Peter Hume: "doing it by way of confiscations and government bureaucracy will produce less waste, vested interests, and dysfunctionality than doing anything else by this method. ..."

The Nordic countries have the highest levels taxation and government in the world. They are also the richest, healthiest, most egalitarian with the least amounts of poverty. How do you explain it, if having a central government is so wasteful?

Peter Hume: "As to why we don’t see stateless societies now ... doesn’t mean that the tendency to conquest and plunder is ethically or economically superior, whether it’s legal or not."

What are we having here? Is it a discussion based on evidence or logic, or some appeal to near religious faith that is only notable for the absence of both? What on earth has "ethically superior" got to do with anything? The dominant states over the last 2 millennia have all had the strongest, largest spending governments on the planet at the time. They were not "ethically superior", as they were responsible for the near genocidal destruction of all stateless peoples they came across. People like the Australian Aborigines, the African Bushmen, and the American Indians. These societies were the last stateless people on the planet, the last peoples that practised what you advocate on a large scale. They were annihilated by peoples who choose to organise themselves under a strong if sometimes ruthless government.

You won't be budged from your beloved mantras, will you Peter Hume.

>>The electorate is not the community<<

Yep. It is. Whether at local, state or national level, the electorate is the community. It includes your "absent citizens", by the way, who can vote by post.

Illegal immigrants do not form part of the community, by definition. And the mentally disabled are part of the community in the sense that they are a section of the community whom the rest looks after.

I'm amused that you include "the rest of the world". They are not part of the communities that I am talking about. They are however members of their own communities.

As would any life forms on Mars.

>>It’s not the will of ‘the community’ that’s implemented, nor the sub-set that is the electorate, but only the subset of that, that is the majority of the electorate.<<

Quite.

That's how we measure the will of the community, Peter Hume. By taking the majority view.

But this here is the best illustration so far of how out of touch you are with real life.

>>There is no evidence that any given act of government represents the will of even the majority... where is the evidence that ‘the community’ wants, say, a bus service? Only that the government provided it.<<

Bus services are generally a local issue, not requiring an act of Parliament.

However, the evidence that the community wants it is that it appears in local government documents, letters to members, even election manifestos. These things don't magically appear and disappear, all on their own you know.

Or perhaps you don't know. Have you ever voted?

Uh oh, here comes mantra #1 again.

>>‘government does it because the community wants it, and the evidence that the community wants it is that government does it’.<<

Rot.

The evidence that the community wants it is in a long paper trail of petitions, lobbying, letters-to-the editor, individual and party manifestos etc etc.

It's all there, totally linear, cause and effect. Nothing circular at all.

And you should read the answers a little more carefully, Peter Hume.

>>Tax is, by law, defined as a compulsory impost. If you are arguing to the contrary, then you are factually wrong<<

You missed out the important bit, didn't you.

>>Tax is a compulsory impost. It is by definition non-consensual.<<

You consent to being taxed, Peter Hume, by being a member of the community. If you choose - and you are perfectly free to do this - you can take up residence in another taxation zone.

You may still live here, of course.

But by voluntarily withdrawing from the community, you have proved that tax is only compulsory within that community.

And that being part of that community is totally consensual.

I choose to live where I do, and pay the taxes that I do, entirely of my own free will. I consent to being subject to the will of the majority - even though I dislike some of the stuff they do, like putting up parking charges or allowing dogs to crap in the park - by electing to live where I do.

If I was really fussed about it, I'd move somewhere where they don't have parking meters. Or allow dogs.

>>I have already shown reason why the actions of government must necessarily result in scarce resources being devoted to less urgent human wants, and that the community must sacrifice greater benefits as a result. If you want me to answer your question, you must first show that you understand what are the reasons I have given, else I’m not going to waste my time dealing with invincible ignorance.<<

Sorry, I must have missed that bit.

Would you care to provide the URL?

>>BTW, splenetic personal indignation does not improve your argument either.<<

Nor do your gratuitous snide remarks improve yours.

Actually, there's not a lot that could, now I think about it.

