[21]

> On the other hand I have always lived in Northern Italy, and around half of my taxes go to the poorer regions of Italy

Everybody says that, Catalonia that it pays more to Spain that it receives back, California and New York to the rest of US...

But it's the only way to have nation states, otherwise we'd have to go back to city states (which some people like Taleb actually advice).

[blattimwind]

Tax redistribution inside nations or in nation unions (like the EU) is pretty much an investment. It generally generates more money than spent on it.

E.g. Germany is the largest net contributor to the EU, but guess what would happen if Germany decided to stop putting out those few billions a year. Yeah, not so good for the economy (not just of Germany, pretty much everyone). Turns out, those few billions spurred trade much greater than that. It's literally "one stick, alone, weak — many sticks, together, stronk". Just that the bundle is stronger than its constituents.

(I've heard the UK is working earnestly on an experiment confirming this.)

[thaumasiotes]

> It's literally "one stick, alone, weak — many sticks, together, stronk".

I can't wait for tax redistribution to be renamed "fascism". :D

[barrow-rider]

For the uninitiated: Italian Fascism was so named as a reference to classical Roman Fasces, which was a bundle of sticks or rods wrapped around an axe that symbolized authority.

[jlawson]

It symbolized solidarity, not so much authority. The small sticks work together and act as one.

[int_19h]

Fasces very much symbolized authority initially. It is no coincidence that the rods in fasces were birch. And, of course, there's that ax in the middle...

[jasonbarrah]

There is nothing wrong with some sticks working together to get better deals on medical supplies or defend from other sticks in time of need.

The issue is that you are forcing the stick to give up its national identity, borders, fishing rights, and laws in order to be part of the bundle.

[vvillena]

The different national identities within Europe are not going anywhere. Broken English is already the common language of Europe, but the regional language and culture every part has won't disappear. A little traveling is enough to confirm this for oneself.

As for all the rest, they can't disappear soon enough. None of those things work in favor of the general people. And while we keep cultural and national identities, we could also do away with nationalist politics. They are irrational and nowadays it just feels like Religion Wars 2.0.

[blattimwind]

The EU is dedicated to preserving national culturalisms (if that's the word), they passed so much legislation related to that, that this is fairly self-evident.

[gaius]

"one stick, alone, weak — many sticks, together, stronk". Just that the bundle is stronger than its constituents.

Isn't there a word for a bundle of sticks bound together?

[gshubert17]

fasces: (in ancient Rome) a bundle of rods with a projecting ax blade, carried by a lictor as a symbol of a magistrate's power. In the 20th century used as an emblem of authority in Fascist Italy.

[labster]

> It's literally "one stick, alone, weak — many sticks, together, stronk".

So that's why they say those people are living in the sticks.

[dsfyu404ed]

California and New York are the size of countries. Why couldn't they function on their own as countries? I think a lot of states would be better served if they operated more autonomously and the federal government managed less of their business. I get that in certain cases that's not the optimal situation for resource allocation but freedom has a price.

[pantonia]

They are the size of countries like Italy. Read above, they too are annoyed at the freeloaders they have to support. Why should the Bay Area have to subsidize Bakersfield?? Make them city-states and Manhattan will resent the Bronx (not that they don't now).

[dmurray]

They could function as independent countries, for better or worse. But it generally looks like states don't want more autonomy: over 240 years the US federal government has taken on more and more power at the expense of the states, facing minimal resistance apart from a single bloody civil war where the heroes are universally agreed to be the side fighting for more powers for the federal government.

[dragonwriter]

> civil war where the heroes are universally agreed to be the side fighting for more powers for the federal government.

The Union wasn't fighting for more powers for the federal government, just for the integrity of the existing federal government and it's powers.

The war resulted in some expansion of federal power, but that wasn't what motivated the Union.

[dmurray]

Sure, that's a reasonable way to look at it, and the only way consistent with having the victors write the history books. In the same way that the Commerce Clause always allowed the federal government to regulate growing wheat for personal consumption, the Constitution already allowed the federal government to forbid slavery - it just took a civil war or a supreme court hearing to make sure everyone agreed on that. Under that view, the 13th Amendment was legally redundant, but was passed just to leave absolutely no room for doubt.

[dragonwriter]

> the Constitution already allowed the federal government to forbid slavery

The Union wasn't (particularly the slave states in the Union weren't) fighting to abolish slavery, the Union wasn't fighting to preserve the Union, a goal to which the popular (in most of the North) cause of abolition had been deliberately subordinated in the elections prior to the war.

OTOH, by seceding, the rebel states also lost their leverage on preserving slavery within the Union, so the whole rebellion backfired. Abolition probably would have happened eventually without the war, but it wouldn't have been right away.

[ericd]

That's the point of Federalism - local autonomy where it makes sense, coordinated direction from above where it makes sense.

