Reply to reply: Contrary to popular and academic belief, Adam Smith did not accept inequality as a necessary trade-off for a more prosperous economy
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I made my point. And my point was painfully obvious. Yet here you are wondering what my point is. How can I make my point obvious enough for even you to understand? Can I accomplish the impossible? Only one way to find out.
We both want people to have better options. Every person's gravestone should be able to say, "I was as happy as a kid in a candy store". Life should be full of options that perfectly match your preferences...aka heaven.
In order to create heaven on earth...you have to understand where better options come from. The owner of a candy store doesn't just *snap* his fingers and better candies magically appear. He doesn't just go pick better candies from a candy tree. There's a distinct and logical process that occurs.
The key to this process is consumer choice. If kids can't choose which candies match their preferences... then candy producers won't know what the preferences of kids are. If producers don't know what the preferences of kids are...then candies won't match kids' preferences. So in the absence of consumer choice, kids would be sad in candy stores because the options really wouldn't match their preferences. Life would be less like heaven and more like hell.
Right now you're so far in left field that you don't realize that the point of production really isn't to ensure that workers in candy factories are happy oompa loompas. The objective really isn't to make oompa loompas happier...it's to make kids happier.
Maybe you want to argue that you can make kids happier by making oompa loompas happier? If so...then why bother trying to convince Wonka that he's making a mistake by not paying his oompa loompas enough money? If somebody refuses to pick up a gold nugget...are you going to stand there and argue with them? If you're so certain that it's not fool's gold then you should have no problem making the effort to pick it up yourself.
If it's truly gold...then picking it up would not only give kids a better option...it would also give workers a better option. How awesome is that? You can become wealthy by giving people better options. Of course, if it's not truly gold...then picking it up would be very costly. Maybe you used your home as collateral for your business loan? If so, then you'd lose your home. As a knocker (liberal) you're not willing to take that risk. So when the earth takes any steps closer to heaven...it's not because of knockers...it's despite them.
Showing posts with label knockers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knockers. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Saturday, February 1, 2014
What About Voluntary Taxation? Also, Knockers vs Builders...Which One Are You?
Reply to: What About Voluntary Taxation? Also, Knockers vs Builders...Which One Are You?
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Well...I'm a pragmatarian...so clearly I think voluntary taxation is inferior. That's probably not the best way to put it though.
The important thing to consider is that we don't know what the demand for compulsory taxation truly is. Just like we don't know what the demand for war truly is.
In a pragmatarian system, people would be free to choose which government organizations they gave their own tax dollars to. This would reveal what the actual demand for public goods truly is.
What would the demand for compulsory taxation be? In other words, how much money would the IRS receive? How many taxpayers would choose to give their own tax dollars to the IRS?
Why would people choose to give their own hard-earned tax dollars to the IRS? Perhaps they don't trust that you would voluntarily spend enough money on public goods.
If you thought that voluntary taxation is better than compulsory taxation...then you could try and persuade the heck out of everybody to boycott the IRS. You could go door to door and tell people about the NAP...you could buy billboard space to show people that compulsory taxation is morally wrong...you can buy radio ads telling people that Rothbard proved that compulsory taxation is theft. You could tell people whatever you thought necessary to persuade them to not give any of their tax dollars to the IRS.
The thing is...you would be trying to tear down the IRS without putting anything in its place. You would be a knocker rather than a builder. If you didn't want to be a knocker...and wanted to be a builder instead...you could create a non-profit organization that would use non-violent means to persuade people to voluntarily spend enough money on public goods. In other words, you could try and provide people with a better option...a viable alternative.
If the non-profit you helped build was able to demonstrate results...if it did somehow effectively persuade people to contribute more to the common good...then it stands to reason that taxpayers who demanded this service would stop giving their taxes to the IRS. The less money the IRS received...the less coercion it could engage in.
It's entirely possible though that if the IRS was losing enough money because of your non-profit...they would get the hint and switch to non-violent methods of persuading people to spend enough money on public goods. The beauty of the market is that it's driven by consumer sovereignty.
While on the subject of knockers though...a perfect example are all those "bleeding heart" liberals who want to tear down sweatshops. People choose to work in less than desirable conditions because it provides them with an option that's more desirable than the alternatives (subsistence agriculture, prostitution, etc). Liberals are knockers because they just want to tear down the best option that those workers have. If the liberals were builders then they would start their own air-conditioned factories which would give workers a more desirable option. This would create value rather than destroy it.
So knockers destroy best options while builders create better options. When libertarians and anarcho-capitalists advocate tearing the government down...then they are being knockers. That's why I'm no longer a libertarian. As a pragmatarian I want people to be free to shop for themselves in the public sector...this will give them the opportunity to build up the government organizations that they consider to be the best options. And if you believed that our best government options were undesirable...then you would be free to build up more desirable options.
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Well...I'm a pragmatarian...so clearly I think voluntary taxation is inferior. That's probably not the best way to put it though.
The important thing to consider is that we don't know what the demand for compulsory taxation truly is. Just like we don't know what the demand for war truly is.
In a pragmatarian system, people would be free to choose which government organizations they gave their own tax dollars to. This would reveal what the actual demand for public goods truly is.
What would the demand for compulsory taxation be? In other words, how much money would the IRS receive? How many taxpayers would choose to give their own tax dollars to the IRS?
Why would people choose to give their own hard-earned tax dollars to the IRS? Perhaps they don't trust that you would voluntarily spend enough money on public goods.
If you thought that voluntary taxation is better than compulsory taxation...then you could try and persuade the heck out of everybody to boycott the IRS. You could go door to door and tell people about the NAP...you could buy billboard space to show people that compulsory taxation is morally wrong...you can buy radio ads telling people that Rothbard proved that compulsory taxation is theft. You could tell people whatever you thought necessary to persuade them to not give any of their tax dollars to the IRS.
The thing is...you would be trying to tear down the IRS without putting anything in its place. You would be a knocker rather than a builder. If you didn't want to be a knocker...and wanted to be a builder instead...you could create a non-profit organization that would use non-violent means to persuade people to voluntarily spend enough money on public goods. In other words, you could try and provide people with a better option...a viable alternative.
If the non-profit you helped build was able to demonstrate results...if it did somehow effectively persuade people to contribute more to the common good...then it stands to reason that taxpayers who demanded this service would stop giving their taxes to the IRS. The less money the IRS received...the less coercion it could engage in.
It's entirely possible though that if the IRS was losing enough money because of your non-profit...they would get the hint and switch to non-violent methods of persuading people to spend enough money on public goods. The beauty of the market is that it's driven by consumer sovereignty.
While on the subject of knockers though...a perfect example are all those "bleeding heart" liberals who want to tear down sweatshops. People choose to work in less than desirable conditions because it provides them with an option that's more desirable than the alternatives (subsistence agriculture, prostitution, etc). Liberals are knockers because they just want to tear down the best option that those workers have. If the liberals were builders then they would start their own air-conditioned factories which would give workers a more desirable option. This would create value rather than destroy it.
So knockers destroy best options while builders create better options. When libertarians and anarcho-capitalists advocate tearing the government down...then they are being knockers. That's why I'm no longer a libertarian. As a pragmatarian I want people to be free to shop for themselves in the public sector...this will give them the opportunity to build up the government organizations that they consider to be the best options. And if you believed that our best government options were undesirable...then you would be free to build up more desirable options.
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