Is taxation morally justifiable, Sup Forums?

Is taxation morally justifiable, Sup Forums?

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yeah it just depends on what you tax

i think taxing alcohol heavily is a good idea.

For funding infrastructure, education, courts, police and fire protection, and the military. No stealing money from workers to subsidize the living expenses and children of the non workers.

Theft is immoral even if it is sanctioned by the government. Pointing a gun at someone's head and taking their hard money to give to someone else is not being generous.

the land value tax is the only moral one desu senpai

>because some scum cant control themselves you want me to pay more for my beer

what about you go fuck yourself, nigger?

>I think giving the state license to encourage/discourage certain behaviors at their own discretion is a good idea

FTFY

Wealth taxes are inherently unsustainable.

The purely moral argument that taxation of earnings is theft and acts as a punishment for working harder or cleverer. Taxation of land rents is not theft as it is merely a user charge for benefits received. And even if taxation of land rents is theft, so what? Land ownership is also legalised theft, so make the punishment fit the crime. It's like when the police confiscate the proceeds of crime - that money doesn't belong to the police either, but it certainly doesn't belong to the criminals.

>is theft morally justifiable?

Do you really need us to expl

>brazil

Fair enough

No, monkey, theft is not justifiable.

The guy in your pic has quite a lot of money.. Damn, just imagine how many people he illegally robbed at gunpoint to get them fat stacks

No, it's not, unless voluntary.
But since the world is not black and white, it's currently necessary (it seems).

land isnt capital though so how could it be a wealth tax senpai?


In any case, the decision to treat land and capital as the same, haunts us to this day. If land is treated as capital then the concept of “rent” goes away and rentiers can masquerade as capitalists and cloak their unearned “rent” income as justifiable profit. John Maynard Keynes blew away everybody and what they thought they knew about economics in the 20s and 30s. In response to Keynesian economics, the neoclassical economists didn’t die, they decided to fight back. Milton Friedman is the most famous of this group. To fight against keynesian economics, he and his contemporaries tried to lay claim as resurrecting the classic school of economics that said “less government is good”. They even called themselves New Classicals. However, this “revival” of the classical economics was actual a revival of the neoclassical school. They, like the neoclassicals before, again conflated capital and land. Therefore, many modern economists no longer make a distinction between land and capital. They group together income from rent and income from capital and call it profit. This school remains in the mainstream and therefore the concept of economic rent is no longer discussed in our politics.

Local taxes yes.
Federal no.

>Is taxation morally justifiable, Sup Forums?
Absolutely. If you want to live in the community/state/country, you pay the transaction taxes that support the public goods and services you demand.

Let's check the math.

i'm facing a conundrum where i have to steal all the things in life i require to avoid paying taxes that i never agreed to

Wrong. Alcohol is the cause of many expensive externalities and an appropriate tax to cover accidents and increased health spending a tax is appropriate.

Alternatively all taxation is theft.

>dat fleshlight right on the desk

mfw

>land isnt capital though so how could it be a wealth tax senpai?

Land in the economic sense is a capital asset, just like all the other things people justify stealing under the guise of taxation.

For all the people on here who aren't econfags you need to consider the ramifications of a state that forces anyone to participate in the economic system endorsed by that state simply by virtue of owning any amount of such a capital asset.

>The purely moral argument that taxation of earnings is theft and acts as a punishment for working harder or cleverer.
The corporatism agenda has been pushing this line for decades because they are all rent-seekers, but at its core it's demonstrably false.

Each transaction in the economy, where money or goods exchanges hands, should be taxed. This is fair and appropriate.

And no, you shouldn't get a tax exemption because you're some kind of special snowflake.

yfwnf

No its not... its land. How can it be a capital asset? No one built the land and you certainly cant make more

It depends. If you use it efficiency on worthwhile things then yes

Ben didn't draw that

Smith observed that all production required 3 things. Land, Capital, and Labor. A very simple example would be a brick factory. The building and oven needed to create the bricks are the “capital” – the owners are the capitalists. The people making the bricks is the “labor” – the people doing the actual work. The Land the factory occupies and the clay used to make the bricks is the “land” – the owners of the land are the “Rentiers”. Any money made by selling the bricks is then divided up between these three groups: the rentiers, the capitalists, and the workers.

