Money is not even real. We are talking about taxing a fiction that only exists because society says it is a thing. And like so many of the fictions our species has created, it now controls us.
I find the libertarian view to be self-servingly detached from reality.
I think you're right, and I also think a lot of Libertarians realize this. I mentioned it for the two articles I used as the source, but many of the "professional" arguments I came across had some form of admission that taxes were necessary. It really reads like they're claiming this very dire, strong held belief, then admitting it's detached from reality.
If you're referring to Hong Kong, I have no idea how that's a "libertarian paradise." They have universal healthcare and other strong welfare programs, which is everything libertarians rail against.
From the Hong Kong's government website: "The Hospital Authority (HA) is a statutory body established under the Hospital Authority Ordinance in 1990. We have been responsible for managing Hong Kong's public hospitals services since December 1991." (https://www.ha.org.hk/visitor/ha_visitor_index.asp)
Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, meaning the Hospital Authority was established under British rule, not Chinese. Every accusation you made at me was an admission.
"Property means you have a right to something. If money (or land, as we’ll soon cover) is only yours while you’re awake and able to protect it from being stolen, you don’t have a right to it. You’re simply guarding it. Given all profit comes from society’s willingness to provide public goods and enforce contracts, taxation is simply how the public that upholds these conditions recoups some of the value it enabled others to create."
By this logic, not even governments or states would really "own" anything, they'd just be collectively guarding things. How can then a government grant rights of usage to property it does not itself own? This would seem to defeat the entire concept of property. Even collective ownership needs to be based on some kind of right to own, derived from somewhere or something.
If your argument is that a modern state is a form of collective ownership whereby nobody owns "privately" anything on their own, but all property is socialized, i.e. merely granted as a form of privilege by the collective, which may choose when to retract it, then this could work, but it would still have to rest upon a notion of rightful collective ownership. At least so it seems to me.
I don't think my claim means there's no property, personal or societally-owned. Rather, I'm stating the concept of property comes from the state, as that is the manifestation of collective will.
I also am not saying everything is socialized. There's a difference between personal property (your clothing, cars, phone, etc.) and private property (capital). The latter gives you undue control over others (which personal property does not), therefore I think it should be subject to democratic control.
Fair enough. I guess some form of social contract theory is an alternative to the natural law view of property as intrinsic to human nature, in a psychological-anthropological sense. Although it is certainly way more abstract.
I don’t immediately see the distinction between private and personal property as being a substantial one; more of a difference in scale, not in categories. At any rate, if the means of production, land and money is socialized, it seems to leave very little to the individual person, but it is probably much closer to the actual state of affairs today than what many would like to admit.
I do think there's a difference in category between personal and private property. It's like the difference between a king owning a crown and owning a country. No one is really impacted if he owns a shiny hat, but everyone is subjugated when he owns a country. Kind of the same idea with owning a company.
Maybe, but it has to do with the thing being owned. The nature of ownership remains the same. With great power comes great responsibility, as they say.
"And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left him, and went their way." - Matthew 22:20-22
"To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don't have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?" - Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn.
"Property is theft, property is liberty, property is impossible." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
I've never met a libertarian who made any sense. Nothing rational or logical pervades their thoughts.
People, particularly Americans, seem to think that money is a natural phenomenon that exists outside of a man-made construct. It is issued by the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve Banks. None of that money is real, it's a symbol. It has no value outside of our belief that it has value. To say it belongs to us and we don't have to pay taxes on it is surreal and absurd. That's why I included the Henry Miller quote.
Survivalists and post-apocalyptic types believe gold and silver will be worth something. Again, intrinsically it has no value outside of its malleability and electrical conductivity. Why would I trade guns, bullets, food, supplies for something that is worthless? Gold? Come on! I want a loaf of bread! I can't eat a gold ingot.
I'm a dreamer and a utopian. Do away with money and see how much better the world would be. I am definitely not a libertarian. Don't get me started on "the philosopher king" or "Atlas Shrugged"!!!!
It is really funny, as you illustrate, that we treat money as "value" for the same reason we do gold — metals are shinny and rare, therefore we give them worth!
If we all turned away from money, whether in the form of shells, glass beads, gold, silver, paper, fiat currency, GDP, or some nebulous concept not yet created, it would have no power over us. We'd be free to choose our own course through life.
