Too big, too ineffective. If it was a good use of capital. more people would pay voluntarily higher taxes. No one does because it's where value in the form of capital goes to die.
You paid $10k of taxes this year? Here's for you a free pass to all national parks.
You paid $50k? Here's the card - similar to the one police officers give to their wives - that lets you get off minor infractions.
Small tokens of appreciation often go long way.
That aircraft carrier might be the big weight in a trade negotiation or prevention of a regional conflict which could escalate.
Representative democracy should work better, because you (the voter) judge based on the outcome, and vote, rather than try to understand every possible policy (which is going to overwhelm any individual anyway).
However in response to your point and in fairness to OP you can’t in the overwhelming majority of places decide where your money goes. It’s just pooled and used for whatever government wants to do with it. This is what most people have a problem with.
Personally I can see the merit in having some shared system but it should voluntarily always. Compelling people’s money through state sanctioned force which includes fines and imprisonment is sick. It promotes a parasitic relationship with government where people don’t feel part of it. Instead they feel smothered by it.
From this, would it be logical to conclude that at least three people believe that this is not a good idea?
There's a lot I don't agree with Marx on, but I think he was right on the aspect of alienation.
Well... (noting the date) not anymore at least.
aka, try stealing, and you get arrested.
Profits aren’t somehow defined as theft, despite all value being produced by the labour of workers, who are paid a fraction of the value they produce.
only if you believe that the capital being used to produce value - including the wages being paid upfront - are valueless.
Also, does a fixed initial investment entitle one to a fraction of all future (variable) value produced? Why?
The new capital is _produced_ by the workers, but it was done with initial capital that is _owned_ by the capitalist. So unless you agree that these initial capital is not worth anything (despite it being required), how can _all_ capital belong to the workers that made it? After all, the workers agreed to receive their wage in exchange for producing, using the seed capital supplied by the capitalist.
Yes, this appropriation is central to the capitalist idea of ownership. Another word for that is theft.