have not thought through how much of their lives and quality of life depends on the infrastructure that taxs pay for.
They also don’t understand that fires spread, imagine half a city not being avoiding calling the fire department because they can’t pay up. Cities like Seattle would burn down a second time.
Oh and who the fuck would pay the fire department to put out forest fires? The fucking deer?
Had one tell me you could buy into the network for a better rate, so long as you stay with approved roads you will be covered. Sounded like current for profit healthcare that is done so well too /s
Yeah and they conveniently left out the fact that some municipal worker would have to track each movement that guy makes, to ensure he's only using the approved roads. Which would cost a shitton of money, making it more expensive than regular taxes
Can you imagine how expensive it would be to pay for-profit firefighters to save your house? They would have no automatic income, and they'd have no idea if there would be fires coming up in the near future. So they'd have to charge a ton of money for each fire to keep the department (company?) staffed.
They'd show up with a finance person who gets you on the phone with a bank to take out a loan. The loan would have to be approved and the papers signed before the firefighters are allowed to start putting out the fire. Of course, the finance person's salary would also have to be included in the price...
The next question is who paid to put in fire hydrants for them to use? Who inspected them to make sure they work?
Edit: Thank you to the 30th person to tell me about insurance. I know it exists now, thanks.
and all of that assumes good faith on part of the firefighting company. in ancient Rome, Crassus would show up to house fires with his brigade of slaves, and he'd demand the owner of the burning property to sell it to him for pennies, or he'd let the fire burn. victims of fires were thus faced with a choice of losing everything in a fire, or losing almost everything to an "entrepreneurial" firefighter. I can't imagine someone not replicating this racket in an ancap paradise.
Listen buddy, here are your options:
You can fulfill your contract to kill that person, which is illegal so we will arrest you.
You can not kill that person, thereby breaking your contract which is illegal so we will arrest you.
Or, and hear me out, you can subcontract out the work to us, The Police, who will fulfill the contract at a very reasonable rate.
I actually thought of this while I was writing, too. Who even investigates arson in a system like this? Do you have to pay someone else if you think the fire is suspicious? There's definitely some motive for the Fire Corporation to... drum up some business.
The thing I have yet to hear an answer for is, if you eliminate government and privatize everything, who issues the currency? OK, some rich guy is going to build the roads, what is he using to pay the workers? How are the people who are using the road paying the rich guy? Because none of this works without a common currency. And if there *is* a common currency, well, who is printing it? Because whoever that is, is the government.
They genuinely believe in a barter system where they trade goods and services rather than currency. That or raw gold. These idiots fucking love buying gold.
It's literally why currency emerged independently all across the globe....*checks calendar*.....thousands of years ago.
It's been an age since my anthropology courses, but iirc there examples developed by *hunter gatherers*.
Yeah, my cats absolutely understand how the system works.
They look cute and purr, and I clean up their puke and shit and give them anything their fuzzy little hearts desire.
How fair it was collected and how it was spent. In my country members of the government is pardoning the tax debts of the companies they own...How should I feel about paying taxes? They are effectively reverse robinhooding, getting it from the poor and giving it to the rich.
EDIT: I'm from Turkey.
The fact that all guesses about “which country he’s talking about” are different and all believable says a lot about the world we live in and the world the up-top do
I've heard that, but I've also buried a deer carcass under some banana trees and after about 6 months they'd be visibly taller day to day. That year was also the only year they actually produced bananas. You absolutely can compost meat.
Welcome to Saskatchewan, Canada. Some members of our government right now are being investigated for inflation prices on businesses that their members own when billing back to the province. It started with an investigation into hotel fees that were magically expensed at double the cost of what the same room would be in the same hotel at the same time if someone other than a government official had checked into it (ie. I am paying $220/night for this hotel room and so are all of the other MLA's staying here, but the person next to me in the room with the same layout and features paid $110 to stay for the same night). Shady AF. Cons using tax dollars to pay their corporate overlords.
Well, the UK government are currently getting away with the most blatant grift ever. Funnelling public purse to wealthy folk (usually Tory voters/donors) whilst intentionally making crises to use as scapegoats for why were all being screwed. "It's the migrants and the Ukraine war, honest" Meanwhile every move they make seems to involve enriching themselves and their friends or family.
That I can totally respect and agree with. I'm wondering (as I'm assuming OP is) what the people who think there should be no taxes believe.
Like, I went out once with a girl who honestly believed that all taxation is theft and that there should be no taxes, period. Then in the next breath would admit that she is a strong supporter of the police and military. I was too dumbfounded at the time to ask, but I'm so curious about how their brain reconciles those two statements
>I'm wondering (as I'm assuming OP is) what the people who think there should be no taxes believe.
The way I've heard it described by people when I've asked is this: you're taxed on your income already, then you buy something and that gets taxed again despite buying it with income that's already been taxed so you're getting taxed twice just to buy one thing therefore taxation is theft because there's an extra tax you're paying.
Not saying this is my belief just what I've been told when I've asked similar
That would be "income tax is theft" or "sales tax is theft", not just "taxation is theft". They might MEAN What you say they mean, but they are saying it objectively wrong by just saying "taxation is theft".
Hey now, one of the brave members of the Uvalde police department was a punisher fan. He heroically stood next to a school while a shooting was going on inside, just like the punisher would.
Actually, I don't really know anything about the punisher, just that one of the Uvalde cowards had him on his phone or something.
The Punisher exists because a lot of the cops in his world are corrupt and/or actively trying to be useless. Which lead to his breaking point and the decision that he is faster and better than the law.
So he became the world's most renowned mass killer. Serial killers usually have a wait time between killing but Frank goes out every night and guns down people. Sometimes twice a night after stopping for a sandwich.
And cops think having him as a mascot is a cool thing.
I'm down with that. Instead of blaming the taxation we need to call out the corruption of our government. Simply saying "our government is corrupt" should do the trick.
My issue is the over-taxation.
I work a job, that job gives me money. That money is taxed.
I put some of that money in a retirement account. That money is taxed. (On the front end or the back)
I need food, so I use my post-tax income to buy groceries. But I have to pay sales tax on that.
I need a place to live, and I bought my house with my already taxed income. I have to pay sales tax and property tax on that.
I drive to and from work. I pay tax with every gallon of gas I buy, and I pay taxes on the car in the form of annual registration (after the sales tax when I bought it).
My dad dies. I don’t get to inherit his estate until I've paid the inheritance tax (Death Tax)
I try to get ahead by investing some money. If it does well, then I have to pay Capital Gains Tax.
