"Intellectual property" is one of the few things that the US produces these days and it employs a large amount of people in a country rife with joblessness.
Certainly in the annals of all communes it has been tried.
I guess I should not have said that it had never been tested. Certainly it has been tested, but in each one of the those tests it becomes easy to find the fault that caused failure.
New Harmony, the example I am most familiar with, attempted, as the soviets did, to enforce conformity. Their failure was not one of economics, it was one of individuality. There is myth that resource collectivization needs to be brought about through conformity in all aspects of life. Owen's own New Lanark was far more successful, but even it was doomed to failure because it relied on the protection of what was effectively a benevolent dictator.
Some of the other communities you mention where based on and around religious belief and structure. These are societies that inherently provide privilege to a select group of people
Others on your list did not do away with private ownership, or attempted to manage public ownership through organizational ownership.
And lastly, all most all of them had to attempt to implement there collective structure within the domain of a society that did not support their right or ability to manage their resources in they way they chose to. A collective inside the United States, for example, is still required to pay taxes, and to do so they must raise capital.
Then you have to deal with the the tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org], and people who don't follow your rules.
The tragedy of the commons has been disputed effectively by people far more knowledgeable that I. I certainly don't need to reiterate their findings. But as for following rules, just as in any society there would be punishment for violating the contract of the society. And I'm not talking punishments like free room and board in housing with other law breakers. I'm talking the ability to voluntarily repent and correct the wrong doing, or expulsion from the society. If you don't believe in the collective approach, then you should feel free to move somewhere outside the collective.
Well that's a really lame reason to not change. Stop whining and go do it!
I'm not going to judge, but I'm guess that you are single and have no children. Once you have people that rely on you for their well being you no longer have the ability to change your financial situation on a whim. Also, I'm certainly not whining about it. I accept that I made the choices that got me where I am. I'm simple pointing out, that if I did not have to be concerned with how I would provide for self or family, as long as I was assisting with the advancement of society, then I would have more freedom, rather than less.
And that doesn't even touch upon the problems with our society and how we treat those that chose to do the single most important activity to the continuation of the society.
First of all, try not to confuse what the soviets did in the Soviet Union with communism. What the soviets did was bungle the transitional state between Capitalism and Communism, by going from Feudalism to a Malevolent Dictatorship.
Capitalism starts with the assumption that all people are greedy, and what is the best system we can create on that premise?
I do not believe that people are inherently greedy, and I doubt the nature of greed could be proven either way. What I do believe is that certain economic constructs promote greed (being the desire to have more than others), and that capitalism does so better than any other economic system. With that basis, you can see how creating a system that does not promote greed, would directly combat this miss-notion. The simplest way to devalue greed is to make all resources public. If you have no one protecting your right to hoard, then you would have no method for greed and so greed would be a non-issue.
The argument then goes, "so what is the motivation for people to work and achieve?" I do believe that it is human nature to continually want more. Even when a person has access to more than they could ever possible deal with in a life time, they still want more. This, and having full access to all achievements, would push people to continue the betterment of society as a whole. But I will admit, as much as there are some shining examples of what people can accomplish when working collectively, there has never been a test of what would happen if people had no ownership of property at all, and it's all just theoretical.
But under [collectivism], how do you deal with the fact that people like freedom? Above all, it is something they are willing to die for. They don't want to be told, "you, be a shoemaker" and nothing more. They don't want to be told that they can't leave the city they live in. How do you deal with man's innate desire for freedom?
I really wish the soviets hadn't gone and used the word communism when what they where doing had nothing to do with communism, or socialism. There is no reason for any lack of freedom under collectivization of resources. As members of a civilization well all agree to some rules. They can be as basic as "we don't kill each other" or as abstract as "we help out were needed." The rules under a collective would be know different. Each person would have the opportunity to move freely and acquire what ever job they are capable of. If an area has a need for a job and you have the skills then you can apply for the job. This is no different than under capitalism. The only difference is that all people would have free access to what ever tools where needed to acquire the skills for any job they wanted.
Sure there are some trade offs. If there is ever a shortage of a specific need, then all people will share in that responsibility equally. For example, if an area has a shortage of sanitation workers, and for some reason can't fill that shortage by immigration from another area, then each person would have to spend a portion of their work hours (which hopefully would be less than we have now anyway) on sanitation work.
The problem is, people think that jobs pay more because they are highly desired, the truth is that jobs are highly desired because they pay more. I know plenty of people in my particular field who would be just as happy digging ditches as they are doing what they do now, if they were able to maintain the same lifestyle and have the same growth potential. When everyone has the exact same resources at their disposal then the desirability of jobs changes, and becomes more individualized.