My next Substack post will be a meditation on Matthew 6:26-34, "Consider the lilies of the field..." and how it is a very Zen statement.
WTF? You cannot debunk an axiom of Logic! That's pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
Propositional Statements are axiomatic and not subject to opinion FFS! Language operates upon immutable axioms of Propositional/Predicate Logic. Whether you understand it or not. These axioms are not subject to opinion, your knowledge of them is not requisite of their function in Language. They're axiomatic!
The only thing you have "debunked" is your own knowledge/understanding of the 'Axiomatic nature' of Language and the Propositional/Predicate Logic upon which it operates. For fuck sake - it is how 'reading' operates!
Even your attempt at being pedantic is arrogantly-ignorant . Open a dictionary FFS! You clearly have an IQ of Pi.
Puerility is demonstrable of 'thinking' like a child. Childish is behaving like a child. Contrarian is what you are - contradictions are what contrarians make - believing; in arrogant ignorance, that a contradiction is an argument... Because a contrarian is a moron of the immutable axioms of Propositional/Predicate Logic upon which Language operates and couldn't articulate the difference between axiomatic inherently certain Propositional Statements, and axiomatic inherent fallacious opinions if their life depended upon it.
It's obvious that you're a graduate of the SpongeBob SquarePants school of IMAGINATION.
It seems like this is an argument against property as a concept.
“You own nothing but what you can physically defend”. Well, ok. But if I’ve got to go a physically defend my shit all day I won’t be able to get anything done. I’ve got to trust that people won’t try to steal my shit all the time, and I can’t rely on brute enforcement of the guy with the strongest club. It’s better to have a cultural norm of “property” that people respect and doesn’t have to constantly be tested by physical contest.
We all understand that the mob demanding “protection money” is theft even if they really do protect you from rival mobs demanding more.
You CHERRY-PICKED arguments. For example, the State is not required to educate people in the building of roads, much less the building of roads themselves. Private schools exist. In fact, statistically speaking, privately educated, especially homeschooled, students are much more successful than public school students. Furthermore, all infrastructure is built by construction companies, which are not state-owned in most western nations.
"Muh roads" is the single stupidest statist argument you could have chosen. It's a PRATT (point refuted a thousand times). Try again.
In the case of "taxpayer-funded" infrastructure projects, the taxpayers fund the construction companies indirectly.
Hypothetically speaking, communities could crowd-fund infrastructure projects that they actually need, paying the construction companies directly, rather than involving the government. Money would change hands fewer times, and thus the cost would be reduced. Bureaucracy costs a lot more than most people realise, I know because I used to work for a government contractor.
Not only have you tried to change the subject, but you've backed yourself into a corner. Locke famously owned stock in slaving companies, justified slavery in the Second Treaties of Government, and argued Native Americans have no property rights.
Your arguments crumble more with each subsequent statement, so I'd suggest you cease commenting.
Your labor and your body are your property, because you are the complete masters of them. It is only when you apply your labor to something that is not your property (land) that you create value. As that value is derived from the larger society, it is society's right to reclaim a portion of it via taxation.
Money is not even real. We are talking about taxing a fiction that only exists because society says it is a thing. And like so many of the fictions our species has created, it now controls us.
I find the libertarian view to be self-servingly detached from reality.
I think you're right, and I also think a lot of Libertarians realize this. I mentioned it for the two articles I used as the source, but many of the "professional" arguments I came across had some form of admission that taxes were necessary. It really reads like they're claiming this very dire, strong held belief, then admitting it's detached from reality.
If you're referring to Hong Kong, I have no idea how that's a "libertarian paradise." They have universal healthcare and other strong welfare programs, which is everything libertarians rail against.
Hong Kong was a British protectorate. The UK has universal healthcare. Hong Kong had public healthcare long before it was reattached to China.
From the Hong Kong's government website: "The Hospital Authority (HA) is a statutory body established under the Hospital Authority Ordinance in 1990. We have been responsible for managing Hong Kong's public hospitals services since December 1991." (https://www.ha.org.hk/visitor/ha_visitor_index.asp)
Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, meaning the Hospital Authority was established under British rule, not Chinese. Every accusation you made at me was an admission.
Mirrors cost $10.