Adam Smith observed that only 2 of the 3 groups made any real contribution to the production process. The workers contributed their time. The capitalists contributed their capital that they either bought, but is now used and worth less than before it was used. The Rentiers contributed their land, but have lost nothing. Once the manufacturing of the bricks is done, they get their land back and it is still worth the same as it was before. Any income they made by renting out their land was made without work, and without risk to their assets. There is a word for someone that only takes, but doesn’t give back: a parasite. Smith and those who carried on his work used the nicer term, Rentier. This is where the phrase “economic rent” originates. It originally described a no value-ad landlord.

point out how this thinking is wrong sir

Yes, it's a business deal like any other. The problem is that only one end of the deal has been honored since almost its inception.

>they get their land back and it is still worth the same as it was before
not if niggers move in down the street

...

>Wealth taxes are inherently unsustainable.
The wealthy don't pay taxes and always use other people's money when incurring risk. The rewards are privatized and the risks socialized.

yes, because I was being serious and not just making a simple racist joke

I'll do it.

What the owner of the land gives is use of his land to other people.

...

and who/what grants him that right to exclusively use the land?

The exclusive possession is important, without it land has no market rental value.

Is it not the whole of society which underpins that exclusive possession?

Shouldn't the people granting those rights be entitled to the profits?

>How can it be a capital asset? No one built the land and you certainly cant make more

Neither of those criteria define a capital asset.

>point out how this thinking is wrong sir

As you said, the clay, economically speaking (and geologically, I guess) is land. It occurs naturally, i.e., it was not produced, and there is a fixed supply of it. Yet the rentiers don't own the clay, nor can they make use of it, after it is used to produce bricks.

>Adam Smith observed that only 2 of the 3 groups made any real contribution to the production process.

And yet were you to remove the remaining group, no bricks would have been produced. Which raises the question: rent, or opportunity cost?

Ownership grants him the right, not other people.

No. Fuck the military, fuck the cops, fuck the firefighters. EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AMIRITE???

why should we allow you to have alcohol when it causes so many problems?

pay up or ban it.

Before income tax the government was mostly funded by tariffs and vice taxes

someone has to maintain infrastructure most people dont want to spend their time doing so.

>And yet were you to remove the remaining group, no bricks would have been produced.

So we only remove the 3rd and use it to fund government and let people keep the other 2 since they are actually producing something of value

I agree, a national prohibition of alcohol would certainly cure the nation's ills

>the federal government should own all land

and the remaining group is actual phyisical land and unless your some sort of Hoppian bulldozer you cant physically remove it

It depends.
It depends on what the taxes are used for

Not at the rates we get, I don't make shit but I still have almost 20% pulled from my paycheck every week. Hell, the money from FICA alone would pay my phone bill and buy me real food for a week, but I guess I have to keep ramen as a staple "food" so Mexicans can go to the ER for free and buy chips and soda with EBT cards.

In my view access to land and the commons is a human right so saying the government owns all land is like saying the government owns your right to bear arms

Taxation is never morally justifiable.

It's a necessary evil that everyone accepts as a necessary evil to keep a country functioning.

>So we only remove the 3rd and use it to fund government

Speaking of rent-seekers...

In any case, you dodged the question.

if you don't make shit are you eligible for assistance?
you might as well reap the benefits of your own EBT card since you're already paying for it anyways

>tfw federal benefits without taxation

Feels good man

No

Can it be justified? Sure. Whether or not it can be justified well is a different question.

The rentiers lose the ability to use the land for something they might find more worthwhile. Opportunity cost.

The value of land is subject to change as well. Suppose the brick factory left some awful pollutants that poisoned the soil and killed all the wildlife. Now the land is a Brownfield site and effectively fucked.

I don't buy the idea that Land is exempt from contribution in the same fashion as the Capital and Labor.

I'll do no such thing. I cannot adequately explain the hatred I feel every time I see someone using an EBT card, they are the lowest form of scum in my eyes and I'd rather starve than count myself among them.

...

