[duncan_bayne]

> Voluntary taxation is a fringe theory with some fairly serious flaws... the primary one in my opinion being that it erodes democracy by pushing even more influence over government into the hands of people with deep enough pockets to pay more (but only when they're happy). The incentives in that kind of system would be all wrong.

It's a side issue to the one we're discussing, but ... that's what we have right now, and the incentives are in fact all wrong.

> By all means have a go at defending voluntary taxation, I'd be interested to hear your opinion.

So, roughly:

1) It's morally wrong to initiate force. Compelling someone to pay for something is as wrong when performed by the Government with a majority mandate, as it is when performed by a mugger.

2) Many other vital services are already paid for voluntarily, by those who benefit from them, and provided for those who can't afford them through private charity. There's nothing special or unique about Government services as opposed to, say, medicine or food.

3) Core Government services are actually pretty cheap - we worked out around NZ$2,500 / adult / year in NZ back in 2000 or so. I hope the vast majority of people would stump up that kind of cash in the absence of any other taxation. If not, I suspect that society is broken in ways that can't be fixed by compulsory taxation, either.

Rothbard goes into a bit more detail ;) here:

https://mises.org/library/man-economy-and-state-power-and-ma...

[chimprich]

> I hope the vast majority of people would stump up that kind of cash in the absence of any other taxation.

This is, in my view, a pretty naive (maybe to be polite I should say highly optimistic) view of human nature. Even if a majority of people planned to pay it I suspect many would end up not paying it most months as other priorities intervened.

Even if, say, 60% of people did end up paying the voluntary "taxation", a large number would pay nothing. The total sum required would be the same and those willing to pay would have to pay significantly more or there would be a huge shortfall. This would be extremely unfair; freeloaders would get a huge effective pay rise and consequently more influence in society.

In practical terms it would be very difficult to pay for services if if it was not possible to predict how much tax was to be gathered from month to month. Government income would fluctuate wildly. Employment in the public sector would be very risky. The economy would be extremely volatile to say the least. Planning for the future would be next to impossible.

There are many more ethical and practical problems with this idea. I could go on.

[TheCoelacanth]

> It's morally wrong to initiate force.

Then you would agree that private property rights are immoral because they don't exist without the threat of force.

[duncan_bayne]

No, because there is a difference between _initiation_ of force, and other uses of same. See:

https://mises.org/blog/relation-between-non-aggression-princ...

[richmarr]

Private property is protected by the threat of force, and if violated actual force.

Taxation is protected by the threat of force, and if violated actual force.

You're drawing a boundary around money and calling it yours because it happens to be in your pocket, and saying the government is threatening force to take it... but in the USA in 2017 all that money is not yours, it belongs to the nation in exchange for services, defence, etc. Witholding it is a form of theft; you would be the one violating the property of others and demanding the initiation of force.

[richmarr]

> I hope the vast majority of people would stump up that kind of cash in the absence of any other taxation. If not, I suspect that society is broken in ways that can't be fixed by compulsory taxation, either.

To me this is the most interesting line in your reply. There's so much bundled up in here.

First of all; the amount people will pay (and its distribution if they're allowed to nominate policies or departments to fund) would depend entirely on the decision architecture in which their decisions were made.

i.e. Exactly what information is given to citizens and when? What's the nature of their decision? What are the rules and limits? How long is the budget cycle and at what point in the year/month are they making their decision? How are citizens communicated to in the rest of the cycle? What does the broader economy look like after a couple of years of likely-reduced spending? What are the incentives acting on the media and their owners and how does that push them to influence public opinion?

Any mistakes in the implementation of that and it'd be guaranteed to fail (assuming there's any chance of success to begin with).

Secondly, although I think the output of voluntary funding decisions would be mainly a function of decision architecture, that will likely be influenced by overall trends in society. If you read recent work by Robert Putnam you'll probably be aware that the societal indicators of connectedness and social cohesion that he's compiled (things like the % of bipartisan bills, membership of clubs and societies, etc.) have been decreasing from their peak (in around 1964) and are presently on their way down to 1900-era levels. While he doesn't know the cause of that phenomenon, it seems deeply speculative that voluntary tax is the solution.

It's more likely that your desire for voluntary tax is a symptom of your mistrust of others to manage funding decisions for you, i.e. a symptom of the effect he's attempting to understand.

[arethuza]

So how would you go about acquiring evidence that this approach actually works?

[duncan_bayne]

Meta-question: do you believe that ethical decisions in politics must only proceed once someone can point to that decisions having been made in the past? That it is insufficient to point to the _wrong_ inherent to compulsion and say "let's stop this?". Would you make the same argument to abolitionists prior to the Civil War?

Leaving the issue of evidence aside, I'd generalise from the countless vital goods and services that are produced and paid for by voluntary interaction. I'd reason that since those systems work pretty well, it's reasonable to assume that Government would as well.

Then I'd spend many years heavily involved in Libertarian politics, trying to convince others to abandon the use of force against each other, only to quit in disgust when I realised that it was a waste of my time and effort, and that Tiberius' criticism of his Senate ("men fit to be slaves") rings as true today.

[jamespo]

So you would acquire evidence with a very large assumption?

[duncan_bayne]

I'm saying that some things - for example, slavery - can be proved to be morally wrong without having to perform an examination of the material evidence against it. You wouldn't have to carefully study the conditions on slave ships and plantations to vote for abolition.

[richmarr]

> I'm saying that some things - for example, slavery - can be proved to be morally wrong without having to perform an examination of the material evidence against it.

Taxpayers recieve benefits from paying tax. Slaves (those that didn't die) did not.

Taxpayers are able to assemble to discuss the matter, lobby their representatives, campaign for change, vote for the change, campaign for office. Slaves were not.

Taxpayers are free to leave the country and go somewhere new. Slaves, suprise surprise, were not.

I don't see moral equivalence there.