Ayn Rand herself was on social security too fwiw.
But I don't think taxes are in and of themselves immoral.
A human being is a social animal, and each gets a lot of value from the people around us.
These are nice to have:
- clean streets
- police
- non-corrupt judges
- a stable legal framework
- living among educated people
- fire department that just shows up
- not getting bombed and invaded by a foreign army
- much more
These are "true expenses" in that if you didn't pay for them... you'd eventually pay the price for them when you're the victim of crime, fire, or exposure to the illiterate.
If you lived in Galt's Gulch or some gated community in an anarchic society, you'd pay a regular fee for these services, like voluntary taxes.
Taxes are infamously as inevitable as death because the expenses it's meant to pay for are also inevitable. We might as well set up a system.
Government waste is held up as an example of immorality, and some/most governments certainly should be leaner, but some waste & inertia would happen in any large organization, public or private. The only other time a government could be straight-up immoral is if it's persecuting innocent citizens or foreigners for no reason. Thinking through the implementation details of Galt's Gulch makes me think taxes aren't so bad after all.
Did you ever use the streets in front of your house? Ever went to a public park? Ever relied on police to protect your property? Ever needed the help of public health services? Firefighters?
It's funny that you get money stole from you (while you certainly use a ton on infrastructure society provides), but never once considered leaving it behind and go live as a hunter gatherer in some remote place.
After all, you are posting here.
When the budget is questioned the response is always the most popular examples and ignore everything else.
When was the last time you used a sociology research grant? Or an ICBM?
I think it benefits society to fund academic research.
see how you mentally group all these things under one umbrella. No I don’t think sociology research is on the same standing as physics research and I also don’t think all physics research is equal.
Based on the reports coming from Doge I think there are a lot of bad studies funded in the name of science or academic research.
Is this supposed to be a humorous comment, or are you seriously using the reports coming from doge in an argument, as if they were honest reports?
I realise that this comment might come off as antagonistic, and I apologise. But since I guffawed when I read it, as I interpreted it as the former, I'm now curious to find out if I'm correct.
Regardless of money saved the content of the material is a sampling of the kind of research we are funding - grouped under well intentioned labels like “science” or “academic research”.
Ah nevermind. You are one of those people.
Those things are sort of like having competent IT security. If they are doing everything right, they will seem like they aren't doing anything at all, but when they are gone all of a destruction and doom is always just a day away.
Why did you lead with police and parks instead?
It gets tiresome listening to their "taxes are theft" bullshit.
Also every society that concentrates power into a larger government through taxation will inevitably invade and destroy or subjugate those who decided they wanted the smallest bare minimum of community support and collective services that leaves them vulnerable.
But part of the problem is the lack of community structure and expectation that we can centrally fund and manage problems. There are whole communities in the US that lived for generations on civic duty and kindness of heart.
But not entirely. Living in the US means they take advantage of the American capitalist system and infrastructure to some degree, which means they benefit from taxation. And obviously they pay their taxes otherwise the men with guns would have shown up.
And again, the free rider problem is intractable at scale. You can't simply build "community structure" and expect everyone to buy in. If that were possible, we wouldn't need laws at all, we could just expect everyone to play nice. And the fact that most people play nice by default doesn't imply laws aren't necessary.
And we can centrally fund and manage problems. That does work. Look at the numerous public work projects in the US like Hoover Dam, NASA, interstate highways, modern agriculture, the internet. None of that happens if all you can depend on is kindness of heart.
Just because a good thing exists does not mean I’m indebted to it. The city may build a really nice park on the other side of town. That doesn’t mean I’m being subsidized or dependent.
The people of Maine did not benefit from the Hoover Dam.
> You can't simply build "community structure" and expect everyone to buy in.
You’re right that we can’t magically recreate communities that were destroyed, but this is actually the default human behavior. Small community cooperate together for common good.
> If that were possible, we wouldn't need laws at all
This doesn’t follow. People’s short term behavior may not align with their long term values.
Crime/sin is traditionally when your passions get the best of you.
Interesting to hear the military budget is now completely necessary from HNers.