Getting out of my breadth sailor so ill just use some other peoples words

As a defender of Georgism, I have published a number of posts on this blog knocking down these type of critiques that intermittently pop up. My principle argument is not that Georgism is the only position on land that is consistent with libertarianism but rather that Georgism is not inconsistent with libertarianism. In particular this usually means debunking the purported equivalency of Georgism with land collectivism, an oft-repeated refrain that simply isn’t accurate. This bogus equivalence lies at the heart of McElroy’s definitional critique. So once more, for the record, let me state unequivocally that:

>the proposition of the right of equal access to land (p) DOES NOT EQUAL collective ownership(q)

p is neither a sufficient nor necessary condition for q. Hence, there is no logical relationship between the two propositions. The Georgist position is that the proposition (p) establishes the exclusionary use of land(=ownership) as a privilege that bears the market price of the opportunity cost of the use of the resource. Simple. As I sometimes put it, you are more or less buying your way out of “land collectivism” at the price of its opportunity cost. This contrasts with other enforcement models of private property that purport to be “private” while empirically demonstrating a thorough intertwining with collectivist enforcement.

rulingclass.wordpress.com/category/georgism/

I used to be a total "taxation is theft reeeee" lolbertarian

but yes taxation would be fine if it were done correctly. There are a lot of caveats but it's not as simple as "taxation is bad"

>I don't buy the idea that Land is exempt from contribution in the same fashion as the Capital and Labor.

It can be, in the economic sense. The landholders of Adam Smith's time, i.e., the nobility, were much closer to pure rent-seekers than the modern property holder.

only if you follow the Georgist model

>i think taxing alcohol heavily is a good idea.

no, tax the land, so whichever bar gets more patronage the land that bar is on gets taxed more

I can respect that
But also don't torture yourself, it is important to eat good foods to stay healthy
I was never on food stamps either, but I did used to go to the local church when they would do food drives when I was really poor

>There are a lot of caveats but it's not as simple as "taxation is bad"

there are very few ways to tax morally

I don't think many people would be so upset with taxation if the money were actually spent properly

Never

Why do you need a politician to spend your money for you????

That wasn't his point. He's saying if the government didn't spent money on things like warmongering, paying for people who are intentionally draining society, etc., people who are against taxes would be so less fervently.

virtuous people are against taxes because it violates the NAP not because they don't like what the thief buys with their stolen money

>virtuous people are against taxes because it violates the NAP
>mfw not virtuous because i stole the penny to prevent nuclear holocaust

NOOOOOOOO HE'S NOT PAYING HIS FAIR SHARE!!!!!

not an argument

No, it's theft.

this couldn't be more retarded

>people under 30k pay nothing
>flat tax means everyone pays same % of their income, not amount

>morally justifiable
Morals mean jack shit. The world doesn't care if something is "immoral" or "not nice".

Also, once again a fantastic 1 post thread.

It's the most efficient and sustainable way to fund government services. If you believe that it's the government's job to provide services, then they need a way to fund that.

literally let people that want government services pay for it and people that don't not

>The world doesn't care if something is "immoral"

But it does. Why do you think slavery ended?

but it is. It's ridiculous to make moral conclusion just on basis of theory and not context. Violating NAP could be beneficial to society in cases of national security.

but you would benefit from those services even though you wouldnt pay for it.

>no, tax the land, so whichever bar gets more patronage the land that bar is on gets taxed more

property taxes are terrible.

>defacing one of Ben's art pieces

Found the original

they already think the rich do that to the poor so whats wrong with a flat tax if it would at least get rid of loopholes?

Buffett's razor.

>mfw ancaps can't accept that government is an Enterprise as well operating in its own interests

Assuming that the taxed individual can opt out (opting out of taxes should also opt the individual out of government services), assuming individuals are not coerced with violence to pay taxes, and assuming the government can provide verification to its tax base that their money is actually being efficiently used or at the very least that the government tried their hardest to efficiently use said money.

>Assuming that the taxed individual can opt out
but even if you opt out of taxes u'd still benefit from national defense, or much other extern alities of public spending like homeless not literally starving and having to steal to survive

fat guy should be a kike
something like this is much more accurate

Or justifiable public service. For example, bailout takeovers are perfectly justifiable given the right circumstance.

25% tax on 100k is 25K leaving 75K for the tax payer.
25% tax on 100M is 25M leaving 75M for the tax payer.

People are mad because the rich guy still has 75M after tax.

Can't expect poor people to understand how percentages work.

>thinking that taxes are not progessive
am laughing

I know tax is progressive, it just an example of how two identical percentages are drastically different quantities when applied to drastically different numbers.