What is the ideal taxation scheme?

[Princeps]

Punishment is the sole right of the victim, not of the system or anything like that.

No, the system decides whether the victim has the right to retribute. A victim is unlikely to take such action alone.

ALso, you havent shown how it is arbitrary(libertarians claim it isnt because it doesnt break the golden rule unlike positivist law)

According to wikipedia, arbitrariness is defined as "choices and actions subject to individual will, judgment or preference, based solely upon an individual's opinion or discretion."

The golden rule is arbitrary.

Libertarians believe that the entire society should be shaped according to an abitrary rules, i.e. "natural law", "natural rights", conceived by libertarian ideologues. Since libertarians believe that these laws should be enforced through an unalterable and undemocratic regime (since majoritarianism is evil) and should not require the consent and recognition of affected individuals, the question to be answered is, where does the libertarian conception of laws derive its legitimacy? It doesn't get it from majority support nor inidividual choice.

You haven't really answered this question I posed: "If the individual A does not recognize the property (entitlements) of individual B, how can he be punished for violating it, since has not contractually recognized the ownership of that property?"
There is not social contract, remember?

the use of labour is what differentiates owned land and items.

No. It does not. This is an abitrary definition.

if you agree with the self ownership principle, then taxation IS theft.

No. The concept of soverign individual is transparently false. An individual has little political power on his own, and he has no inherent or god-given rights or responsibilities.

The political power of an individual is derived from his relationship with the rest of the political community and the population, not from the virtue of his individuality.

I use the rothbardian definition, because it follows the golen rule. Other definitions dont follow golden rule.

a property owner isnt coercing by rothbardian definition by existing.

Yes, he is. This is because Rothbardianism is contradictory. A property owner is, in essence, claiming something as his own without any political process, without asking recognition and acceptance of the ownership from others affected people. The only way he can enforce this aribtrary arrengement is with the backing of institutional violence. And in doing so, he is coercively restricting the liberties of some to his own benefit.

the other person is the one initiating aggression, if he chooses to use the owners possessions without his permission,

Suppose he needs them urgently. He hasn't signed a contract recognizing the posessions as belonging to someone else. It would be in violation of his individual liberties if an abitrary arrengement was enforced on him without his consent, (i.e. the arrengement stopping him from using the other persons property).

and the owners response is not initiation of aggression, as long as it is proportional.

Again. tax ladies don't shoot you if don't pay your taxes, but that doesn't mean that taxation isn't force. It is simply civilized and velvet clad force.

 

[El_Machinae]

There is no such thing as a taxation program that will not have huge drops in revenue if the wrong economic conditions happen to come along.

There's also no taxation program where I'll not do my damnedest to avoid paying taxes. I'm only middle class, but I'll shuffle investments to protect my money. The really rich, of course, hire specialists to protect their money.

This is why governments need a diversity of taxes.

 

[Bill3000]

The ideal taxation scheme is the amount of taxation which maximizes libertarian agitation while minimizing the agitation of normal people.

 

[Ecofarm]

Punishment is the sole right of the victim, not of the system or anything like that.

Not as long as democracy lives. Your vengeance may be judged criminal. You have no right to kill a helpless person (or animal, if I had my way). Except, of course, abortion.

(I don't think we have that right either)

 

[Integral]

So, where are all the taxation schemes?

The Georgists? The FairTax advocates? Flat tax? Negative income tax? Progressive taxation reform? Socialism(not to abuse the word like the far right tends to; I mean it in the sense there is a 100% "tax" on everything so as to ensure it can be distributed according to need)?

Just to name a few examples.

I've pitched a flat tax with NIT and EITC components before on other threads, but if you want to hear it again...

I suppose that is quite a valid point. Different times and situations will require different measures. A sales tax is nice when there's enough consumer spending to support it, but is it viable during say, a recession, when people spend less and thus tax revenue plummets?

Of course not. I should have named this thread, "What is the most SUSTAINABLE taxation scheme?"

Well, that's not hard: build your tax base on property taxes and sales taxes on necessary goods. Equitable? Not in the least. Reliable? Well, people have to eat, and land's not going anywhere...

 

[Princeps]

The idea is that a system of ethics that breaks the golden rule means explicitly means the existance of a ruling class and a class who is ruled,

The libertarian ideology also violates the golden rule, see the examples I cited.

