A Different Perspective on Taxation
Apr. 7th, 2002 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslMaybe I've just solved the problem of how to tax within libertarian ethics.
You own this huge piece of land. You sell small pieces of it under the following conditions:
You sell 80% of the right to each smaller piece of land. Your ownership density is uniformly 20% in all land, for which you charge a rent. Basically, you get 20% of all landlord rent revenues. If someone owns his own home, he is renting to himself, and owes you 20% of that. The problem now is that fair-market value must be assessed to prevent cheating (on both sides). Maybe this could be solved by an auction-like game for the use of the land, specified in the contract.
Now, your only incentive to provide public services is to maximize your land's value by keeping up the demand: your tenants can always emigrate for better lands.
Of course to make sure you (the state) keep to the contract, the tenants also pay a contract enforcer. You, already owning a law-enforcement agency, don't bother.
Children are born into your land, grow up there, etc, but, unlike their parents, they never agreed to your rules, and don't want to pay taxes. So they start a political movement, call it "the anarchist movement", to fight for the right to not pay taxes (rent).
The point is:
This second-generation of inhabitants is arguing against libertarianism, using the same argument that libertarians use against statism, namely that:
"the state shouldn't have the right to kick you out of the country for not paying your taxes".
If the Uncle Sam owned all of America, and Americans were born into this contract of slavery (we make no guarantees about future laws and taxation), is there anything really wrong with him charging whatever tax he wants?
I want to post this on the BON list, so I'm trying to polish it some more. Comments? Comments?
You own this huge piece of land. You sell small pieces of it under the following conditions:
You sell 80% of the right to each smaller piece of land. Your ownership density is uniformly 20% in all land, for which you charge a rent. Basically, you get 20% of all landlord rent revenues. If someone owns his own home, he is renting to himself, and owes you 20% of that. The problem now is that fair-market value must be assessed to prevent cheating (on both sides). Maybe this could be solved by an auction-like game for the use of the land, specified in the contract.
Now, your only incentive to provide public services is to maximize your land's value by keeping up the demand: your tenants can always emigrate for better lands.
Of course to make sure you (the state) keep to the contract, the tenants also pay a contract enforcer. You, already owning a law-enforcement agency, don't bother.
Children are born into your land, grow up there, etc, but, unlike their parents, they never agreed to your rules, and don't want to pay taxes. So they start a political movement, call it "the anarchist movement", to fight for the right to not pay taxes (rent).
The point is:
This second-generation of inhabitants is arguing against libertarianism, using the same argument that libertarians use against statism, namely that:
"the state shouldn't have the right to kick you out of the country for not paying your taxes".
If the Uncle Sam owned all of America, and Americans were born into this contract of slavery (we make no guarantees about future laws and taxation), is there anything really wrong with him charging whatever tax he wants?
I want to post this on the BON list, so I'm trying to polish it some more. Comments? Comments?