Kings called it tribute rather than theft. Politicians prefer the word tax. But all these words describe a violence-based funding system…pay or suffer violence. This system is both immoral and impractical.
The immorality is obvious. Any other person or institution that tried to fund itself using violence would be imprisoned. But we’re told that practical considerations require us to accept this immorality. Nothing could be more wrong. In truth, taxation is highly impractical, because…
- It protects The State from the need to perform well — agents of The State get paid no matter how badly they perform.
- It rewards failure — programs that don’t work usually get increased budgets.
- It creates other perverse incentives, such as the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. Those who receive benefits have a huge incentive to defend them, but the costs are spread among all taxpayers, so no taxpayer has much incentive to oppose any given hand-out.
These factors cause…
- Poor performance
- Massive waste
- Unsustainable spending
Voluntary funding would be more practical. It would…
- Force government to perform well
- Match government services to what citizens actually want
We need…
You should decide how much government you pay for — granting or denying funding so as to exert control.
If you prefer consumer control to violence-based funding, please join us by subscribing to our free email newsletter.
By Perry Willis & Jim Babka
HI,
I loved this, btw!
I think that if people contributed voluntarily that those who contributed should reap the rewards of the projects they helped sponsor, and those who don’t contribute can’t use or benefit from those projects. That would be interesting to work out the processing of, but then why not put in the time and trouble to do that? I think it would be worthy time spent.
You potentially refer to the free rider problem (or, more correctly, fallacy)
Others have tackled this issue better than I can.
https://mises.org/library/solving-problem-free-riding
Hi Chris. Thanks for sharing the article. It’s good. But it’s also long (nearly 3,000 words) and uses a lot of jargon. I doubt many people would read it, or really understand it if they did read it. We’re trying to take a different approach with subjects like this. We try to present important ideas in bite size chunks using simple words. We call the articles that take this approach “Mental Levers.” We have a Mental Lever for “free riders.” You might want to check it out. — Perry Willis
Our federal government sets the price for the services they perform through taxation. It’s not like in the private sector however, in that companies can set a price for a product but we can choose whether or not to purchase that product or purchase their competitor’s product. We have no such choice with government. They have a monopoly in a way. Also, our government is a system where the people pay first through taxation then receive the service. Since we have already paid, we have no leverage with the government. We get whatever level of service they give us and we have little or no recourse. It’s very hard for people to complain about the level of service they have received because they have to go through so many channels and the government has nearly unlimited resources on their side to defend themselves. Hence the saying “You can’t fight city hall.” A bottom – up approach, where the people have the power, like you are suggesting and like our forefathers designed, works much better. Their original plan was to have a very small federal government and have the majority of government be local so the people would have more of a hand in it. As you know, concentrating power in the hands of a few individuals inevitably leads to corruption, so I’m with you in wanting the people to have much more of a say in things than they do now. Our current system of taxation is definitely not the most efficient.
I entirely agree with and support this view of changing the government focus from violence to the consumer. The best, most efficient economies are consumer-based, but HOW DOES ONE MOTIVATE A MAJORITY OF PEOPLE to experience this realization and begin avidly supporting this economic theory? 3000 years of history shows that the predominant method of financing government is violence-based theft. So the problem is proving that the consumer-based funding works. Some real numbers that arithmetically present a viable alternative to today’s theft is required to create believers! Further, government must downsize significantly. The U. S. didn’t have income tax until 1913. Excise taxes, import duties, and sales taxes were sufficient. I would support a sales tax that doesn’t destroy retail.
Hi Eric. You ask how we can get people to support the idea of replacing violence-based funding (taxes) with voluntary funding? You suggest some possibilities that we agree with. But we think the starting point is even simpler than those suggestions.
Libertarians have long argued that taxes are immoral. That’s good. We should continue doing that. But we should also start arguing that taxes are impractical. Not everyone will be convinced by this argument, but we don’t need everyone. The world is ruled by large minorities. We need to have our own large minority. We think we can best accomplish that by undermining the main argument people use to support taxation — the idea that we need taxes for practical reasons. We need to show people the many ways in which taxes are impractical. We are attempting to do that.
