Voluntary taxation?

Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 12 months ago to Government
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In "The Nature of Government," Ayn Rand addressed:

1. Why we need government,

2. The proper functions of government (meaning what functions does the government "own," and what makes it a government), and

3. How to fund these.

Rand decided on three, and only three, functions of government. These functions, she said, all had to do with the exertion of physical force and the protection of people's rights. And that's a good way to sum it up. A government exists to manage force, and in particular: force in retaliation.

So how *do* you fund a government? Shall the government force people to pay for police if they don't believe in policing? Shall they force people to pay for war who don't think we should go to war?

Rand suggested people would pay for government the same way they paid for insurance. But she also said such payment would be voluntary. Now what's to stop a "freeloader problem" from provoking an "insurance death spiral"? Why should anyone pay for police services if the police will be there for you no matter what? And how can the police assure themselves of any funding at all?

Rand did not answer those questions, beyond saying, "A government lottery is one way. There are others." But what others?

This is what I would like to explore in this thread.

No link. At the moment I don't have the kind of post that would fit well. So everything is all here.


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  • Posted by DeanStriker 8 years, 12 months ago
    Glad, and a bit surprised, to see you here, friend.

    I'll take on just one bit of your post for now:
    "3. Guard not only your property but also the property of others, or the larger community--on the theory that this last option might give you more "bang for the buck" than the second, while avoiding the risk of the first."

    Taxes are stealing, as Governments do that without consent of anyone.
    Without Rulers and GOVERNment, somewhere around half of our income would not be stolen by taxation. That leaves all that money available for one's own choices, right?

    There are many in a Voluntary System, who are gung-ho for wars, popularly called "defense" but extending far beyond defense. Everyone would be setting their priorities, and those many would surely be making major contributions to the war-mongers from their newly retrieved resources.

    Because there would suddenly be many offerings from Private competitors to sell their services for various and sundry military segments, for defense and perhaps for intervention, would America not sustain a reasonable defense system without the tyranny?
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    • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
      Make sure you understand. When I offer choices, I suggest to you every individual would have those choices to make, each independently of the others, and be able to revise that choice any time. I never proposed a vote for all time. I suggested each individual should make up his own mind, day to day, and year to year, about whether he wants to serve on the Committee of Safety (if he's wealthy enough for such direct involvement to be worth his while), and whether he wants to support the Committee of Safety. I also mean to suggest that even a minor stakeholder who sees only to his own defense, makes the job of the Committee of Safety easier. Because he makes criminal activity less lucrative, and invasion prospects significantly bleaker.

      A Japanese general was reputed (maybe apocryphally) to have said, "We never dared invade the United States, for we would have faced a gun behind every blade of grass." So a minor stakeholder makes the job of the police and the military easier, merely by standing ready to defend himself. Now: those on the border, would have an incentive to join the defending army. A joint defense would be easier to maintain than individual defenses. Their property would be in the first path of an invading army. In joining together to protect their own property, they protect the properties inside of them. Now: are they going to quarrel about the "inlanders" being "freeloaders"? I suggest to you that logic would dictate they make no such complaint.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 12 months ago
    A fair tax with a pre-bate for taxes is pretty close to a voluntary tax since a consumer may choose when to purchase new products or luxury items instead of used...
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    • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
      True, except for one thing: the merchants all have to charge the tax. Or at least, they have to charge it on all things new.
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      • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 12 months ago
        Correct. All things new. Used would have already been taxed once when new. Why should the government collect every time something used is sold? It seems just as unfair as inheritance tax. Your basic necessities would be tax free, but not without some burden since you would have to budget your pre-bate. For things which for some unforeseen reason this does not work fee for service as jbrenner suggests seems fair. I see an additional advantage in these systems in that it would force government to shrink back to a legitimate size. Let them budget for a change. Every time they raise my taxes they are saying that they can't live on what they receive, but somehow I should be fine with less.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
          The Fair Tax is an interim step, and a good step along the path I'd like to tread.

          I started this thread to bring people together to go beyond the Fair Tax. To figure out what kind of system would move the largest stakeholders in law and order to support it directly, and rely on people's natural inclination to carve out their own spheres of law and order, tu reduce the overall cost.
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          • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 12 months ago
            I'm all for that. The toughest problem as you have alluded will be convincing the Washington looters in power that they won't be giving up their goodies. This will definitely take some creative solutions.
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            • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
              Oh, but I plan to call out the Great Strike and bring the system down, as John Galt did.

              In fact, the one thing I regret is that I haven't the resources, or the connections, that Ragnar Danneskjöld had.

              If I had--look out.

              If Ragnar were to walk into any bar that I frequented, I'd sign up without question, even should I wind up on the deck force.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 12 months ago
    Everything should be on a fee for service basis. Those who use the government resources need to pay for them what they actually cost. This would shrink government down to the size that it would be if similar services existed in the private sector. This would further encourage privatization of functions that currently belong to the government.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
      All right, that sounds like a good temporary measure to get the government to shed its non-core functions. And even to encourage private arbitration, with Requests for Judicial Intervention to make them binding and official.