Humanity is an inherently political species. All political systems violate the golden rule. Anyone can find an absolutely devastating critique of the simplistic golden rule in the critique section of wikipedia: "Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others." Basically, even in libertarian politics, the golden rule would not be followed, because libertarianism assumes that certain individuals (i.e. privileged property owners) can impose restrictions on others without their consent. The property owners have to impose their entitlements on others without their consent for their entitlements and special status to exist.

which in turn breaks the self ownership principle due to making legitimate(as the would-be ethic claims) claims someone else's control over his body.

Inherent individual soverignity is complete piffle. Individual's political power and rights do not derive from the virtue of his individuality, it is a transparently nonsensical myth. Instead, all rights, responsibilities and political power that an individual has are derived from his relationship with the society and rest of humans, and their political institutions.

Inherent right of self-ownership doesnt exist. That's obvious. It is just another libertarian natural right myth.

Meanwhile, those claims over someone else's self ownership can exist in the alternative ethic that follows the golden rule, however the ethic itself doesnt necessitate them, only people breaking the ethic do, whereas the ethic that doesnt follow the golden rule requires existance of there being legitimate claims to someone else's body, and thus breaks self ownership. ANd when an ethic breaks self ownership principle, it is no longer a universal human ethic, for part of its subjects are turned into subhuman status.

I have no idea what you're talking about here.

Comes down to golden rule and self ownership.
Comes down to golden rule and self ownership.
It comes down to self ownership and golden rule.
It comes down to self ownership and golden rule.

Dogma.

The ownership of all by all alternative, or a hybrid of it with ownership by a class is what you are saying. See the Hoppe quote, he talked about it.

I believe that private property should be regulated and taxed by a democratic government.

It has a direct and explicit threat of initiation of aggression behind it.
Protecting your property doesnt have it, as long as the response is proportional.

Like any policy, property has to be enforced. Any entitlement that an individual claims, he has to enforce on others if it's of any significance and if there are those who challenge that claim. The statement, "I own this land" on its flip side means: "You cannot enter this land or benefit from its produce, or I will remove/kill you." Such a threat is either explicit or implicit, but it is nevertheless there, and it doesn't require recognition from other individuals who are affected by this restriction of their liberty.

This is an arrengement that is violently enforced on others without their consent. This is why Rothbardianism is inherently contradictory. Property enforcement is not morally above tax enforcement.

 

[civ_king]

The libertarian ideology also violates the golden rule, see the examples I cited.

Humanity is an inherently political species. All political systems violate the golden rule. Anyone can find an absolutely devastating critique of the simplistic golden rule in the critique section of wikipedia: "Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others." Basically, even in libertarian politics, the golden rule would not be followed, because libertarianism assumes that certain individuals (i.e. privileged property owners) can impose restrictions on others without their consent. The property owners have to impose their entitlements on others without their consent for their entitlements and special status to exist.



Inherent individual soverignity is complete piffle. Individual's political power and rights do not derive from the virtue of his individuality, this is a transparently nonsensical myth. Instead, all rights, responsibilities and political power that an individual has are derived from his relationship with the society and rest of humans, and their political institutions.

Inherent right of self-ownership doesnt exist. That's obvious. It is just another libertarian natural right myth.



I have no idea what you're talking about here.



Dogma.



I believe that private property should be regulated and taxed by a democratic government.



Like any policy, property has to be enforced. Any entitlement that an individual claims, he has to enforce on others if it's of any significance and if there are those who challenge that claim. The statement, "I own this land" on its flip side means: "You cannot enter this land or benefit from its produce, or I will remove/kill you." Such a threat is either explicit or implicit, but it is nevertheless there, and it doesn't require recognition from other individuals who are affected by this restriction of their liberty.

This is an arrengement that is violently enforced on others without their consent. This is why Rothbardianism is inherently contradictory. Property enforcement is no more moral compared to tax enforcement.

Win!!

 

[Earthling]

So do you prefer the crowbar break-in at night or the armed heist in the middle of the day as the best collection scheme?

Crowbars appear to be marginally more useful in the event of alien invasion, thus it would be best if our agents were armed with them.

 

[PiMan]

Ill try to brainstorm this from a different POV:

Self ownership means being able to construct ends. But to do that, a physical entity is needed because of physics. Endangering that physical entity, that makes self ownership possible, is thus endangering self ownership. The state wants to take that away if the person doesnt do as the state says. That is breaking self ownership.

Ends are necessarily physical. Taking other people's ends breaks their self ownership, because all ends whose construction has been started(aka property) are in the process of construction until the self owner stops the process.

Libertarianism(as i see it) is essentially about protecting self ownership, its a rule of self owners to protect self owners. So breaking self ownership is not allowed, except for elimination of those self owners that threaten or do eliminate other self owners.

That wasn't a different POV at all, that was still arguing from a position of self ownership existing.