I can see that ‘governments’ provide a few useful functions regionally. The biggest of these is defense against organized outside aggressors (aka foreign armies). I think most people are willing to pay a modest amount toward such a defense (currently approximately 50% of the federal budget is labeled defense, but much of that is spent having military bases and presence far outside the USA’s borders – so reasonably, if true defense plus a little administrative overhead were all we paid in income taxes our tax rate should fall to @25% of what it currently is).
How would we keep people from ‘free rides’ on our voluntary defence funding? Individuals and states on the borders would be most likely to suffer losses, should they pay a greater amount of taxes because of it?
If we look at organized defence as a sort of insurance against military invasion (one of the few things the constitution CLEARLY spelled out as an at least partial federal role) then how can we most equitably distribute the cost and address those benefiting without contributing (or as at least one of these other posts suggests, do we care if others benefit – I say yes, because a less widely distributed cost increases the costs for those who DO pay).
Unfortunately, national governments possess 99.99999% of all habitable land in the world and have significant force to tax us. How can we resist such theft. and by allowing it we just strengthen the force and claim to legitimacy they have.
The only solution I can come up with is to remove myself as far as possible from the monetary system, which means a significant trade and commerce impediment to myself. …
Hi Grey. I think our need for defense is very tiny. Our oceans and large land mass do most of the job. Our armed population could do the rest. Equally important — our tax-funded military establishment has created far more enemies than it has ever killed. We would be far safer if we had no military establishment at all. Of course, this is a radical notion that will cause most people to balk at first. A full review of U.S. military history might begin to make the idea seem more reasonable. Our blog provides such a history. To the extent we can convince people that we need far less defense than we currently have it will become easier to persuade them that the need could be met with voluntary funding. Equally important, voluntary funding would give politicians a huge incentive to use the military more prudently, lest the funding dry-up. Tax funded defense means political control. Voluntary funding means consumer control.
I appreciate your missives on simple truths on economic realities and the ethics associated. I read Nelson Hultberg’s articles and have decided he is a “Statist” though he mixes in some sound information about issues and politicians. I annotate copies of some of Hultberg’s et.al. articles to emphasize where these
“Statist” invoke fallacious philosophies, though I’m not sure why I waste my time; maybe a few hundred years in the future, should my “thumb drives” survive, some luck kid will discover my trove of treasures and provide substance for his school essays.
Oh phewy, I made errors in my previous post. “Statist” should have been “Statists” and “luck” should have been “lucky.”
How do you propose to pay for public goods? Economists have long recognized that there are things that benefit all of us that could not exist simply through user fees.
Would we be a better country if we didn’t have public schools? Where only those who could afford to provide their children with educations would get one?
How would we pay to defend our country?
Believe me I toyed with this idea of user fees when I was young and in college and I quickly came to recognize that not all governmental services could be privatized.
We have private courts like the American Arbitration Association but they function in darkness and our public courts are far better (i.e., jury trials not judgments by elites) and they have to be open to the public with the exception of the American Star Chamber FISA courts.
The problem with government in general is it is too big, too impersonal, to remote, and full of far to many modern human beings that lack the moral fortitude to do the right thing in spite of their personal or tribal interests.
Without morality all of our systems and structures will eventually fail.
Thanks for your questions. There is one basic answer for all of them. People will pay for what they want and not pay what they don’t want. The argument that this will not provide enough funding has things backwards. The definition of enough is what people are willing to fund, NOT what politicians or other “experts” think is best.
Re the so-called free rider/public goods problem – we don’t think it is a problem. Some people pay for fireworks displays that non-payers get to see, but the fireworks happen in spite of the free riders. The same point as above applies, when people want something they will pay for it, even if others get to free ride.
There is also a secondary answer — many roads are maintained by voluntary contract fees. Taxes are not needed. Instead, taxes are a problem in their own right. Once you have them there’s no way to limit them. Perverse problems such as concentrated benefits and dispersed costs will always cause both the taxes and the spending, and eventually, the borrowing, to grow like topsy. Far better to suffer the free rider problem to the extent that you view that as a problem.