As I said it now controls us, and will continue to do so until society as a whole makes the decision that it will no longer do so.
"Property means you have a right to something. If money (or land, as we’ll soon cover) is only yours while you’re awake and able to protect it from being stolen, you don’t have a right to it. You’re simply guarding it. Given all profit comes from society’s willingness to provide public goods and enforce contracts, taxation is simply how the public that upholds these conditions recoups some of the value it enabled others to create."
By this logic, not even governments or states would really "own" anything, they'd just be collectively guarding things. How can then a government grant rights of usage to property it does not itself own? This would seem to defeat the entire concept of property. Even collective ownership needs to be based on some kind of right to own, derived from somewhere or something.
If your argument is that a modern state is a form of collective ownership whereby nobody owns "privately" anything on their own, but all property is socialized, i.e. merely granted as a form of privilege by the collective, which may choose when to retract it, then this could work, but it would still have to rest upon a notion of rightful collective ownership. At least so it seems to me.
I don't think my claim means there's no property, personal or societally-owned. Rather, I'm stating the concept of property comes from the state, as that is the manifestation of collective will.
I also am not saying everything is socialized. There's a difference between personal property (your clothing, cars, phone, etc.) and private property (capital). The latter gives you undue control over others (which personal property does not), therefore I think it should be subject to democratic control.
Fair enough. I guess some form of social contract theory is an alternative to the natural law view of property as intrinsic to human nature, in a psychological-anthropological sense. Although it is certainly way more abstract.
I don’t immediately see the distinction between private and personal property as being a substantial one; more of a difference in scale, not in categories. At any rate, if the means of production, land and money is socialized, it seems to leave very little to the individual person, but it is probably much closer to the actual state of affairs today than what many would like to admit.
I do think there's a difference in category between personal and private property. It's like the difference between a king owning a crown and owning a country. No one is really impacted if he owns a shiny hat, but everyone is subjugated when he owns a country. Kind of the same idea with owning a company.
Maybe, but it has to do with the thing being owned. The nature of ownership remains the same. With great power comes great responsibility, as they say.
"And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left him, and went their way." - Matthew 22:20-22
"To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money, money, money everywhere and still not enough, and then no money or a little money or less money or more money, but money, always money, and if you have money or you don't have money it is the money that counts and money makes money, but what makes money make money?" - Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn.
"Property is theft, property is liberty, property is impossible." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
I've never met a libertarian who made any sense. Nothing rational or logical pervades their thoughts.
As you point out, the irony of religious libertarianism is that there's always a Bible verse of Jesus telling them they're 100% wrong.
People, particularly Americans, seem to think that money is a natural phenomenon that exists outside of a man-made construct. It is issued by the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve Banks. None of that money is real, it's a symbol. It has no value outside of our belief that it has value. To say it belongs to us and we don't have to pay taxes on it is surreal and absurd. That's why I included the Henry Miller quote.
Survivalists and post-apocalyptic types believe gold and silver will be worth something. Again, intrinsically it has no value outside of its malleability and electrical conductivity. Why would I trade guns, bullets, food, supplies for something that is worthless? Gold? Come on! I want a loaf of bread! I can't eat a gold ingot.
I'm a dreamer and a utopian. Do away with money and see how much better the world would be. I am definitely not a libertarian. Don't get me started on "the philosopher king" or "Atlas Shrugged"!!!!
It is really funny, as you illustrate, that we treat money as "value" for the same reason we do gold — metals are shinny and rare, therefore we give them worth!
I should do economic stand-up.
If we all turned away from money, whether in the form of shells, glass beads, gold, silver, paper, fiat currency, GDP, or some nebulous concept not yet created, it would have no power over us. We'd be free to choose our own course through life.
My next Substack post will be a meditation on Matthew 6:26-34, "Consider the lilies of the field..." and how it is a very Zen statement.
If Locke were relevant today I would respond. He's not. What did your face look like before your parents met? Where do you go when your body dies?
You do not own your body. In fact, I would argue you don't own a damn thing on this planet.
The two quotes purportedly from Jesus are irrational? You're saying the Bible is irrational. It's a work of fiction, of course it's irrational.
You make a radical assertion about private property and then waltz on by like it’s no big deal.
Sounds like some retarded Communist bullshit.
