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Comment by VictorPath | Hacker News Reader

Until 10000 years ago, there was no such thing as intergenerational wealth or surplus, everyone was a migratory hunter gatherer before that owning what they carried. Some people in the Amazon still live like this.

So the notion that massive intergenerational wealth is innate to humans and natural is absurd. Or if it is innate and natural, then the lack of that is innate and natural as well. Most of behavioral modernity had none of this at all, it is a relatively new phenomenon, not "innately human".

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There is one thing that is innate. I can tell you.

I saw it from my nephews recently. One was building a castle, like five floors high with some stuff. The younger kid comes and destroys it. His brother gets deeply annoyed and started to cry. Why? Because he spent time building it.

They are three and one years old. Do you think anyone taught them to get annoyed when the castle is destroyed? No, it is innate: what takes effort has a value for humans.

We did not have the level of wealth of today before, but every single human that puts time somewhere wants to be the ruler of that effort. That is innate I think. I saw it clearly with my nephew's reaction. Noone taught him that.

Looks like a good experiment to me.

Your experiment speaks to how we interpret transgressions, and for that, it is true- taxes are seen as robbery.

Does your nephew now own the sand he used to build that castle? I would hope not, as I think we’d agree, many kids would suffer!

And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money, that they don’t mind if others suffer.

> taxes are seen as robbery

Taxes are robbery. If you did the same to your neighbor under threat, you would end up in jail. If a mafia does that, they go to jail.

If the government does it, they do not. And they did not ask you to adhere to a contract. It works with reversed logic from what we do in real life with others.

There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery. That is independent of whether what they do with that money is good or bad. A different discussion.

> And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money.

Which represents just that you offered something worth that money to others, in the absense of threat or violence. So yes, now it belongs to them because of an exchange.

> that they don’t mind if others suffer.

Or even worse, some people subtract that money from us by providing no value, unlike the average of humans who at least sells something or provides a service and pretends that the people providing services or products are worse than the person subtracting in exchange of nothing under the threat of prison.

Also, it seems that to you the person being subtracted the money they earned and spent time to get it(could be money or anything else, I am talking about effort) do not suffer. I guess they do not have a soul or feelings or do not deserve the same respect as the others.

> Taxes are robbery.

I'm fine with you not paying taxes, as long as you leave my country and renounce your citizenship. After that, make whatever you want on a boat in the ocean or in Somalia. But no one who thinks taxes are theft ever does that, because they want all the benefits of society my taxes pay for.

Why renounce citizenship? I have several citizenships, and only US asks for my money while I reside elsewhere and don't consume any of its "services".

You consume the services of a country regardless of where you reside when you are a citizen, even if you don't consume much. But, yeah, Trump really fucked dual US citizens on that one (before 2017 you "had to pay US taxes" but you deducted the taxes of whatever country you were living in, which given the US's lower tax rate meant it was meaningless.)

I'm fine with you having to renounce your citizenship if your point is "taxes are theft" and you want to avoid them. If you wanna go your own way, fine. But then go your own way.

All wrong. 1) I don't consume any "services". 2) Sure you can deduct your home country taxes, what are you talking about.

I am not asking to be provided services I do not pay for.

I am not claiming I should have roads and health care and all and that taxes are theft at the same time. I am saying that taxes are theft on the basis that noone asked me what to pay or not.

The proof that things are terribly managed, at least in my country (Spain), is that we have a 120% GDP debt.

We are making new-born be born with a debt. Is that the right thing to do? For me that is immoral, unless you are that kind of person that thinks that we do a default and done, which would mean you are not a person that has a word to be believed. So what are the alternatives?

If you, or the newborn, leave Spain and renounce your citizenship they're not going to assign you a percentage of the national debt. Feel free to move to Somalia and pay no taxes and not be responsible for the national debt.

You can go to Somalia, it is not the place I want to be in but you seem to be obsessed about Somalia.

I will give you some clues: Taiwan, Singapore, Cyprus (Greek part, of course), Estonia, Georgia, South Korea, Switzerland: and probably also many of the places you call a tax haven.

You can go to Somalia if you feel like.

