"In those days government itself was privately owned, so this only takes us back to the underlying issue, which is, why should social relations be based on coercion and thievery rather than consent and property?

(Feudal government BTW was also full of the usual blandishments by the political class about how indispensable they are for the general good, how the victims of their predatory parasitism are really beneficiaries – exactly as our contemporary statists spout.)"

Except the dichotomy still isn't there.
1- in the feudal times, the tax money went straight to hereditary lords by virtue of personal entitlement.
These days, it goes mainly to fund public infrastructure, hospitals and schools, which everybody either uses, or benefits from those that do- except of course a libertarian society where the money WOULD only go to government.

Also, in feudal times people had NO property, they paid leases to be allowed the 'landlords property'- it was essentially, all privatized into one unaccountable individual.
That sounds a lot more like privatization than tax for nationalized assets, don't you think?

It still sounds like nothing more than an over-the-top victim mentality by someone who feels SO put out, that the earnestly compare themselves to people living in feudalist or socialist or nazi societies, simply because they have to pay taxes to ensure basic services continue.
I'm certain if you were to travel to a country where people actually DO live like this, they would be hard to sympathize with your complaints.

thinker2
You're still not getting to square one.

Physically attacking people, or threatening to do so, is illegal for everyone except government which gets its revenue in this way.

If government takes billions of dollars from the population, and gives it to its pet favourite businesses, it is confusing cause and effect to think that is caused by business. But even if it is, that's an argument against government, not against business.

Hazza
The dichotomy *is* still there. Tax is not a voluntary payment, by definition. It is a compulsory exaction which by law confers *no* entitlement to any services funded with it.

So you have assumed what is in issue, namely, that it is good and beneficial to provide services by coercion rather than by voluntary means.

It is true that government provides services with the money. But it is not true that only government could provide them, nor even that it does so passably well. In fact the least that government-provided service costs is usually at least double what the same service would cost supplied by private providers.

If it was true that people really want the "services" provided by government, there'd be no need for taxes, would there? According to your theory, we could abolish them and people's consumption patterns would remain unchanged. It's nonsense.

All you're doing is re-circulating the general brainwashed assumptions about how government a) represents the greater good, and b) is more physically productive. It's rubbish and you have not made the slightest attempt to prove it. It's you who are advocating for a continuation of the feudal system, for a privileged elite who can live at the expense of the serfs and mundanes who must labour under coercion for their benefit. The rest is just your assuming what is in issue, and pop-psychologising, in other words personal argumentation; both forms of argument are is irrational.

According to your theory, slavery and robbery are socially beneficial - so long as they are practised by government. That's literally the intellectual and moral level of the arguments of my opponents here.

"It is true that government provides services with the money. But it is not true that only government could provide them, nor even that it does so passably well. In fact the least that government-provided service costs is usually at least double what the same service would cost supplied by private providers. "
Rubbish.
The costs remain the same for whichever body undertakes it.
The only way to adjust the costs are by cutting them in certain areas, or increasing the price to make a profit or reducing the price to NOT profit.

But do tell, are you implying that if it were 'privately held' it would suddenly become just?

"Rubbish.
The costs remain the same for whichever body undertakes it."

You have just demonstrated your complete ignorance of the entire topic.

The costs don't remain the same whichever body undertakes it you fool. If that was the case, there would be no need for private property or personal liberty. We could just vest all property in government, and the result would be *economically* the same, or at least no worse. Socialism would be possible. (And it would also make no difference which private firm undertakes it.)

But socialism is not possible *in theory*, let alone in practice, because of the economic calculation problem. If you don't know what that is, you need to stop blabbering and superstitious worship of a falsehood, and find out because you're only making a fool of yourself.

"The only way to adjust the costs are by cutting them in certain areas, or increasing the price to make a profit or reducing the price to NOT profit."

So? That doesn't establish that government is equally capable of knowing which costs to cut, or of cutting them, and even if it did, it wouldn't establish that government is equally capable of knowing which are the most urgent wants of the masses, as judged by the masses, in other words, which services to provide in the first place.

"But do tell, are you implying that if it were 'privately held' it would suddenly become just?"
It would have four advantages over governmental provision:
a) the money to pay for it would be by consent not by coercion and in that sense it would be ethically superior
b) the product itself would not be aggressive violence and in that sense it would be ethically superior
c) it would have a direct way of knowing whether it satisfies the most urgent wants of the consumers, as judged by the consumers, and in that sense would be practically superior
d) it would have a direct *incentive* to satisfy the consumers, and avoid loss, and in that sense would be practically superior.

Government by contrast has all the disadvantages of the original problem, with none of the advantages of the private provision of services.

We don't have government services because the people want them provided by government. If we did, we could abolish taxes and governments would get their revenue by consent the way private businesses do.

Imagine if Channel 10 got its money by taking it out of your bank account and threatening to shoot you if you resist. Well that's how the ABC gets its money.

We have government "services" because government makes predatory and wasteful behaviour legal, safe and more profitable than the alternative. We have government services because the voter is faced with a choice: don't use the ballot and be exploited by others, or use it and exploit others, that is all.

Poor Peter, I sometimes feel bad leaving you to construct these tangents.

For the first half of your response, the one where you instantly assumed public infrastructure = socialism = private property CANNOT exist:
I am quite happy to leave sitting, and let everyone else get a dose of your mind's ramblings, that there is a Stalinist conspiracy behind the attempts to get us to pay tax.

It's a simple system we have, a mixture of private property because it is a basic human right to own whatever you exclusively purchase and maintain, while infrastructure that everyone's private properties or businesses are dependent on, be public-
-and on the understanding that these bodies use the infrastructure by default, and too many would atrophy without it, the presumption of consumption and thus responsibility for upkeep is automatically assumed.

(If there was a self-taught hermit who lived on his own remote private island property, had no access to any road, generated his own power by purchased solar panel or turbine, and grew all of his own food and water from his property, and had no phone, would not be able to access a hospital nor likely benefit from emergency services, and whose conduct incurred no cost on others, THEN you would have someone who can claim should not by involuntarily funding infrastructure, and be up for exemption.

Everyone else, on the other hand, either uses infrastructure, or benefits substantially out of people that do, and often, many people would conduct themselves in a way that incurs costs on their neighbors or strain the infrastructure itself.

It would be like buying cable TV, and getting a monthly fee for renting THEIR services regardless how much you watch you actually use (less than ABC/SBS but besides the point)- up until you formally terminate their coverage and return their products.

To cease your coverage of infrastructure- see above.