 

[Earthling]

Win!!

No, pretty much anything by Kant is a fail, but the rest of the post is ok.

 

[a_propagandist]

Self ownership means being able to construct ends.

Do you mean by this that property must be utilized?

 

[Princeps]

.....................

Ill respond later, got to go.

 

[PiMan]

I mean a quite abstract concept. Constructing ends on one hand makes possible consciousness through the use of reason(the use of reason makes possible the discovery of the self as being free to construct whatever ends), and on the other physical ownership. Whether the ownership is of the biological body or external physical goods is irrelevant, and differentiating between them is arbitrary (when does the apple become part of your self ownership, when you swallow it or hold it in your hand?) and might not be possible with alien life who function differently, perhaps like zerg creep from Starcraft or amoeba-like life able to construct ends.
If you eat some lard, it might not be utilized as well and instead stored in fat reserves in your body. Does that not make it your own? Everything that has an end constructed on it is so rightly his.

Also just claiming the entire world is your end wouldnt make it your owned land, because it would be physical action only on your mind, not the area the guy is thinking of, he would only be reclaiming his brain like every thought is.

Now I understand where you are coming from, I can more succinctly tell you why you are wrong. You are saying that self ownership is the only ownership, and that anything you work is part of yourself by extension.
You are wrong because while self ownership is the only natural ownership (and freedom of expression is the only natural right), a piece of land you tend or a tool you use is not a part of yourself. Something outside of yourself like this can only be yours when it is either not claimed by anyone else or it is legitimised by law.

When two people allege ownership over the same object, there are no innate methods of determining ownership short of removing one person's claim by any method (violent or non-violent). The modern method, to define it by law, is the most efficient method known that doesn't involve someone's death.

 

[Princeps]

You are wrong because while self ownership is the only natural ownership (and freedom of expression is the only natural right)

No. They are not real rights of any kind. You have abilities of expression and physical control of your body, but it doesn't mean that these abilities cannot be politically or naturally deprived from you. A person can be enslaved, or he can be incapacitated like S. Hawking.

 

[PiMan]

No. They are not real rights of any kind. You have abilities of expression and physical control of your body, but it doesn't mean that these abilities cannot be politically or naturally deprived from you. A person can be enslaved, or he can be incapacitated like S. Hawking.

Everyone (human or animal) has the right to respond to the situation around them to the greatest of their ability. When I say freedom of expression, I'm talking about it at a much more basic level than most do these days.
A person enslaved can, at the best of times, attempt to run away or otherwise attempt to gain freedom; or at the worst of times, literally or metaphorically struggle against the futility of their condition.
To continue life, or to choose not to, is the most base expression of this right.
The only living creatures without this right are the brain-dead, as they lack any ability for expression.

 

[JerichoHill]

many animals have the ability to learn and reprogram.

Sheesh, my dog programmed ME.

 

[PiMan]

So what is a part of yourself? What else could be a universal standard other than the use of the construction of ends concerning the materia? "Yourself" is not a universal way to differentiate between self and the rest of materia. What if there


Romanticising the self is the source of confusion. The core mechanism which makes construction of ends possible may aswell only be a few thousand brain cells that create the thought process. It is no different from any of its extentions. The only thing that makes it special that it is used more often as the ends due to it being more vital to the process of constructing ends, but the same way as the core thinking self, the hand is also matter that can be used to construct ends, or a machine used by the hand.

The core brain cells that make thinking possible arent constructing ends on themselves either, every cell is owning a different cells through electric signals etc.

In that sense, there is no self ownership, every part of the organism that has the capability to construct ends, is owned by some other part of the organism through a vast network of control.

And there lays the problem with your criticism, there is no "self" to whom ownership could be limited as being self ownership. Ownership is one sided, from owner to ownee.

Animals dont have a mechanism to create ultimate ends that determine other ends, the ends they have come through chance, pure coincidence of evolution, being preprogrammed in their head. So the ability to reprogram, for a mechanism that manifests the ends to construct new ones, is the fundamental difference and gives those organisms the moral right to kill ones that dont.

From my perspective, you are the one romanticising.

 

[Godwynn]

Sheesh, my dog programmed ME.

What kind of dog do you have?

All mine do is steal my socks.

 

[Nobody]

like the sopranos. 10% or 5 grand a week, what ever is higher

 

[Bill3000]

So what is a part of yourself? What else could be a universal standard other than the use of the construction of ends concerning the materia? "Yourself" is not a universal way to differentiate between self and the rest of materia. What if there

I'm sorry, but the real world isn't Final Fantasy 7.