I don't care where you go. But here's a hint, your list has income tax rates of 40%, 22%, 35%, 20%, 45% and (depends on the canon and city) 30% (in Geneva) respectively. That's plus any property, sales, VAT etc. taxes. I say go to Somalia because it's the only country that, AFAIK, has anything close to 0% taxation.

Since you are talking about highest rate in Spain you have 54% Personal income + 21% VAT + anything you inherit or donate taxed + IBI (if you own a house). and do not get me started on business, or freelancing. Because they smash you badly.

In Spain if you earn 60,000 euros, which is not so much, in my area they tax you 47% from your salary + what your employer already paid to the social security. At the same rime they are raising the retirement age and do all kind of sh*t bc we have a Poncy system for retirement. Of course, politicians get max retirement after 8 years (for normal people it is 30 I recall). Some of them, like ex-presidents, have an income for the rest of their lives.

But hey, the money is to build roads and pay retirements and health care. Please someone explain to me this is not theft because I really do not get it.

The difference with a country like Singapore, with all its bad things (I lived there before, among other places) is that the level of corruption is lower, the taxing lower and the budget is managed seriously. Here... this is not even funny.

Why are you still in Spain then? You can move to Cyprus tomorrow, legally. Then you'll pay 20% less on your tax bill.

I am moving somewhere else. But I am.

what makes you think I should be expelled from the place I live just because I think making people be born in debt is bad? I am a second-class person in my own natural place?

That is what I am in the process of doing.

You seem to be saying that anything short of living your philosophical ideals is hypocrisy.

There are a lot of government policies I think should be criminal, but nobody suggests that my only options are accept the policy or completely denounce society.

I think that the large telecoms are built on theft from society and that copyright laws are too extensive. Should I leave society to go live on Sealand?

That's not the point, you're arguing some parts of the implicit contract package deal you get given when you are born are not perfect. They are arguing that they should be able to sign such an agreement and that it shouldn't be implicit when you're born so that you could renounce this contract - which only works for hermits or self entitled people that came into some money and haven't had the inclination to read how a society functions.

You're pretty unfair with your criticism. I wasn't claiming you must reject all of society if you disagree with any aspect. My point was that you can avoid taxes - they happen to be 100% optional. And yet no person who claims taxes are theft is willing to do so.

To use an analogy, you're saying "look, not every restaurant serves your favorite food, why do you call people hypocrites who go out to eat at those places" and I'm saying "the people I call hypocrites are the ones who claim it's a moral imperative to refuse to tip or even pay the check who insist on going out to eat"

In what way are taxes 100% optional? In the sense that using AT&T is optional because I can move of I don't like it?

I don't follow your restaurant analogy. Someone can recognize that tipping is harmful to the wait staff, but continue to tip knowing that to do otherwise would only hurt the wait staff and not the restaurant.

With a private service you always have alternatives.

With a government imposition you must pay, noone asks you, and, on top of that, you do not use those services most of the time. But if you use them, why they do not ask you if you want? That is exactly how real life works... except for government impositions.

You can leave the country and renounce your citizenship. Boom, taxes avoided. Otherwise, you're continuing to benefit from the government so you pay taxes. It's a voluntary arrangement to be a citizen of free societies.

so the usa isn’t a free society?

You can renounce your US citizenship

I would pay for my services, happily. Give me alternatives and tell me prices. And let me choose what I use. Do not tax me on the basis of "take this pack I chose" and I set the price and you must pay.

You have tons of alternatives. You can take the "Canadian citizenship" plan (subject to approval), you can take the "US citizenship" plan (subject to approval). If you're in the EU, you can actively swap what country you reside in with it's own bundles. Heck, within most countries you can change states/territories, counties and cities to get subplans.

Or do you think you personally should be given a line-item veto to a $5 trillion federal budget? Cause that's unworkable both practically and morally.

Why they manage so much budget from taxes in the first place is the real question. At least for me.

Morally the right thing to do is to ask EACH person what budget they want to spend on what and have a BINDING contract on that.

When you buya house or sign a contract witha telco company you pay for what you were offered and you can claim any deviation for that. I do not accept it has to be different with a government.