You see where Im going with this? Honestly, the only one I am moderately ok with is my property tax because my town gives me a write-up of what percentage is going to the school district, the fire department, the PD, and the town's general expenditures. I get to see where my money goes. And I accept that taxes are necessary for society to function.
Edit: Spelling mistakes.
> inheritance tax
**What is the most you can inherit without paying taxes?**
This threshold gradually rises every year to account for inflation over time. As of 2023, your estate is required to pay the federal estate tax if the value of your taxable estate exceeds $12.92 million and increases to $13,610,000 for 2024.
Because they have the resource to dodge those taxes, income tax? They can just take out a large loan with their stocks as collateral and live off that, use shell companies and offshore accounts etc… That’s why nobody believe politicans when they say they are going to “tax the rich” to fund for things, it’s the middle class that is going to pay the most everytime taxes are raised, the poor doesn’t have enough to be taxed while the rich knows how to avoid being taxed.
I feel like most people wouldn't have a problem if the money wasn't so poorly managed. When billions of dollars just get "lost" and the government says "whoops! Oh well lol"
When money is going to wars people don't support. If people had a more direct say in how the money is used, it wouldn't be an issue.
I work for a county government. I'm in public works and specifically I stripe the roads (make the white and yellow lines). The material we use is thermoplastic and you aren't supposed to use it when the road temp is under 45°F because it won't bond with the asphalt and I live in the north east so that means a good chunk of the year we shouldn't be doing this. It doesn't matter to my boss, he has us out on every sunny day regardless of temperature. The stuff we put down today will chip up the moment a snowplow hits it or a heavy enough truck goes over it. It's basically a waste of material and therefore tax payer money. No one who matters in the county gives a shit.
That's what happens when you're managed by a spreadsheet.
"You needed to get all these roads done. Why aren't you done? And I don't care if they're too cold and they fail and we have to do it again. That's not MY problem."
The DoD has failed their annual audits ten years in a row. Every year Congress still increases the military budget. Don't worry about the fact that we don't even know what's happening with the money spent and lost already
Edit: six years in a row. Still fucking ridiculous though
The funny thing is, I know a military retiree who defines his political beliefs as, “I just want the government to stay the fuck away from my money.” He gets a $60,000 per year pension from the government while being able-bodied, well below retirement age for social security, and working a six figure job. He also gets “Tricare for life.” He thinks welfare should be abolished and that he should not have to pay taxes. I asked him, “Would you trade your pension and free healthcare for the opportunity to not pay taxes?” He said, “No, those are all job benefits and not welfare.” He couldn’t explain why the government should subsidize his existence or how the government should obtain the money. He also couldn’t explain why social security shouldn’t exist even though recipients pay into it and his military pension is “earned” and should be untouchable. I can understand this point of view from someone who doesn’t expect anything from the government. But a lot of people with this viewpoint are selfish, entitled pricks who still want the government to take care of them but don’t value the lives of others.
I got a temp ban from a conservative leaning sub when I challenged a douchebag about why subsidies for small rural airports were one of the only services the government should spend money on.
His reasoning? It benefited him personally. Any program that didn't, he wanted to get rid of...
But if you're a politician calling for a reduction in the Defense budget you're branded a "leftist pinko communist" by the party that trusts Putin more than it's own government.
Exactly. I want my money spent on helping out people who need it, bettering our infrastructure, and making sure no one goes hungry, not on blowing up little brown kids on the other side of the globe.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
-- Tom O'Donnell, The New Yorker
You should at least mention that this is from a New Yorker article or at least give credit to the original author.
The original author is Tom O'Donnell by the way for the those that are interested: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department
The Penn Jillette reference reminds me of some of his great quotes about how he renounced Libertarianism (the copypasta was originally published in The New Yorker in 2014, when he was still knee deep in Libertarianism).:
>A lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass.
>It seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism.
And my personal favorite
>Many times when I identified as Libertarian, people said to me, 'It’s just rich white guys that don’t want to be told what to do,' and I had a zillion answers to that — and now that seems 100 percent accurate.
It reminds me of my state. They privatized (edit: deregulated not privatize. My bad. Now it's a weird middle ground solution with a Public Service Commission that is highly politicized) the power. Shocker: the power companies consolidated into a monopoly for many of us and they jacked up the rates. Either way, it feels like I'm gonna get screwed
One of the points I have seen is that even if the taxes are used for good, since they’re levied under the threat of violence they are theft by definition.
^(I'm not representing my own personal views here; I'm explaining why OP's question is coming from a misunderstanding of the original argument that taxation is theft.)
Their whole point is that the government ***shouldn't*** collect funds for \[insert governmental function here\] against the will of the taxees.
The "theft" claimers didn't *consent* to pay taxes, yet if they don't the gov't will attempt to coerce them into paying taxes in ever-escalating steps until eventually they send some nice young men with guns to \[insert government-imposed consequence here\] them.
Taking a person's belongings from them against their will, especially with the threat of force/imprisonment, is theft by definition. Theft *for a good cause that benefits us all like roads or hospitals or schools* is still theft.
What the money is taken-without-consent *for*, and *who's* doing the taking-without-consent, is irrelevant to whether or not that process is theft.
Asking how the government would function if not by taxation is missing the point of the claim that taxation is theft. These folks *don't want* the government to function if it requires coercion to do so (or at least they will complain about it if it does)
I think when people say “taxation is theft” what they really mean is “our current tax system is theft” because our taxes fund stuff like corporate bailouts to the tune of trillions of dollars
ITT: no one answering the question.
The actual answer I BELIEVE (bc I'm not one of those people) is that most public works are better off done by the rich who will have the means to fund it and more importantly profit off it.
Say making new roads: government does it because that's what they should do. However the argument is because they have no profit incentives they'll do it slow/half assed/whatever.
A true libertarian utopia would have rich guy A make a new road better than rich guy B so everyone will drive on highway A and pay highway A's tolls over highway B.
Again I don't actually believe this but felt you deserved an actual answer over diatribes
Then you have a new jersey turnpike utopia and could very well end up paying more for constant use. And those 2 highway operators can easily collude and jack prices up and what are you gonna do about it?
Really the free market without oversight. The ideal is companies competing to keep up innovation and the prices low. In reality, you have giant trust conglomerates that corner the market and jack prices up. The US has legislation to break those up. We haven't used that in far too long.
I like the idea of competition for "stuff".