"Communist" shouldn't be capitalized.
ur mom shouldn't be capitalized
"Communist" is ALWAYS capitalised if it is referring to a specific party or ideology.
That is incorrect according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Capitalization.html?page=2#:~:text=The%20philosophy%20or%20program%20of,workers%20(or%20cells%20etc.)
whatever dude you're a moron with bad takes eat a dick
Uhh... you do realise that I'm not even using American English, right?
Proudhon was an ANARCHIST!
...OK?
Ha ha! Satire and sarcasm! "Radical!" "Communist!" Your reply sounds like some retarded bullshit!
whatever faggot
WTF? You cannot debunk an axiom of Logic! That's pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
Propositional Statements are axiomatic and not subject to opinion FFS! Language operates upon immutable axioms of Propositional/Predicate Logic. Whether you understand it or not. These axioms are not subject to opinion, your knowledge of them is not requisite of their function in Language. They're axiomatic!
The only thing you have "debunked" is your own knowledge/understanding of the 'Axiomatic nature' of Language and the Propositional/Predicate Logic upon which it operates. For fuck sake - it is how 'reading' operates!
Was "axiom" your word of the day?
Was demonstrating low IQ puerility, and childish contrarian contradiction arrogantly-ignorant of Logic/Language your goal for the day?
Look at you champ! You're a midwit pseudo-intellectual with an imaginative opinion devoid of frame-of-reference!
"Puerility and childish" is repetitive, as is "contrarian contradiction."
Even your attempt at being pedantic is arrogantly-ignorant . Open a dictionary FFS! You clearly have an IQ of Pi.
Puerility is demonstrable of 'thinking' like a child. Childish is behaving like a child. Contrarian is what you are - contradictions are what contrarians make - believing; in arrogant ignorance, that a contradiction is an argument... Because a contrarian is a moron of the immutable axioms of Propositional/Predicate Logic upon which Language operates and couldn't articulate the difference between axiomatic inherently certain Propositional Statements, and axiomatic inherent fallacious opinions if their life depended upon it.
It's obvious that you're a graduate of the SpongeBob SquarePants school of IMAGINATION.
It seems like this is an argument against property as a concept.
“You own nothing but what you can physically defend”. Well, ok. But if I’ve got to go a physically defend my shit all day I won’t be able to get anything done. I’ve got to trust that people won’t try to steal my shit all the time, and I can’t rely on brute enforcement of the guy with the strongest club. It’s better to have a cultural norm of “property” that people respect and doesn’t have to constantly be tested by physical contest.
We all understand that the mob demanding “protection money” is theft even if they really do protect you from rival mobs demanding more.
To clarify, I didn't say “You own nothing but what you can physically defend." That's part of the libertarian argument I was debunking.
Did you read this article? I literally pulled the argument from libertarian essays.
You CHERRY-PICKED arguments. For example, the State is not required to educate people in the building of roads, much less the building of roads themselves. Private schools exist. In fact, statistically speaking, privately educated, especially homeschooled, students are much more successful than public school students. Furthermore, all infrastructure is built by construction companies, which are not state-owned in most western nations.
"Muh roads" is the single stupidest statist argument you could have chosen. It's a PRATT (point refuted a thousand times). Try again.
Who pays construction companies to build roads?
The people who use them.
In the case of "taxpayer-funded" infrastructure projects, the taxpayers fund the construction companies indirectly.
Hypothetically speaking, communities could crowd-fund infrastructure projects that they actually need, paying the construction companies directly, rather than involving the government. Money would change hands fewer times, and thus the cost would be reduced. Bureaucracy costs a lot more than most people realise, I know because I used to work for a government contractor.
1. I don't agree with this definition.
2. Madison viewed other people (slaves) as his property, so he's probably not the guy you want to uphold as the truth sayer on property rights.
Not only have you tried to change the subject, but you've backed yourself into a corner. Locke famously owned stock in slaving companies, justified slavery in the Second Treaties of Government, and argued Native Americans have no property rights.
Your arguments crumble more with each subsequent statement, so I'd suggest you cease commenting.
That's not at all what I advocate for. You're shadow boxing.
Your labor and your body are your property, because you are the complete masters of them. It is only when you apply your labor to something that is not your property (land) that you create value. As that value is derived from the larger society, it is society's right to reclaim a portion of it via taxation.