Of course, I would not ask for using a road or health care. I buy an insurance, pay a toll for roads or whatever. And we would save money, at least in Spain, where taxes are abusive by all measures.

This Randian view of taxes is exhausting. If taxation is theft, then you're complicit every time you drive on a road. For the sake of your conscience, the only moral thing to do is to move into the woods and depend on nothing and nobody.

Good luck.

Why? I can imagine a toll on roads and being paid per use. Why they do not do that? Ah, yes, because that would mean there is not justification for these people to exist, like with many other things.

The duty of the governments is to kidnap and monopolize services on the basis that you owe them something because they provided you that, when, in fact, there are alternatives.

But even if they were useful on their own right, you could optionally pay or not in the taxes (that would not be taxes actually) and acquire or lose the right to use certain services.

Why they do not do that, and later accuse you of bad citizen wanting people to die, to not have education or that you cannot use roads? Because they are desperate to justify their own existence and by kidnapping these services they have their justification to exist.

If you're not satisfied with the service of your current provider, you are free to take your business to the premises of another service provider who had chosen to implement plans that are more suited to your needs.

I don't mean to be snarky, but putting it in more business terms. For some services the service provider offers several alternative plans, some have only a single one-size-fits-all plan

Not a provider but a forced provider.

> There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery

It is the cost to you living in society; a society which provides infrastructure such as roads, education, sanitation, and food. A society which provides customers and a marketplace to trade in.

The roller coaster of watching you add and edit this comment was truly an experience. Have a great day.

This would be true if they came and tell me which services I am willing to pay and use. That is not what they do. What they do is to pack all things together, to extract money from there for them also, to make systems with way too many people to manage stuff that can be managed more efficiently and to pass you the bill without asking.

Of course that is robbery. Imagine they force you to eat in a certain restarant and you must eat there, because they decided so without asking. Now let us say the food should be 15 dollars and they charge you 45, without asking. This is what they do. It is totally, totally unfair.

Later they will come and tell you: hey, you can eat thanks to me! You owe me respect. When in fact, I could have gone find my own way and eat for 15. It is absurd. And robbery, of course. Noone asked me. That is illegal if you do it to someone.

It is as if a telco came and charge you a bill of 50 usd and you get mad and go and say: hey, I did not hire your services. And they reply: the contract is implicit. They would be in trouble.

Somewhere can’t be robbery if you continue to permit it everyday… if you actually believed your words, you’d move to the middle of nowhere with no Internet and electricity or roads.

And it’s not robbery if you’re getting something from it everyday, which you clearly are because you’re posting on the Internet and drinking clean water.

I'm not sure what country you are from, but my taxes to the government certainly don't pay my internet provider or water supply company...

You shifted the topic. I do not mean to not drink clean water or to not use roads.

My point is to have control on what to pay or not. When not paying, of course, I have to pay it by myself. But noone is entitled to tell me how much and in which conditions unilaterally.

Governments and stated should NOT be an exception.

>Taxes are robbery.

You're anti fire department?

No, I just try to be objective here. From Cambridge dictionary. Steal:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/steal

"to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it"

As far as I know, they do not have my permission to get my wealth.

From RAE, in Spanish, robar:

"Quitar o tomar para sí con violencia o con fuerza lo ajeno." -> To extract or remove for oneself with violence or force other people's property (ajeno in this context refers to property in spanish)

So yes, it is an objective definition of what stealing is, because you pay under the threat of jail, not by mutual agreement, as you do when you purchase something.

https://dle.rae.es/robar

Pre-agricultural tribes could have had forms of wealth — an ornate spear or knife, a prized shawl, a special ceremonial bowl, etc — that they passed down.

It seems quite likely to me that as soon as we started crafting and carrying things around, we developed complex behaviors around who gets which things.

Frequently those things were buried with the people who made them.

It is not really possible to determine who made the grave goods found next to a skeleton (or urn). Some specialization of work is seen in hunters and gatherers already. Not everyone makes their own spearheads or cotton strings etc.

I suspect that whatever wealth they did have was carefully passed to the next generation and, further, that people who didn’t do that were less likely to have their DNA represented in the modern human pool.

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