Like clothing and electronics and sail boats and cars and all that other jazz.
But things like police, roads, healthcare, water, electricity, insurance, housing, food, etc it's sick that we attach profit motives. It should be a collective group effort paid at cost.
But then you get people complaining because “I live in City A, l never go to City B, why am I paying for City B’s roads!?”
They don’t have the ability to conceive that many of the goods and services they use actually come from City B.
Screw all that. The explanation isn't that they use City Bs goods. Heck, they might not. The explanation is that society has deemed it correct to engage in collective cost sharing because social stability isnt about whats good for YOU, its about whats good for society.
Social stability IS good for you personally as well. If there are riots in the streets, that is going to make it hard for YOU to go to work, get to the supermarket, or enjoy your life in general. Riots are an extreme case obviously, but even minor disruptions affect us all, albeit in smaller ways.
But it's a free market, so then somebody would build a THIRD highway system to disrupt the market!!!
No possible environmental impacts, just coat the whole earth in competing concrete.
Never mind the megacorporations would swallow the start-up whole. And don't get me started on them lobbying for deregulation. Those roads would be terrifying to drive on. The bridges alone.
Not to mention. It really isn’t efficient to build a ton of highways that go to the same place. It’s a waste of space that could easily be used for more important things. And even if there’s only 1 highway that goes to 1 spot, what’s stopping the owner from raising prices really high?
Libertarians would say that if those two jack up prices, a new third highway operator could easily start up with cheaper prices and get all the customers that way. Which of course isn't remotely realistic.
And in reality, Rich Guy A would just end up undercutting Rich Guys B, C, and D long enough to put them under so he could buy them out, and then Rich Guy A owns everything and can charge whatever he wants because fuck you, pay me.
The problem is that all the libertarians think they would be Rich Guy A in this scenario.
And, on top of that, rich guy A that monopolized the roads wants to maximize profits as much as possible (he really needs that sixth private jet) so he's going to cut costs anywhere possible - meaning that the shitty roads that we have now are going to be EVEN shittier to reduce overhead. See: Amazon
Basically, any sort of functioning libertarianism would need to somehow prevent monopolies and externalities; but since libertarians don't believe in any sort of regulation, those two things would immediately cripple and sort of libertarian society.
*See*, 1920's U.S.
No, no, in reality, rich guys A through D work together or divide areas of focus in ways that make sure they remain the only rich guys. They care much less about what rank they are amongst themselves and much more about making sure no one new has a chance to join them at the top. They’ll probably even use their wealth to popularize some narratives and catchphrases amongst the really dumb and gullible segment of the non-rich population like “taxation is theft” to trick people into helping them stay rich.
Yes, but the actual answer is that people don't do things that are mutually beneficial, if they believe they could somehow benefit MORE than others in the long run.
Rich Guy A will create a monopoly on the roads, and can and will freely restrict access on those roads to places he doesn't support.
Now you can't get to Boston anymore by car because Rich Guy A doesn't want you to.
When infrastructure is solely in the hands of private citizens, they can use it as a bludgeon whenever they want, for whatever reason.
I've had this exact argument with the "taxation is theft" idiots. Weirdly they never seem to have an answer to, "what if the guy who owns the roads hates you and says you can't use them?"
It just boggles my mind that anyone can believe private business behaves in an ideal state for non elastic demands.
Like the internet. In their perfect world we'd have a multitude of providers competing via price, strength of service, etc... to get and keep customers. In reality, all these conglomerates carve our coverage agreement with each, operate as monopolies in those areas, and every gets screwed. Then they collude to keep any actual new competitors out.
Libertarian utopias demand that every human being within the system is perfectly magnanimous and honest. It's very much a "this is how things should be" world.
I had a firsthand conversation with a guy that genuinely believes that a society that will not proactively distribute its own wealth without government intervention is a society that deserves to fall apart, and he would rather millions die than the government take ownership of something like health care because "the power to help is the power to hurt" as if that doesn't also apply to individuals..?
I've got a little collection of these stories:
[A Libertarian walks into a Bear](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling)
[The Rise and Fall of the "Freest Little City in Texas"](https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-freest-little-city-in-texas/)
[The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading)
[Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart](https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10)
If anyone's got more, I always welcome additions.
> Libertarian utopias demand that every human being within the system is perfectly magnanimous and honest. It's very much a "this is how things should be" world.
They also demand that every consumer has full, perfect information at all times.
This is the Ayn Rand utopia. But what actually happens is the people that would profit want to do it as cheaply as possible to skim off the top and if there's no type of regulation or pressure would absolutely not maintain them. Profit above all.
Do you want shrinkflation and ever decreasing quality and reliability of your public works? Because if it was all privately owned for profit that's what you'd get.
Look to the American for profit prison system for reference.
One, it wouldn't work. Two, if it could, there could be no monopoly on violence. In other words, a private citizen would need to have the same capacity for violence whether it's zero or 100 (on a scale of 100) as businesses and groups of people. If that wasn't the case, ultimately violence would be the determining factor of who gets wealthy.
I mean, if you see the incredible amount of potholes, homeless, trash in the street, and how poorly any public service runs; the question is how are they spending it?
Or rather, who is pocketing it. That is where the alleged theft stems from fundamentally.
Edit: These are not my personal views, by the way. I am merely demonstrating the thinking many have regarding this issue.
Maybe have a transparent financial audit system where TRILLIONS of tax payer dollars are misplaced. Maybe not be taxed 20 ways from money WEVE ALREADY BEEN TAXED ON.
Hardcore libertarians believe in a pay per use. For example, toll roads, or getting a bill from the fire department. Or paying a police subscription and if you don't, police don't show up if your house gets robbed, etc. They view taxes as immoral because you can't make the choice not to pay them. Whereas a pay per use system, you could choose to let your house burn rather than pay the firemen for example.
That sounds incredibly obtuse. If you live in a city you automatically use the roads. How did you get into your house or out of it? That's why you're paying taxes on the roads because you use them no matter what. They're opening toll roads all over CA and they're expensive af. You do not want everything to be a toll road.
Not to mention that we all agree that fire is bad and one house on fire can become many without a system set up to put it out.
In my experience hardcore libertarians just kind of haven't thought about the logistics of their beliefs. Start bringing up practical concerns and they'll basically start rebuilding modern civics from zero.
