Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone.
Taxes raise money for transfers to special interests and public employees. Why would you trust an oligarchy of politicians (the State) to decide which goods are useful “for a community” and which don’t?
In contrast to private businesses that supply the goods that consumers voluntarily want to buy, public officials lack of the capacity to pick data as to what people truly demand, much less how to go about meeting those demands economically. They don’t have direct feedback of what every individual in the community want; they don’t pass the test of economic rationality.
If the Monopoly of Violence can’t act economically, they have no other choice but respond to interest groups, so tax money will necessarily end up with narrow interest groups rather than the provision of “public goods”
The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts.
The end does not justify the means. The mere existence of taxation is detrimental (and antithetical) to the very source of economic growth, that is, voluntary exchange.
Goods like education and roads, for example, are goods like any other: they can be supplied by markets and markets alone.
The only privilege we need is a better community.
A better community will be formed if it’s achieved by voluntary means. Moral obligation is not the same as legal obligation. How can individuals be virtuous? By letting them act freely.
Why would you trust an oligarchy of politicians (the State) to decide which goods are useful “for a community” and which don’t?
Because we voted for them. We didn’t vote for the board of directors of private companies. There’s plenty of waste and corruption in private enterprise. It’s not voluntary if they lie cheat and steal just like bad politicians.
Because we voted for them.
The fraud of representative democracy. What about those who didn’t vote them (the tyranny of the majority)? We, the common citizens, have really any power if our vote is secret?
The rights and obligations of a contractual act are generated by explicit consent of both members. This does not happen when we our vote is completely secret, without our names and surnames. Politicians are free to impose their monopolical powers, even if we don’t choose them.
“Representative democracy is the illusion of universal participation in the use of institutional coercion."
We didn’t vote for the board of directors of private companies.
Because we shouldn’t. Except for the lobbyists, they are using their private property and their factors of production achieved by social-cooperation.
There’s plenty of waste and corruption in private enterprise. It’s not voluntary if they lie cheat and steal just like bad politicians.
The only difference is that, in a free-market setting, they wouldn’t have any monopolical privileges to mantain their economical power and reputation in the market, as their permanence is dependent of supply and demand.
The only difference is that, in a free-market setting, they wouldn’t have any monopolical privileges
You cant have a free market without a government enforcing anti monopoly laws.
I don’t believe that demand is solely driven by voluntary consumer choice. On the contrary, demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing. It’s driven by making cheap products that don’t last and encouraging a throwaway culture. It’s driven by planned obselesence.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary. People who live in food deserts don’t have choice.
If the thing you want is not popular with the masses then the capitalists have no incentive to make it. Endless growth and all that…
demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing.
It’s driven by planned obselesence.
Consumer products develop through experimentation. Consumer preferences also change and develop gradually through time. To meet them requires entrepreneurial judgment.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary.
Aside from a few innate demands concerning hunger and temperature, consumer preferences emerge as a result of interaction between many individuals.
Each consumer regulates the consumer products he consumes by spending money. There is no good substitute for the market process concerning the development and dissemination of consumer goods.