      But the fee-for-service model applies to discrete services. How do you work out a fee for "maintenance of law and order," or defense against invasion?
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 12 months ago
        A start on a fee-for-service model for maintenance of law and order is as follows:

        1) The loser pays in court battles.
        2) Police and fire costs are paid in full by those requiring such services. Certainly part of this can be based on property taxes, but a higher percentage of this should be based on the cost of that traffic ticket than it is now.

        Defense against invasion is the primary, if not only, legitimate role of a federal government. The fee-for-service model is not an easy one there.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
          I think we agree. Invasion defense is a federal responsibility; ordinary policing is a State or local responsibility. And the original Constitution provided that any State, if immediately subject to an invasion, could fight back. "No State shall...engage in war, unless actually invaded, or under other such threat as will not admit of delay." Article 10, Section 3.

          We were trying to figure out how to pay for it all without creating an agency powerful enough to slap a lien on your house or some such. Responsibility for doing a thing is one thing. A means to pay for it is another.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 12 months ago
    I asked the question, so I'll open with my own answer.

    During the American War for Independence, the American Revolutionaries formed Committees of Correspondence to handle the raising of what became the Continental Army. Eventually, as everyone remembers, colonial delegations came together in the Second Continental Congress. That Congress issued the Declaration of Independence. And on the day they published it to the world (4 July 1776), the Second Continental Congress became a national government.

    But out of the experience of Committees of Correspondence, has come another model: Committees of Safety.

    Membership in Committees of Safety is open to those wishing to see to organizing, and funding, the police, the military, and the law courts. My particular model--I say "mine" because I cannot cite any source proposing this precise model, though I'd welcome any citation anyone else could find--calls for the Committee of Safety to open its membership to those willing to contribute directly to the funding of the institutions of government, to an extent consistent with their notions of how powerful and effective they want those institutions to be. Logically, membership in the Committee of Safety would be open to anyone who had a lot of property to guard, the resources to exert force, or both. Or if not such people directly, then their proxies.

    My best model for the Committee of Safety: Mulligan's Valley, a/k/a Galt's Gulch, in AS. The three key men, those who formed the core of the Strike of the Men of the Mind, constituted the Committee of Safety for the Gulch, this although they never referred to themselves or their group by that name. John Galt claimed membership as the proxy of Midas Mulligan, the landlord-in-chief of the valley. Francisco d'Anconia could claim such "stakeholder" membership in his own right. (His stake derived from his ownership, or primary leasehold, of the Red Mountains that were the source of the Uncompahgre River that defined the valley.) Ragnar Danneskjöld was the Committee's warrior member. He had the most direct means of projecting force "abroad," as it were.

    I would imagine that Midas trusted John implicitly to spend as much of his money as he felt necessary for improvements to secure and conceal the valley. The "ray screen" would be the prize example. Francisco d'Anconia likely contributed the core of a militia for the valley. Ragnar, of course, had by then hijacked a ship. He contributed his obvious services, plus whatever gold he might spare from time to time to support Dwight Sanders' air field, so he, Ragnar, would have a place to land.

    The theory of a Committee of Safety is simply this: if you have property, and you feel it needs guarding, you have three choices:

    1. Leave it unguarded,

    2. Guard it yourself (or with a force you hire that answers only to you and guards your property and no other), or:

    3. Guard not only your property but also the property of others, or the larger community--on the theory that this last option might give you more "bang for the buck" than the second, while avoiding the risk of the first.

    Those willing to pool their resources, to ensure law and order in a way more general than a set of discrete strongholds might be, would constitute a Committee of Safety.

    The minor stakeholders have their own choices:

    1. Rely on others to guard law and order for them,

    2. See to their own defense of their persons, dwellings, and "curtilages" (a legal term of art meaning, essentially, your front and back yards), or

    3. Join in the common defense of law and order in the community, from invasions from without, and convulsions within.

    THis system, by the way, not only recognizes the absolute right of any resident to defend himself and his goods, but indeed *relies* on that individual defense, to make the jobs of common law enforcement and common military defense easier than they otherwise would be. The minor stakeholders, even if they do not fund the police or military directly, are not freeloaders. Not if, in fact, their own activities, that they undertake for their own defense, contribute to a general "hardening" of their society against criminals or would-be invaders.

    And what about the courts? Well, the courts would rely on basic fees from the litigants, plus any fines the court might impose. The late Robert A. Heinlein ("The Moon is a Harsh MIstress") described a court case that illustrated this principle beautifully. A foreign visitor rashly touches a resident woman without her permission. Her male companions seize him and hale him before a judge. The judge first exacts a fee from each side, and then holds the trial. He lays a heavy fine against the foreign visitor for his rash act, and also fines the male companions for being too quick to threaten summary execution in his case. And the sanction he threatens for non-payment of the fine is as old as civilization itself: public shaming.

    This is almost too long, so I'll open it for questions now.
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