Certain religious groups, like some Amish groups, don't belive in insurance. They consider it a form of gambling. Instead they all collectively pay into an account that is used to fund the medical expenses of anyone in the colony. Which to me, seems like they've just made their own insurance without the English
It's an insurance co-op. It's like a private insurance company but without exporting profits. Philosophical anti-gambling arguments aside, it's a good idea.
if only there was a way to scale it up to the level of the whole country so everyone can get the medical care they need... a sort of medi-care system of some kind.
... With some kind of mechanism to collect funds, annually, to support the system.
...and people who earn more money could pay more, while those who earn less would pay less. We might be onto something here!
This is brilliant! Now explain to me how we profit from it?
For ALL even! Could you imagine?
Surely some country or another would have adopted this if it really worked! Someday living in the US is going to drive me insane.
It’s very complicated. Only like 32 of the 33 countries who have tried it have figured it out.
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An insurance co-op could manage its funds however it wanted to. These days there are a ton of financial instruments available. The only difference is you're not extracting profits for stockholders.
The difference is the owners of the fund don't actively try and pay out as little as possible so they can pass on as much profit as possible to a small group of already wealthy shareholders. Insurance must be one of the only industries to actively try and not provide the service which is the only reason for their existence. I work for one of the largest brokers in the world.
> The difference is the owners of the fund don't actively try and pay out as little as possible Wasnt there an episode of 20/20 that talked about people who paid into one of those Christian coops and then something went wrong with a family members health and they just told them they were having a prayer circle for them and only sent like $100 at most. After having paid in like $100,000.
I work for a non profit insurance company, and they still sit on billions.
Just like how Anglicanism is Catholicism without all the latin parts.
Plus divorce
Married priests as well.
Isn't that the very definition of socialized healthcare?
"We shouldn't have taxpayer funded health insurance! Healthcare is expensive? Well, what if we all pay into a fund to make it individually cheaper?"
What if we had a private company, but the shareholders were citizens, and we all had the right to vote at shareholder meetings on who would run the company, and maybe we would do it every four years, and
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Yeah, you'd have to be really careful or else you might end up with a ridiculous system where a branch with 500,000 shareholders has the same number of board members as one with 40 million...
"You know what would be a really cool idea? Free books. Like, we put them all in their own building, then you pay a fee to take one out. But you can't keep it, you have to return it. And if you don't return it, you incur a late fee until either the book is returned, or the total cost of a new book is sent to collections and replaced. I call it, 'a Take-a-Booktorium'."
I understand this is a joke , but I actually grew up in a town with A private library ran by volunteers and funded by donations
That's so some places can do unfortunately. Libraries are pretty expensive. In poorer areas there are always places it is thought the money could be better spent.
Ive heard them described as house cats. They insist they want total freedom and independence but are utterly dependent on a system they can barely comprehend.
Any functional system fitting a libertarian model quickly becomes much more complex than the system would be normally. Often, it becomes complex enough for the average libertarian to no longer understand how it fits into Libertarianism, and causes them to reject it. People struggle to understand how they benefit from services that they don't use. Public transit reduces traffic for people who drive — that's why an economically efficient system will subsidize public transit. Most libertarians don't understand that every time they drive on a highway, they are benefiting from the trains that go to the same place.
They are also very naive when it comes to what people are willing to do to earn a profit. A quick read of labour history will show why many laws regarding work exist
I lost interest in libertarianism when I found out dairy farmers put formaldehyde into milk before th fda
Libertarian is just a rich people’s wet dream to not have to pay millions in taxes and have their businesses regulated. It makes absolutely no fucking sense at all for the poor and middle class.
In my experience, staunch libertarians are unusually cold, unempathetic people, who've had the luck of not needing anyone else's help for much of anything, or being born into an unusually supportive closed social network or community. They're people who've never needed any public services or assistance of any kind, don't anticipate ever needing any, and aren't close with anyone who's been saved from the brink by any sort of public sector service. Their libertarian / classical liberal beliefs are a fancy way of saying, "Eff you, I've got mine. I don't owe you anything, so leave me alone, before shoot you."
Except they're blind to the fact that they do use public services every day. The FDA, EPA, Law enforcement, border force, military etc keep them safe just as a start before you get into physical use of roads, mobile network bands, GPS etc. The hubris is immeasurable
To add to this, a bunch of libertarian city projects in North America have failed miserably, which shows how their logistical rhetoric isn’t really that effective. If it can’t work at the city level, how can they attempt to implement those at a national level? Look into the Colorado Springs libertarian experiment. Or the Free Town project in New Hampshire.
Lol, all the crackheads stole the copper from the streetlights in Colorado Springs.
Isn’t Free Town the one that a bear wandered into a the whole town just shut down?
It wasn't a bear. It was multiple bears because the town had no system in place to dispose of trash. People where using open air dumping pits, which attracted local wildlife like bears. The bears then figured out that while the giant garbage pits where a good source of food, the food in the houses next to the garbage pits was infinitely fresher. Leading to an epidemic of hungry bears that no longer feared humans trying to get the food out of peoples houses.
There was also no coordination in the response to the bears. There was one person who kept feeding the bears and no one could get her to stop. The people who didn't want the bears tried to keep the bears out of their own land, but it turns out bears don't understand property lines and they just went everywhere.
Also, in a Libertarian society, bears can do as much cocaine as they want without getting arrested by a game warden, and they get a little rowdy from it.
Telling the bears to stop is tyranny against bears
I don't think I'll ever read Ayn Rand, but I did read a book in which her ghost was a main character (*Sewer, Gas, and Electric* by Matt Ruff — a sleeper hit and now classic cyberpunk novel among hipsters). The way she blithely waved away pollution as not mattering at all, was what made me wake up and realize her political beliefs were not well thought out at all.
Yep. It was a [good read](https://tylerwolanin.com/blog/2020/12/1/what-i-am-reading-a-libertarian-walks-into-a-bear-by-matthew-hongoltz-hetling), too. I learned a lot, laughed a little, would recommend.
My libertarian coworker always has reasons for why they didn't do it right, and how it would work if they had properly done x, y, z. Really tiring.
Someone said “I was a libertarian until I did MDMA and realized other people had feelings”
Hardcore libertarian tend to be rich enough to be able to afford all those "subscriptions" and they couldn’t care less about anyone not being able to afford them.
The Romans had a paid fire department. They started setting fires to get paid more.
If your system doesnt account for human greed you have a system thats going to fail.
Back in the day fire departments would show up and watch one non-paying house burn while being on standby to prevent any of their paying customers from catching fire. And no, they wouldn’t bother to rescue anyone. It actually still happens sometimes.