Small countries don't have much leverage on their own on the world stage. CA and NY are almost certainly better off as part of the greater whole.

[mikeash]

I don’t think this would necessarily result in more freedom. Remember that when the question of states versus the federal government was definitively answered a century and a half ago, the side in favor of more autonomy for individual states was pushing for that so that they could continue to own people as property.

[Silfen]

At the risk of opening the world's largest pressurized can of worms... sort of. There is an argument to be made that The South cared about state's rights only in the instrumental sense that it allowed them to protect slavery. They were also in favor of stronger federal government when it protected slavery, e.g. fugitive slave laws.

[mikeash]

My point is that states’ rights and freedom aren’t really related. Often the federal government forces freedom on the states against their will. Slavery is a really obvious example.

[int_19h]

> Often the federal government forces freedom on the states against their will.

Often it's the other way around - for example, in the pre-Civil War era, a big point of contention (that was specifically cited later by those states that tried to secede) was that the federal government enacted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which forced the free states to, basically, participate in enforcement of slavery on behalf of the slave states.

[jessaustin]

Few states would institute slavery or really anything else remotely so monstrous if they were released from the Union tomorrow.

[mikeash]

Of course, but there’s plenty of milder acts that many of them would enact. How many would bring back poll tests (presumably with some suitable grandfather clause), reinstitute segregation, recriminalize homosexuality, recriminalize interracial marriage, etc.?

[Silfen]

Yeah, and I agree. My comment was more of a tangent that struck a nerve :)

[DrJokepu]

Economic inequalities exist on every level. In a sovereign city state, the wealthier neighborhoods would subsidize the less wealthy neighborhoods.

[jessaustin]

It's inevitable given the political structure. Since votes are distributed by area and population rather than by wealth, wealthier political divisions will necessarily bribe poorer ones into political compromises that are closer to the wealthier divisions' preferences than they would have been without bribery. The only way to prevent that would be for the overall polity to have much lower taxes and thus much less money to divert to interdivisional bribery. (In many polities, this would be very much against the preferences of the wealthier divisions, so this "solution" is never seriously contemplated.)

Of course, TFA describes a different way to come to substantially the same result. Tokyo still makes the important decisions.

[simias]

"Bribe" is way too loaded, you could also call it social justice and redistribution, a way to give poorer areas better chances to improve their life. Saying that redistribution is bribery is about the same level of discourse as saying that taxes are theft and prison kidnapping.

[jessaustin]

Those who pay attention to our "justice" system might go along with part of that... Besides lots of these transfers have nothing to do with "social justice"; they're military spending or Drug War stupidity or similar. The point is, if Kansas were run the way that actual Kansans would democratically choose to run it, it would be even more awful than it already is. (It would also be better, in some ways, but we don't need to argue about that.) Those sweet federal dollars convince them to make different political decisions than they would have made otherwise.

[gknoy]

> Saying that redistribution is bribery is about the same level of discourse as saying that taxes are theft and prison kidnapping

I have friends who say literally that (taxes are theft). How does one argue against that? I have a hard time finding a way that it's technically wrong. I mean, taxation is literally the state taking your money (whether you want it or not, voted against it or not, etc).

I can't help but feel that there's some difference, but I can't find what it is. Do you have suggestions on readings that would inform me better on the issue?

[jlawson]

Thieves usually don't give you something in return. It's more like "a deal you can't refuse". You get something back, but it's probably not just what you wanted. But it's something.

Taxation is much more like "protection money" than theft.

[overdrivetg]

Wait - are you claiming that New Jersey is somehow bribing New Mexico for policy concessions?

https://www.moneytips.com/is-your-state-a-net-payer-or-a-net...

[innocentfelon]

Seems plausible. 1000mi of mostly rural interstate highways (how NJ gets its goods from points west), plus nuclear weapons development, testing, and disposal are popular enough with the NM locals, as are anti-poverty programs, but yank the federal funding, and the locals would be far less friendly to NJ telling NM to supply or pay for these things on its own.

[jessaustin]

New Mexico may be a bit of an outlier since they aren't deep red like some other western states? I would certainly say that New Jersey is bribing e.g. Montana, North Dakota, etc. If the residents of those states had their way, the Department of Interior would be run differently, entitlements would be lower, Israel wouldn't get so much support, etc.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> entitlements would be lower

That's just the political rhetoric. Red-staters love their entitlements just so long as they go to the "right" people.

[jessaustin]

The red states are not a monolith. You might get a majority of support for some entitlements in Georgia or West Virginia. You won't get that in Wyoming or the Dakotas. Maybe those aren't the entitlements you're talking about, though. This "right people" entitlement: which one is that? Which entitlement goes to white males but not minority females? If you mean some boondoggle for rich people, I already mentioned the military and Drug War spending upthread. Besmirching all entitlements by association with that crap would be dishonest.