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Comment by htmk | Hacker News Reader

What about doing it without aggression?

Redistributing wealth isn't any more inherently aggressive than any other change. If people object violently to being asked to share the bounties of our industrial economy, that's no different from if they objected violently to being asked to put up with their sister marrying a woman, or to stop smoking in the restaurant.

Isn't it the people insisting on taking a share who are the ones employing violence? If the people being asked to share say no then armed men show up.

I mean, no armed men come take your taxes (anymore). The threat is ultimately there if you withhold otherwise but it's the same if you smoke in a mcdondalds then refuse to leave. Or if you squat on someone else's land.

If you're sent to prison if you continue to not pay taxes, then yes, the system is still using force.

Every time we try that, the people who have concrentrated all the wealth say, "No thanks" and keep it all.

Taxes aren't aggression

What happens if you don't pay? The consequences are aggression, and the fact that threat is hanging over you makes taxes a form of aggression. Coercing is a form of aggression.

This is true for any enforcement of laws though?

That statement is precisely one of the tenets of anarchy. I think the philosophy as a whole has issues, but it's hard to argue with that premise.

I wasn't aware of that; I don't consider myself an anarchist really. I just think it's more like what Heinlein wrote, that violence is the supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived. I'm not sure I like it but I do think it's rather true. Almost everything can be traced back to some form of this.

Note the 'almost'. I'm sure some outliers exist but that's not what we're talking about.

Letting someone starve is aggression. If you have to work for minimum wage because the alternative is homelessness, isn't that also a form of coercion?

> What happens if you don't pay?

You get charged interest. Then, you might have your wages garnished. If that isn't sufficient, your bank accounts might get frozen. If that still isn't sufficient, liens.

Uber shows that it's possible to redistribute wealth from venture capitalists to customers without aggression.

Kalanick, the modern Lenin.

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