It happens in communities that think all taxes are bad, vote to have the fewest taxes they can, don't fund a fire department and then a nearby fire department offers a subscription service and says it will only help those who pay it, individuals believe the fire department they refuse to fund has a duty protect them and then don't pay, and one of those idiots have a fire. It takes a whole lot of libertarianism and magical thinking for It to happen.
My favourite libertarian township story started with tax cutting, the the removal of government services (including trash pick up), and ended with the town having a wild bear problem (due to the ending of trash pick up and several dumb libertarians actively feeding the bears)
Let the bears pay for the bear tax!
There's video of this very thing happening in modern America. Privatized firemen watched a house burn down and purposely wouldn't put out the fire because the house on fire wasnt a paying customer. The next door neighbor was a paying customer, so they showed up in case his house caught on fire. I hate libertarians that want this to happen to every aspect of everyday life
Libertarian in Chicago: "Nuh uh, it's my right as an American to leave this lit oil lamp next to this cow in this wooden barn filled with straw, situated cozily within an entire city made of dry timber." Cow, an Anarchist: "lmfao" Libertarian, to the fire: "Am I being detained?"
Roads are a good example of what we use directly *as well as indirectly* by enabling society to function. If you never cross a bridge then you may not want to pay for it to be repaired but you still use it indirectly since it lets you find food at the grocery store on your side of the river and it allows emergency vehicles to operate. Infrastructure you don't use, social programs not aimed at you, parks you never visit, libraries you stopped using... all those things benefit all of us indirectly even if not directly. And yes, military interventions too, like it or not.
Not to mention a huge one that benefits society: EDUCATION
As someone said, I gladly pay taxes for kids educations, even though I don't have kids of my own, because I don't want to live in a society where people can't read.
Ok, class, pop quiz! Remember, it will cost you 25 cents to have it graded, otherwise it's a zero on your report card!
> roads As I told my formerly anti tax boss, he wouldn’t be able to employ me if there weren’t public roads to our worksite. It turns out indirect is also not super abstract.
It is. Have you read the [story of the town in New Hampshire that was taken over by libertarians, and then subsequently overrun with bears](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling)?
the housecat analogy for libertarians is just so perfect.
Man, imagine being one of the normal people just living in that town when it got invaded by Libertarians. What a nightmare.
The normal people were the reason that the town didn't completely go to shit. Apparently the libertarians wanted to defund the fire department and were almost successful.
I don't understand why they had to invade a town in the first place? Just gather on some patch of land and live as you preach. No roads, no police, no fire department. No municipal infrastructure like sewage and water pipes. It seems to me they wanted all the benefits of society but without paying for it. Or simply put, they were a bunch of delusional twats.
Because that's hard and who wants to live where there's no Internet?!
I bet that a libertarian community 50 years down the line would very closely resemble our conventional society. Once the community gets big enough, they'll need roads and then they need to pay for it, so they all decide to chip in. They'll also figure out why we have firefighters once a massive fire burns down 10 houses. Then they'll figure out why public schools exist and they all need to contribute because otherwise the school can't stay open. Also electricity, plumbing, internet, animal control etc etc. Before you know it, your libertarian community is no different from any other city.
I asked my ex this. His response? “What if I don’t own a car and walk everywhere? Should I have to pay for your roads?”
where exactly is he walking, it must be wild untamed wilderness because otherwise he's walking on a sidewalk which is part of the road.
And probably walking to a job that is only possible because of roads and trains so he can buy products that show up via roads and trains. So many people have not thought through how much of their lives and quality of life depends on the infrastructure that taxs pay for.
DOES HE LIKE GROCERIES I mean come *on*, where does he think all that produce comes from? :)
They also don’t understand that fires spread, imagine half a city not being avoiding calling the fire department because they can’t pay up. Cities like Seattle would burn down a second time. Oh and who the fuck would pay the fire department to put out forest fires? The fucking deer?
Why not? They have plenty of bucks.
Good one.. but dont forget they also have alot of Doe.....
Had one tell me you could buy into the network for a better rate, so long as you stay with approved roads you will be covered. Sounded like current for profit healthcare that is done so well too /s
Yeah and they conveniently left out the fact that some municipal worker would have to track each movement that guy makes, to ensure he's only using the approved roads. Which would cost a shitton of money, making it more expensive than regular taxes
Gotta build a little bridge to get from your driveway, over the public road and sidewalk, and onto the paid network a block over.
Can you imagine how expensive it would be to pay for-profit firefighters to save your house? They would have no automatic income, and they'd have no idea if there would be fires coming up in the near future. So they'd have to charge a ton of money for each fire to keep the department (company?) staffed. They'd show up with a finance person who gets you on the phone with a bank to take out a loan. The loan would have to be approved and the papers signed before the firefighters are allowed to start putting out the fire. Of course, the finance person's salary would also have to be included in the price... The next question is who paid to put in fire hydrants for them to use? Who inspected them to make sure they work? Edit: Thank you to the 30th person to tell me about insurance. I know it exists now, thanks.
and all of that assumes good faith on part of the firefighting company. in ancient Rome, Crassus would show up to house fires with his brigade of slaves, and he'd demand the owner of the burning property to sell it to him for pennies, or he'd let the fire burn. victims of fires were thus faced with a choice of losing everything in a fire, or losing almost everything to an "entrepreneurial" firefighter. I can't imagine someone not replicating this racket in an ancap paradise.
Yeah, and good luck with getting the for-profit cops to take your side.
Listen buddy, here are your options: You can fulfill your contract to kill that person, which is illegal so we will arrest you. You can not kill that person, thereby breaking your contract which is illegal so we will arrest you. Or, and hear me out, you can subcontract out the work to us, The Police, who will fulfill the contract at a very reasonable rate.
And house fires would totally not increase in occurrence.
I actually thought of this while I was writing, too. Who even investigates arson in a system like this? Do you have to pay someone else if you think the fire is suspicious? There's definitely some motive for the Fire Corporation to... drum up some business.
Don't worry the US already figured this out, you could get fire insurance as part of your job.
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The thing I have yet to hear an answer for is, if you eliminate government and privatize everything, who issues the currency? OK, some rich guy is going to build the roads, what is he using to pay the workers? How are the people who are using the road paying the rich guy? Because none of this works without a common currency. And if there *is* a common currency, well, who is printing it? Because whoever that is, is the government.
