"But that doesn’t mean there’s no objective criterion for demonstrating the value of gold, does it? No. "
Demonstrating or determining? Demonstrating that things have value is usually much easier than determining how much they're worth. And though markets can easily determine the spot prices of gold and other commodities, predicting next year's value's much harder.

"The problem is specifically that you all remain completely unable to know or determine the appropriate or fair rate of tax."
Reality can certainly be a problem for some people. But you don't have to shut your eyes and pretend that you do know. Instead you can do what the rest of us do: compare potential alternatives. Because although you will never know what the optimum outcome is, it is not difficult to get some idea of which options are better than others.

I don't have a "mid-brain, herd-bound, unthinking assumption that tax is intrinsically, automatically beneficial". Some taxes (such as the GST) I think should be abolished. I do think the overall tax take should be raised from its current level; that's not because of any intrinsic factor but because I think better services would, at the moment, give greater overall benefits than lower taxes (the benefits of which have been greatly overstated in the past thirty years). Lower taxes bring some benefits, but they're a low priority compared to other alternatives that will bring much greater benefits.

I strongly suspect you're caught between your mid-brain, herd-bound, unthinking assumption that tax is intrinsically, automatically harmful, and your cerebral knowledge and understanding that that statement is not true. But you seem to convince yourself to go with your mid-brain, and assume everyone else is unable to resolve the apparent contradictions that you can't.

"And in what other field of human endeavour, would anyone dare to assert that an expenditure confers a net benefit, regardless what it was spent on,..?"
It's only cyclical deficit spending (which doesn't rely on prior tax revenue) that confers a net benefit regardless what it was spent on. And even there the more efficient the spending, the greater the revenue.

Jardine (continued)

"Aidan in another thread even descended to the absurdity of asserting that government provides net benefit REGARDLESS OF THE COST LOL! Real comic-book stuff. “Net” means net of costs you fool."
So if you ceased flinging insults long enough to think, you'd be able to conclude that this means the benefit always outweighs the cost.

Which thread was it BTW?

"Aidan, your last post admits that you are not capable of knowing or demonstrating the appropriate or fair rate of tax, other than by your methodology of pulling an arbitrary figure out of one's backside and expecting everyone else to hail it as strawberry jam."
To someone with better comprehension than you have, it would demonstrate that although I (like every other person on this planet) am unable to give a definitive figure of what the optimum tax rates should be, I am able to explain why I think land tax rates should be in the range that I think they should be in.

Unlike your claims, they're neither sourced from anyone's backside nor expected by their maker to be hailed as strawberry jam by everyone else. If anyone disagrees with my reasoning or thinks another level would be more appropriate then they're welcome to say so. But obsessing over the arbitrary nature of the boundary of the range I supplied, while failing to propose an improvement, is a pointless exercise IMO.

"It is enough for me to prove that what you’re saying is wrong, and that not even you agree with it."
The only thing your flawed proof demonstrates is the stupidity of your own arguments. Your understanding of my position is so poor that you're not qualified to determine what I agree with. Although you could always ask me...

Aidan

Look the question is perfectly simple. How do you know, at any given point, whether a tax is beneficial or detrimental, even in your own terms?

A simple "I don't know" will suffice.

Aidan

"Secondly as you were whinging about the lack of definitions in the article when it included links to a paper that contained them, your "absent authority" excuse is invalid IMO."

Fine.

Here's the complete disproof of all your argument, and to your own standards:
https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Man,%20Economy,%20and%20State,%20with%20Power%20and%20Market_2.pdf

QED

All
What we have just established here is that there is no such thing as an appropriate or fair rate of tax. Putting aside the statists’ fabulous but false assumptions in favour of open-ended state power, it's like asking, what's the appropriate of demanding money with menaces? What's the appropriate or fair rate of rape?

Owing to the compulsory indoctrination of the entire population during their formative years, it is easy to *assume* that there must be an appropriate or fair rate of tax. That's what the author and his supporters, have done. And that's all they've done.

Notice how they just entered the discussion having already assumed that it exists, and there is no need to explain why? At no stage did they question this assumption.

And when I questioned it, the first thing they did is try to shut down the discussion.

But when we step around their baffles and evasions, and when we actually unpackage the concept of an appropriate and fair rate of tax, just look at the grade of the arguments they are immediately forced to fall back on:

1. Tax is a voluntary donation; there is no initiation of aggression involved. The problem is, not even the government agrees with this. It's complete fiction.

2. Anything the government spends it on is intrinsically beneficial. The problem is, not even the apologists agree with this assumption.

3. Being "democratically" derived, tax, and anything the government feels like spending it on, is automatically, intrinsically justified. The problem is, not even the apologists agree with this; else they could make no criticism of government.

4. The fact of the existence of States, intrinsically and automatically proves the appropriate and fair rate of tax. Again, just illogical bullsh!t.

When we ask them what are the legitimate limits of government power?; how they know what government should or not should not be doing?; they fall silent and run away.

But how can the right rate of tax be determined without answering this prior question of what they are taxing *for*?

At no stage do they offer any reason for their belief that a "democratic" process would provide goods and services that satisfy the more urgent wants and needs of the populace, then would obtain otherwise, subject to the non-aggression principle; or *how* they would know.

And if they could and did, then obviously there would be no justification for the rule of law, since why should government power be restrained, if it just presumptively knows better in anything and everything?

And they never have any theory of the State that takes account of the *value* of the coercive means they advocate, in the question how market or government services satisfy the final ends they are supposed to satisfy. They advocate political means to economic ends, but without any theory to connect the political means to the economic ends they seek to achieve, compared to the alternative. A completely defective and illogical thought process.

The result is, they can't defend their belief system; and the reason is, because it's wrong.

What is called for, is not shooting the messenger. It's to *re-think* the assumptions you were brainwashed with during your compulsory indoctrination at the hands of government.

In the final analysis, the belief in an appropriate or fair rate of tax is just a belief that a coercion-based monopoly corporation of aggressive violence and threats, fraud and corruption, make a better basis for the good society than liberty and property subject to the non-aggression principle.

Even Aidan's squarking about "anarchy":
1. doesn't answer in that case, why shouldn't government choose our friends and foods and sexual partners, which currently are chosen in a state of "anarchy"?
2. must admit that any government intervention more than is necessary to stop anarchy, is not justified, even in his own terms.

In seeking a justification for the appropriate or fair rate of tax, the statists don't have a leg to stand on.