[fatbird]

> I'm supposed to pay $45.71 so other people can listen to the radio ad-free?

Yes. It's part of the basic compact we call a civil society where we don't insist on a direct line between tax dollars paid and personally-felt value gained, because we trust that the larger, more comprehensive value of a strong civil society is worth more than $45.71.

After the number of times I've paid hundreds or thousands in extra property taxes to fund a stadium I'll never visit, where people I'll never befriend enjoy a sport I'll never play, I'm okay with this. More happiness all around benefits me generally.

[amscanne]

What you're saying is of course completely true, but it also means that "I'd be happy to pay my $45.71 per person per year" is equally invalid as a indicator as to whether some public good or service is worthwhile. I believe your parent comment was calling that out, rather than making an argument that it's worth nothing at all.

As an aside, I think it's reaching quite a lot to say that an ad-free CBC is somehow equivalent to a "strong civil society". I get that you're saying it's an ingredient, but unless you quantify the value then it's an argument you could apply to absolutely everything under the sun. (The government should fund my blog for $0.01 per person, after all a strong civil society is certainly worth a penny each!)

[fatbird]

The parent was saying that he shouldn't have to pay $45.71/year because there's no direct benefit to him. My response was that a strong civil society requires some latitude in how directly one needs to benefit in order to support taxes for things one doesn't directly enjoy. I agree that a mere willingness to fund something is not, in itself, a measure of some tax-funded good's actual value.

I do think that there's probably a good argument that a strong civil society requires a public broadcaster, but my analogy was more about relative equity--I'm okay with your sports stadium, if you're okay with my public broadcaster, because our civil society is better when there's public goods for both of us. And that doesn't even get into the direct economic benefits that are the mainstay arguments for sports stadiums and public broadcasters.

[problems]

> The parent was saying that he shouldn't have to pay $45.71/year because there's no direct benefit to him.

It provides no indirect benefit either. Instead it misguides and misinforms people. The problem is that something like CBC provides no benefit to anyone in society who doesn't share it's biases. A government mouthpiece is absolutely not necessary for civilized society. Nor does it truly provide a benefit to anyone, but a detriment to society at large. I don't believe society should be forced to pay to pander to a specific political niche.

But if you're making this argument, why stop at socialized media? Certainly some people could benefit from socialized food or cars? Why do those things deserve consumer choice, but media doesn't? The market arguably does an even better job with media than those things.

[fatbird]

First, slippery slope is a fallacy: having a public broadcaster does not lead to socialized cars.

Second, we do have socialized food, it's called welfare, and going forward, that situation will only increase under the name 'guaranteed basic income' because we're automating away all the jobs people might have.

Third, you have media choice in Canada: elsewhere you say CTV and Global are better. Good choice.

> It provides no indirect benefit either.

This is silly. It provides a lot of jobs that pay well or offer good security or both, which benefits the economy generally in a number of ways. It provides funding for the arts, also economically beneficial but also culturally valuable, to some at least. It provides a media outlet directly subject to government controls, which takes some heat off CTV and Global to meet policy goals that the CBC can fulfill, like Canadian Content. It provides a public good for people like me so that when a new levy for a stadium comes around, I'm okay with paying the levy even if I'll get no direct benefit myself.

> Instead it misguides and misinforms people.

Okay, you don't like seeing a viewpoint you find wrong and harmful to be funded with your tax dollars; if the gov't funded a version of Fox News up here, I'd probably feel the same way. Whether or not I actually opposed that public Fox North would depend on my feeling about whether I can tolerate it as part of the broader program of public spending--maybe I'd be fine with it if the CBC was then allowed to drift even further left.

The point remains that we collectively compromise in order to ensure that the public good reaches the broadest number of citizens. If you're unable to tolerate $45.71 a year going to something that your fellow citizens enjoy, suck it up: I'm sure there's lots you're enjoying now that they'd prefer not to fund.

[problems]

> First, slippery slope is a fallacy: having a public broadcaster does not lead to socialized cars.

I was merely trying to draw a comparison to things we can agree shouldn't be socialized, where consumer choice matters, not that one leads to the other. I believe slippery slope fallacy requires the implication that in this case, publicly funding CBC leads to socialized cars. Which I didn't mean to imply is true if it came off that way. Just to draw a comparison to see how you thought of it differently, because I find them fairly comparable personally.

Even in welfare or the mincome proposals you have consumer choice over where to spend and exactly how much to spend on food. Which you don't in this case with CBC's media. That's the part I have a problem with.

> I'm sure there's lots you're enjoying now that they'd prefer not to fund.

And I'm quite confident there's not. In fact, there are very, very few things I feel that the government should be funding. I'm more than willing to give up just about anything the government provides me if they're willing to do the same.

Why is the opposite proposal of saying we should remove these things rejected outright? How about we all just pay for the stuff we use instead of paying for other people's stuff? If we had a mincome-style system, would you be more okay with this sort of proposal?

I'd be much more open to mincome proposals if we could get rid of cruft like this we're paying for. I think it could generate real economic efficiency in cases like this.