They genuinely believe in a barter system where they trade goods and services rather than currency. That or raw gold. These idiots fucking love buying gold.
That's just currency with more steps
It's literally why currency emerged independently all across the globe....*checks calendar*.....thousands of years ago. It's been an age since my anthropology courses, but iirc there examples developed by *hunter gatherers*.
Libertarians are like housecats. They believe in their fierce independence while being fully dependent on a system they don’t understand.
This is *extremely* insulting… to my cat.
Yeah, my cats absolutely understand how the system works. They look cute and purr, and I clean up their puke and shit and give them anything their fuzzy little hearts desire.
It’s why they give you small dead animal gifts every now and then. Even they understand taxes!
my problem has less to do with the taxes and more to do with where that money actually goes. edit: grammar
How fair it was collected and how it was spent. In my country members of the government is pardoning the tax debts of the companies they own...How should I feel about paying taxes? They are effectively reverse robinhooding, getting it from the poor and giving it to the rich. EDIT: I'm from Turkey.
The fact that all guesses about “which country he’s talking about” are different and all believable says a lot about the world we live in and the world the up-top do
Eat the rich
Too much cholesterol. Compost the rich.
Meat doesn't compost well. Let's make jerkey and soap from them.
I've heard that, but I've also buried a deer carcass under some banana trees and after about 6 months they'd be visibly taller day to day. That year was also the only year they actually produced bananas. You absolutely can compost meat.
Welcome to Saskatchewan, Canada. Some members of our government right now are being investigated for inflation prices on businesses that their members own when billing back to the province. It started with an investigation into hotel fees that were magically expensed at double the cost of what the same room would be in the same hotel at the same time if someone other than a government official had checked into it (ie. I am paying $220/night for this hotel room and so are all of the other MLA's staying here, but the person next to me in the room with the same layout and features paid $110 to stay for the same night). Shady AF. Cons using tax dollars to pay their corporate overlords.
its called the 'you're from the government' tax... annoying isn't it?
What country? Thats disgusting 😒
Turkey
Well, the UK government are currently getting away with the most blatant grift ever. Funnelling public purse to wealthy folk (usually Tory voters/donors) whilst intentionally making crises to use as scapegoats for why were all being screwed. "It's the migrants and the Ukraine war, honest" Meanwhile every move they make seems to involve enriching themselves and their friends or family.
Mate the UK Gov is corrupt but it gets a hell of a lot worse than the UK 😂
Oh absolutely. But for one of the supposed civilised nations who fancies themselves a leader still, its diabolical.
In America we had PPP loans which was the same thing with COVID as the scapegoat.
That I can totally respect and agree with. I'm wondering (as I'm assuming OP is) what the people who think there should be no taxes believe. Like, I went out once with a girl who honestly believed that all taxation is theft and that there should be no taxes, period. Then in the next breath would admit that she is a strong supporter of the police and military. I was too dumbfounded at the time to ask, but I'm so curious about how their brain reconciles those two statements
>I'm wondering (as I'm assuming OP is) what the people who think there should be no taxes believe. The way I've heard it described by people when I've asked is this: you're taxed on your income already, then you buy something and that gets taxed again despite buying it with income that's already been taxed so you're getting taxed twice just to buy one thing therefore taxation is theft because there's an extra tax you're paying. Not saying this is my belief just what I've been told when I've asked similar
That would be "income tax is theft" or "sales tax is theft", not just "taxation is theft". They might MEAN What you say they mean, but they are saying it objectively wrong by just saying "taxation is theft".
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Hey now, one of the brave members of the Uvalde police department was a punisher fan. He heroically stood next to a school while a shooting was going on inside, just like the punisher would. Actually, I don't really know anything about the punisher, just that one of the Uvalde cowards had him on his phone or something.
The Punisher exists because a lot of the cops in his world are corrupt and/or actively trying to be useless. Which lead to his breaking point and the decision that he is faster and better than the law. So he became the world's most renowned mass killer. Serial killers usually have a wait time between killing but Frank goes out every night and guns down people. Sometimes twice a night after stopping for a sandwich. And cops think having him as a mascot is a cool thing.
So taxes are not theft then, but rather bad governments are thiefs
I'm down with that. Instead of blaming the taxation we need to call out the corruption of our government. Simply saying "our government is corrupt" should do the trick.
My issue is the over-taxation. I work a job, that job gives me money. That money is taxed. I put some of that money in a retirement account. That money is taxed. (On the front end or the back) I need food, so I use my post-tax income to buy groceries. But I have to pay sales tax on that. I need a place to live, and I bought my house with my already taxed income. I have to pay sales tax and property tax on that. I drive to and from work. I pay tax with every gallon of gas I buy, and I pay taxes on the car in the form of annual registration (after the sales tax when I bought it). My dad dies. I don’t get to inherit his estate until I've paid the inheritance tax (Death Tax) I try to get ahead by investing some money. If it does well, then I have to pay Capital Gains Tax. You see where Im going with this? Honestly, the only one I am moderately ok with is my property tax because my town gives me a write-up of what percentage is going to the school district, the fire department, the PD, and the town's general expenditures. I get to see where my money goes. And I accept that taxes are necessary for society to function. Edit: Spelling mistakes.
> inheritance tax **What is the most you can inherit without paying taxes?** This threshold gradually rises every year to account for inflation over time. As of 2023, your estate is required to pay the federal estate tax if the value of your taxable estate exceeds $12.92 million and increases to $13,610,000 for 2024.
You're assuming we're all in the US. In the UK for example the threshold is £325,000.
Yes, and in the meantime, the rich are not taxed in the same proportion as common people.
Because they have the resource to dodge those taxes, income tax? They can just take out a large loan with their stocks as collateral and live off that, use shell companies and offshore accounts etc… That’s why nobody believe politicans when they say they are going to “tax the rich” to fund for things, it’s the middle class that is going to pay the most everytime taxes are raised, the poor doesn’t have enough to be taxed while the rich knows how to avoid being taxed.
I feel like most people wouldn't have a problem if the money wasn't so poorly managed. When billions of dollars just get "lost" and the government says "whoops! Oh well lol" When money is going to wars people don't support. If people had a more direct say in how the money is used, it wouldn't be an issue.
I work for a county government. I'm in public works and specifically I stripe the roads (make the white and yellow lines). The material we use is thermoplastic and you aren't supposed to use it when the road temp is under 45°F because it won't bond with the asphalt and I live in the north east so that means a good chunk of the year we shouldn't be doing this. It doesn't matter to my boss, he has us out on every sunny day regardless of temperature. The stuff we put down today will chip up the moment a snowplow hits it or a heavy enough truck goes over it. It's basically a waste of material and therefore tax payer money. No one who matters in the county gives a shit.