Re courts — we favor public juries.
I think the idea that people would voluntarily fund the Government is ludicrous. George Washington found out how well that worked so there fore we don’t need to try it again. There seems to be agreement that we need Government for defense. We need Government to defend our borders or we will be subject to force from others. Other Countries have proven that during the last two thousand years,. so we don’t need to discuss that. What I don’t understand is, knowing that we need funding of a limited Government, why the FairTax is not considered as a viable voluntary tax system. As it is now, we pay tax on every thing we buy. We are taxed before we receive our pay check. With the FairTax you get your pay check with no Federal with holdings of any kind. It is a replacement for what we have now and it is a voluntary tax system. If you don’t want to pay tax , simply buy used items that some one else has already paid the tax on. FaiTax Replaces the stealth system we have now, with a very transparent system that shows every one what they are paying when ever they buy some thing new. It is as voluntary as we can get and it requires no force on the individual. Allowing people to see what they are taxed will then bring about the FORCING of politicians to stop spending with out thought. People will want to pay less. They will see they CAN pay less. An individual has the choice of buying new and paying tax or buying used and paying none. When politicians are over spending, people will be much more apt to pay attention. Food is not taxed up to the monetary poverty level because of the FairTAx, prebate. It is the first step to every thing that financially is wrong with Washington.
All three of the following points interlock and overlap…
1) As you clearly articulate, the Fair Tax is vastly superior to the present system. But the political capital used to enact the Fair Tax would be considerable, and will it Downsize DC? Well, to start with, it requires a Constitutional Amendment unless you want the Income Tax to live on, side-by-side. Disagree, if you wish (and you probably do), but we think if the power is there, it’ll be used, period.
2) The Fair Tax does nothing about the spending. The spending is the problem. First, the Fair Tax, by political necessity, is sold as “revenue-neutral” so the rate will be set to raise the same amount. Second, borrowing can still be done, because there is a tax system in place to guarantee the loan payments. But most important of all, the major problem is what The State does with the money. That’s why…
3) We reject the premise that our Government needs taxes. An institution that takes by force will act with force in a whole host of ways. We don’t want the Government to have so much money. “Big government harms you, hurts your family, damages your industry, and destroys your community — it even kills people.” The revenue-neutral Fair Tax simply will do nothing to constrain the politicians and bureaucrats.
Dang, Jim!
Nothing like raining on the Fair Tax parade!
As usual, Mr. Mental Lever, you have presented a lucid argument which I don’t think I have considered.
Now I will, because I can’t make a case against your point.
Thanks again for pushing the envelope.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Yeah, “fair” is like beauty, it is subjective, it depends on time and place, it resides in the mind of the beholder. It is damned madding that some damned fools think they can impose their damned illogical and immoral opinions and prejudices of what is “fair” on those who see differently, i.e. politicians have ear to ear cow pies. We don’t need no stinkin’ politicians or bureaucrats to dictate to us how to conduct our lives; they deserve time a the bottom of the outhouse wherein they can commiserate with the rest of the slavemaster dregs of humanity.
I do wish all the commie/socialist Democrats could really read and study with experts economists so that they could discover the error of their ways. Thanks for you efforts to educate us. The real deplorables are the Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Maxine Waters, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Lizzie “Pocahontas” Warren commie/socialist Democrats. That said I believe “Statists” and “Constitutionalists” are one of the root causes of our problems as they believe in “might makes right”
immorality. Your missives on “Statism” are instructive. Thanks.
Politics is violence no matter the make, model or flavor and yet people persist in voting. Go figure. Someone once said there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between political parties. Amerikan politicians, mostly Democrats, have passed “laws” that impose the 10 Planks of the Commie Manifesto.
Listen to Ted R. Weiland’s message on the fallacy of politics:
http://www.kingdompromises.org/kingdompromises_audio/1052.mp3
Politics is a false god. When people worship false god-politics, they get disasters of wars, recessions, inflation and taxation (murders, economic ruin, theft of wages, debt slavery, welfare “statism” based on looting A to satisfy B and extortion).