Pericles
Do you have to be so belligerent and insulting? I also could be insulting to you, but if I did as you’re doing, the discussion would simply degenerate into an exchange of abuse in a school-yard slanging match. Why can’t we just have a civil conversation? Personal argument is no substitute for rational argument, and you haven't reached square one yet.

Rstuart
“What on earth has "ethically superior" got to do with anything?”

Condition of the poor, sick, disabled, aged, etc. The statist argument is that states are morally preferable on that ground.

Your argument about the apparent benefits of central states, and the UN, is ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’. You assume that the benefits are because of, rather than despite states. If, as I maintain, the benefits are despite states, the appearance of prosperity comes from capital consumption. The welfare states all have unsustainable financial liabilities.

The relevant comparison is not between the contemporary population of people under a modern state, and traditional Aborigines. It is between a given population under a state based on a compulsory taxing and judicial monopoly, and the same population with a lesser or no state.

The fact that people vote does not and cannot show that tax is consensual because it’s a crime not to pay tax, and because the electoral process provides no way of knowing whether even a majority in fact want any given tax or act.

If one argues that tax is a non-compulsory or consensual payment, then one is simply wrong in law and in fact, and that’s the end of the discussion.

I have explained twice why there is no need for the government courts to enforce the contract in order for private adjudication to be competitive with government monopoly. The courts don’t need to enforce it. But if they override it, monopoly consequences follow.

The private production of *enforcement* (‘sheriff’), as opposed to *adjudication* (judge), is a still further issue. Is that what you’re now asking about?

*Evidence* does not interpret itself.

If the underlying theory is illogical then the assessment of evidence will be wrong. The illogicality here concerns the basal issue, whether tax is consensual. I have shown reason why it is not. You need either to refute or accept those reasons, not just make a counter-assertion that neither proves your my argument, nor disproves yours. Otherwise appeal to evidence is premature, and we’re just sawing sawdust.

The *reason* we know that government can only serve less-urgent human wants and net consume capital is because *axiomatically*, voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial (otherwise the parties wouldn’t enter into them) and create value multilaterally; while coerced transactions are zero sum (otherwise compulsion wouldn’t be necessary), and reduce net value. Without accepting or refuting these propositions at the individual level, referral to still other absent individuals at the collective level cannot prove anything and only confuses the issue.

If we put aside the statist reasonings by way of personal argument, mind-reading, misrepresentation, circular argument, appeal to absent authority, and ‘post hoc ergo property hoc’, there is nothing left.

Perhaps the discussion would be more fruitful if, instead of falling back to a circular insistence that states are necessarily beneficial, or an appeal to absent authority in an undefined collective, we were to ask ‘how might things be better in societies with smaller or no states?’

In summary:
1. No, government cannot be run like a business. If you appointed an entrepreneur to try, he would simply become another bureaucrat because government intrinsically lacks the decision-making tools that characterise business.
2. Government by definition involves a legal monopoly of ultimate decision-making, and taxation. The assumption that such a compulsory monopoly provides services better and fairer, than providing them by competing services funded voluntarily, is based on a welter of fallacies that cannot withstand critical scrutiny, and which ultimately resolve into arguing “It is, because it is, because it is.”

Q.E.D

(...cont'd)

When competitive markets don't arise, there are three choices. Either (1) forego the product or service, or (2) endure poorly functioning market (such as monopoly), or (3) elect a government. Assuming you actually want the service (1) isn't possible, then (3) is the cheapest choice. Health being but one example of this. That is why we (and indeed YOU) choose to endure "compulsory" taxation here rather than go live in a low tax haven. In fact, you still haven't explained why you haven't done that.

Peter Hume: "The assumption that such a compulsory monopoly provides services better and fairer, than providing them by competing services funded voluntarily, is based on a welter of fallacies that cannot withstand critical scrutiny"

No. It is based on the fact that there are situations were competitive markets for services simply don't arise naturally, and it is for the provision of those services we need governments. I have given many examples of this, all of which you conveniently choose to ignore. That wilful ignorance is what is failing to withstand critical scrutiny.