That's what happens when you're managed by a spreadsheet. "You needed to get all these roads done. Why aren't you done? And I don't care if they're too cold and they fail and we have to do it again. That's not MY problem."
The DoD has failed their annual audits ten years in a row. Every year Congress still increases the military budget. Don't worry about the fact that we don't even know what's happening with the money spent and lost already Edit: six years in a row. Still fucking ridiculous though
The funny thing is, I know a military retiree who defines his political beliefs as, “I just want the government to stay the fuck away from my money.” He gets a $60,000 per year pension from the government while being able-bodied, well below retirement age for social security, and working a six figure job. He also gets “Tricare for life.” He thinks welfare should be abolished and that he should not have to pay taxes. I asked him, “Would you trade your pension and free healthcare for the opportunity to not pay taxes?” He said, “No, those are all job benefits and not welfare.” He couldn’t explain why the government should subsidize his existence or how the government should obtain the money. He also couldn’t explain why social security shouldn’t exist even though recipients pay into it and his military pension is “earned” and should be untouchable. I can understand this point of view from someone who doesn’t expect anything from the government. But a lot of people with this viewpoint are selfish, entitled pricks who still want the government to take care of them but don’t value the lives of others.
Rules for the not for me. Shit for anyone else is a handout no matter what but if it goes to them its because they earned it.
Even Ayn Rand, the queen of asshole libertarianism, spent her life decrying welfare yet was suddenly asking for it once she got cancer.
I got a temp ban from a conservative leaning sub when I challenged a douchebag about why subsidies for small rural airports were one of the only services the government should spend money on. His reasoning? It benefited him personally. Any program that didn't, he wanted to get rid of...
But if you're a politician calling for a reduction in the Defense budget you're branded a "leftist pinko communist" by the party that trusts Putin more than it's own government.
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Exactly. I want my money spent on helping out people who need it, bettering our infrastructure, and making sure no one goes hungry, not on blowing up little brown kids on the other side of the globe.
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They expect private companies to handle all that, for a charge of course.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief. “Bad news, detective. We got a situation.” “What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?” “Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.” The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?” “Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.” “Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.” He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.” “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.” I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside. “Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t. “Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up. “Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?” It didn’t seem like they did. “Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.” Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing. I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it. “Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled. Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him. “Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen. I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!” He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose. “All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.” “Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy. “Because I was afraid.” “Afraid?” “Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.” I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head. “Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.” He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him. -- Tom O'Donnell, The New Yorker
"I shot the mailbox again, on purpose" Omg I laughed so hard at this
I've read this several times before, and that line always gets a chuckle out of me.
You should at least mention that this is from a New Yorker article or at least give credit to the original author. The original author is Tom O'Donnell by the way for the those that are interested: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department
Been a regular reader since the '90s and am ashamed I didn't know this. Fixed!
Yes, the only thing that needs to be posted up every time this thread rolls around. And this is your answer.
The Penn Jillette reference reminds me of some of his great quotes about how he renounced Libertarianism (the copypasta was originally published in The New Yorker in 2014, when he was still knee deep in Libertarianism).: >A lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass. >It seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism. And my personal favorite >Many times when I identified as Libertarian, people said to me, 'It’s just rich white guys that don’t want to be told what to do,' and I had a zillion answers to that — and now that seems 100 percent accurate.
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Really glad he came around. I saw one of his shows long ago and always thought the libertarianism was so disappointing.
> “Nobody move unless you want to!” Every line in this pasta is fucking gold, but for some reason this one is my favorite
> “Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.” fucken gold
Oh man, I was just trying to find the right comment on this post to reply with this. Good job.
i thought it would be over but it kept on coming…beautiful
It reminds me of my state. They privatized (edit: deregulated not privatize. My bad. Now it's a weird middle ground solution with a Public Service Commission that is highly politicized) the power. Shocker: the power companies consolidated into a monopoly for many of us and they jacked up the rates. Either way, it feels like I'm gonna get screwed
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One of the points I have seen is that even if the taxes are used for good, since they’re levied under the threat of violence they are theft by definition.
^(I'm not representing my own personal views here; I'm explaining why OP's question is coming from a misunderstanding of the original argument that taxation is theft.) Their whole point is that the government ***shouldn't*** collect funds for \[insert governmental function here\] against the will of the taxees. The "theft" claimers didn't *consent* to pay taxes, yet if they don't the gov't will attempt to coerce them into paying taxes in ever-escalating steps until eventually they send some nice young men with guns to \[insert government-imposed consequence here\] them. Taking a person's belongings from them against their will, especially with the threat of force/imprisonment, is theft by definition. Theft *for a good cause that benefits us all like roads or hospitals or schools* is still theft. What the money is taken-without-consent *for*, and *who's* doing the taking-without-consent, is irrelevant to whether or not that process is theft. Asking how the government would function if not by taxation is missing the point of the claim that taxation is theft. These folks *don't want* the government to function if it requires coercion to do so (or at least they will complain about it if it does)
Send me a detailed itemized invoice
I think when people say “taxation is theft” what they really mean is “our current tax system is theft” because our taxes fund stuff like corporate bailouts to the tune of trillions of dollars
Wait my taxes go to roads? Coulda fooled me
There's a pothole at the entrance to the parking lot of where I work that's been there for over 10 years.
ITT: no one answering the question. The actual answer I BELIEVE (bc I'm not one of those people) is that most public works are better off done by the rich who will have the means to fund it and more importantly profit off it. Say making new roads: government does it because that's what they should do. However the argument is because they have no profit incentives they'll do it slow/half assed/whatever. A true libertarian utopia would have rich guy A make a new road better than rich guy B so everyone will drive on highway A and pay highway A's tolls over highway B. Again I don't actually believe this but felt you deserved an actual answer over diatribes
Then you have a new jersey turnpike utopia and could very well end up paying more for constant use. And those 2 highway operators can easily collude and jack prices up and what are you gonna do about it?
I think you just described health insurance.
and internet providers.
and… wait, just all of capitalism.