Read Lysander Spooner’s No Treason No. 6, The Constitution of No Authority. And then check out The No State Project by Marc Stevens on YouTube where he asks: What factual evidence do you, judge, prosecutor, politician, IRS agent or anyone, have that the constitution and law apply to me just because I am physically present in some state such as commie/socialist Democrat dictatorship corruptifornia? It doesn’t exist and never has else we would be stinkin’ slaves on the plantation state run by masters/politicians and their overseers/judges/ enforcers in the “land of the free and home of the brave.” Why weren’t the Spooner and Stevens points taught in government schools? Conflict of interest? Prejudice? How diabolically ironic is that? Factual evidence would come in the form of a sworn affidavit of truth stating what, when, where, why, how and by whom one was made subject to the jurisdiction thereof. It was never brought up in any school I attended. I have never heard any MSM commentator produce the “factual evidence.” I have asked judges in court and on record to provide the factual evidence and not one of the six I have challenged could produce factual evidence thus failing to provide proof of jurisdiction.
I recommend Ted R. Weiland’s books:
Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective
http://www.missiontoisrael.org/blvc-index.php
Law & Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant
http://www.missiontoisrael.org/law-kingdom.php
If Christian Americans ever expect God to fulfill his half of 2 Chronicles 7:14, they must first repent of their national idolatry their love affair with the humanistic, pluralistic, polytheistic, and antichristian United States Constitution.
I also recommend the Jehovah Witness website publications: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/lv/r1/lp-e/0/5487
The hate speaking, commie/socialist, Democrat, SJWs, snowflakes, MSM and politicians are clearly unethical, immoral. They play the emotions game but most people know that the first casualties of emotion are reason, logic and morality.
Take a look at how Milton Friedman explains to Phil Donahue the fallacy of commie/socialism. This video should be viewed by all and then asked why they are voting for any politician that is commie/socialist.
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/01/14/the-blunt-truth-about-greed-and-freedom-was-delivered-over-30-years-ago/?utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2014-01-14_292717&utm_content=5355076&utm_term=_292717_292724
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lWk4TCe4U
The Bible teaches us in Matthew 17:24-27 that the tyrant kings/rulers/politicians apply taxation to strangers on the nation state. Christina rulers however do not tax their own Christian people. So, Amerika is not a Christian nation ruled by Christians and so, Christians are “strangers” in the nation state and must abide by the tyrannical rule of non-Christian politicians.
Also, the Bible in Revelation teaches us that the troika of evil, that wicked consort of politics, commerce and “false-religion,” will be destroyed because it is collectively opposed to Jehovah God. The Bible at Matthew 22:37-40 teaches us there are 2 great commandments, love God and love our neighbors. Taxation violates God’s commandment against stealing and it violates the 2 great commandments.
The Bible teaches us that stealing is a sin. Yes, taxation is theft and it is sinful. The false religions and government schools teach us that somehow taxation is not theft. The government/politicians, judges, IRS agents, school teachers, administrators and the MSM are liars! The Bible explains that Christian rulers do not tax their own people; they only tax strangers. So, Christians are strangers on the land and are thus compelled to pay taxes but that doesn’t mean that taxation is just! We have been deceived and even the colonists were wrong on this account; they didn’t understand the Bible or they concealed the fact that they knew taxation was theft and so they set up a non-Christian political government which of course means they opened the door to Satan and his band of wicked ones. The Bible teaches us in Revelation that the troika of evil, that wicked consort of politics, commerce and false religion, will be destroyed in the end. We would be wise to heed the warning and terminate/abandon political government now.
Definition of impractical :not practical: such as
a : not wise to put into or keep in practice or effect
b : incapable of dealing sensibly or prudently with practical matters
c : impracticable
d : idealistic
[Not practical
Not inclined toward or fitted for actual work or useful activities, such a politicians
Not engaged in or experienced in actual useful work, such as politicians
Not adapted to or designed for actual use or useful work, such as politicians
Not related to or concerned with ordinary activities, business or work such as politicians
Habitual dreamers who are not and cannot be bothered with practical affairs
Not concerned with application of rules that are useful and that do not damage the economy, such as politicians – other references – JW]