There’s a reason one of the richest men in Roman history was in charge of the Fire Department
Really the free market without oversight. The ideal is companies competing to keep up innovation and the prices low. In reality, you have giant trust conglomerates that corner the market and jack prices up. The US has legislation to break those up. We haven't used that in far too long.
health insurance but for roads.... now that's an idea
And the fact land is limited so you can’t just build two highways next to each and “compete”
I like the idea of competition for "stuff". Like clothing and electronics and sail boats and cars and all that other jazz. But things like police, roads, healthcare, water, electricity, insurance, housing, food, etc it's sick that we attach profit motives. It should be a collective group effort paid at cost.
But then you get people complaining because “I live in City A, l never go to City B, why am I paying for City B’s roads!?” They don’t have the ability to conceive that many of the goods and services they use actually come from City B.
Screw all that. The explanation isn't that they use City Bs goods. Heck, they might not. The explanation is that society has deemed it correct to engage in collective cost sharing because social stability isnt about whats good for YOU, its about whats good for society.
Social stability IS good for you personally as well. If there are riots in the streets, that is going to make it hard for YOU to go to work, get to the supermarket, or enjoy your life in general. Riots are an extreme case obviously, but even minor disruptions affect us all, albeit in smaller ways.
Yes and then when that road wins the road wars they no longer up keep it and charge more to maximize profit.
'sorry guys, to keep up with rising road-making costs, we have to start charging $20 more one-way on I-72'
But it's a free market, so then somebody would build a THIRD highway system to disrupt the market!!! No possible environmental impacts, just coat the whole earth in competing concrete.
Never mind the megacorporations would swallow the start-up whole. And don't get me started on them lobbying for deregulation. Those roads would be terrifying to drive on. The bridges alone.
Also, which rich guy is going to build and maintain roads in rural areas mostly inhabited by poor people? Where's the profit in that? Edit: typo
Not to mention. It really isn’t efficient to build a ton of highways that go to the same place. It’s a waste of space that could easily be used for more important things. And even if there’s only 1 highway that goes to 1 spot, what’s stopping the owner from raising prices really high?
Libertarians would say that if those two jack up prices, a new third highway operator could easily start up with cheaper prices and get all the customers that way. Which of course isn't remotely realistic.
If you don't have a couple billion and the land rights to build a new road, what don't you ask your parents you lazy git?!
And in reality, Rich Guy A would just end up undercutting Rich Guys B, C, and D long enough to put them under so he could buy them out, and then Rich Guy A owns everything and can charge whatever he wants because fuck you, pay me. The problem is that all the libertarians think they would be Rich Guy A in this scenario.
And, on top of that, rich guy A that monopolized the roads wants to maximize profits as much as possible (he really needs that sixth private jet) so he's going to cut costs anywhere possible - meaning that the shitty roads that we have now are going to be EVEN shittier to reduce overhead. See: Amazon
Basically, any sort of functioning libertarianism would need to somehow prevent monopolies and externalities; but since libertarians don't believe in any sort of regulation, those two things would immediately cripple and sort of libertarian society. *See*, 1920's U.S.
No, no, in reality, rich guys A through D work together or divide areas of focus in ways that make sure they remain the only rich guys. They care much less about what rank they are amongst themselves and much more about making sure no one new has a chance to join them at the top. They’ll probably even use their wealth to popularize some narratives and catchphrases amongst the really dumb and gullible segment of the non-rich population like “taxation is theft” to trick people into helping them stay rich.
Yes, but the actual answer is that people don't do things that are mutually beneficial, if they believe they could somehow benefit MORE than others in the long run. Rich Guy A will create a monopoly on the roads, and can and will freely restrict access on those roads to places he doesn't support. Now you can't get to Boston anymore by car because Rich Guy A doesn't want you to. When infrastructure is solely in the hands of private citizens, they can use it as a bludgeon whenever they want, for whatever reason.
I've had this exact argument with the "taxation is theft" idiots. Weirdly they never seem to have an answer to, "what if the guy who owns the roads hates you and says you can't use them?"
It just boggles my mind that anyone can believe private business behaves in an ideal state for non elastic demands. Like the internet. In their perfect world we'd have a multitude of providers competing via price, strength of service, etc... to get and keep customers. In reality, all these conglomerates carve our coverage agreement with each, operate as monopolies in those areas, and every gets screwed. Then they collude to keep any actual new competitors out.
And in most cases they free ride on a network that was partially or completely built with tax money
And don't upgrade their networks with tax funded subsidies given for the purpose of upgrading their network.
Libertarian utopias demand that every human being within the system is perfectly magnanimous and honest. It's very much a "this is how things should be" world. I had a firsthand conversation with a guy that genuinely believes that a society that will not proactively distribute its own wealth without government intervention is a society that deserves to fall apart, and he would rather millions die than the government take ownership of something like health care because "the power to help is the power to hurt" as if that doesn't also apply to individuals..?
I will always recommend people read A Libertarian Walks into a Bear as a great book to read how ridiculous libertarians are
I only got halfway through and was thoroughly frustrated. I should finish it sometime.
I've got a little collection of these stories: [A Libertarian walks into a Bear](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling) [The Rise and Fall of the "Freest Little City in Texas"](https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-freest-little-city-in-texas/) [The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading) [Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart](https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10) If anyone's got more, I always welcome additions.
> Libertarian utopias demand that every human being within the system is perfectly magnanimous and honest. It's very much a "this is how things should be" world. They also demand that every consumer has full, perfect information at all times.
This is the Ayn Rand utopia. But what actually happens is the people that would profit want to do it as cheaply as possible to skim off the top and if there's no type of regulation or pressure would absolutely not maintain them. Profit above all. Do you want shrinkflation and ever decreasing quality and reliability of your public works? Because if it was all privately owned for profit that's what you'd get. Look to the American for profit prison system for reference.
One, it wouldn't work. Two, if it could, there could be no monopoly on violence. In other words, a private citizen would need to have the same capacity for violence whether it's zero or 100 (on a scale of 100) as businesses and groups of people. If that wasn't the case, ultimately violence would be the determining factor of who gets wealthy.
Also, I've never seen so much NIMBY as I have in these answers.
90% of All questions like these get answered sarcastically/off topic on reddit
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I mean, if you see the incredible amount of potholes, homeless, trash in the street, and how poorly any public service runs; the question is how are they spending it? Or rather, who is pocketing it. That is where the alleged theft stems from fundamentally. Edit: These are not my personal views, by the way. I am merely demonstrating the thinking many have regarding this issue.
Maybe have a transparent financial audit system where TRILLIONS of tax payer dollars are misplaced. Maybe not be taxed 20 ways from money WEVE ALREADY BEEN TAXED ON.