Just as an anecdote, I would love to change my career. I like what I do and I am good at what I do, but I would like to make a change. And as much as you may think I am free to make a career change, I am really very limited. To get the training for the new career I would not only have to expend time (which I am willing to do) b
Finally, eliminate personal income tax and replace it with consumption based taxes such as tariffs.
I would support this as long as consuming a persons labor was taxed like any other form of consumption. Employers would still need to pay taxes for using a person labor. So effectively it would be little different than an income tax. Employees pay would go down, while a companies consumption tax increased. Labor is our countries most utilized resource and no one should be able to utilize those resources without sharing in the costs of keeping a successful nation running.
People would have money in their pocket to pay off their debts faster, and it would encourage manufacturers to begin producing stuff in the US again, creating more jobs.
Sadly this only works on paper. People would still stretch themselves to the limit of debt and companies would still look to production that had the highest profit margins.
China's economy is booming, as is Korea, Germany, Australia, Brazil.
I'm not sure that a booming economy is really a good measure of future success. The US had a Booming economy only a few years ago, and now they are struggling. China's economy appears to be on a similar or far worse path, with an economic collapse looming overhead. Germany's population is aging and shrinking, both of which have historically been detrimental to the economic stability of the a country. South Korea's population is not only showing signs of shrinking, but it's norther neighbor is still out growing them, which in the case of Korea could mean political instability. Australia and Brazil are certainly going to be interesting to watch. historically neither has been significant in the global economy, but certainly that can change very quickly in troubled times.
I was making this very argument the other day. If you have a 10% unemployment rate, you can completely eradicate it by dropping to a 36 hour work week (35 is an easier number to divide evenly, but it would probably leave us with too few employees). Sure this would mean that on average each currently employed person would have to give up a little less than 10% of their income (hardly 8% after taxes). I know I would be happy to give up 8% of my net income to gain back an hour a day, and to keep the national economy from collapsing.
I also agree that no one should be working more hours than they are paid for. This is just causing people to be over worked and others to be unemployed. But some people think that they would be out of a job if they weren't willing to work extra hours. I am glad I do not feel that way.
If I wanted, I could cut my rent in half right now, by getting a roommate, but I like living alone.
That's too bad. Living alone is horribly inefficient, and known to be psychologically damaging. In theory the human brain would evolve to deal with the solitary life style, but it would be many, many, generations before that happened. But more importantly, if designed correctly, there would be no reason for you to have to live with other people, simply share resources. Yes it means you might not be able to use the resources at the exact moment you want them, though that can be mostly mitigated through design, but I would think for most people that would be a very small price to pay for having access to significantly more resources. But ultimately social living is better for humanity so I certainly wouldn't have a problem if those that didn't want to share in the wealth of an efficient society chose not to do so. Luckily there will never be a single world government so I'm sure people like you and people like I could live in separate countries. Mine would have happy people working together for betterment of society, and yours, well, I'm not sure what would happen in a world where everyone lived a solitary life (other than die out eventually).
OK, but on another point, how are you planning on implementing this? Surely you would need some kind of central planning, and that would become overbearing and difficult (much like it was in the old Soviet Union)
Simple answer, very slowly. Marx claimed that it would require a revolution to change from capitalism to socialism, and then over time to communism. The Soviet Union failed because the attempted to move from feudalism to socialism, and then where over thrown my sovietism. I can't say for sure if Marx is right or not, but many western countries have begun implementing a social plan including large portions of industry being collectivized. Canada and England have collectivized their health care, all western countries will eventually follow, if they have not done so already. Norway, the second wealthiest, and arguable the most prosperous, country in the world, has public ownership of many key industries, such as oil and gas production, as well as telecom and banking. With the success of these forms of collectivization shown in western cultures, I believe that violent revolution is not necessary, though possibly still valid.
You start by instituting a few small projects. We could start by creating a publicly owned car rental service, like Zipcar, but owned by the citizens of an area, city or state sized, and free for use by all citizens of the area. You eventually move on to building new housing, using efficient space planning, which would again be owned by the citizenry as a whole, and not any individuals, and allow people to live in these shared spaces. You also bring utilities, including telecom, and banking, which would in theory be short lived, back under public control. While all this is going on, you raise taxes to compensate, since there will still remain a functioning free market. Over all people will have less capital in their personal pockets, but will be pulling from a much larger pool of capital to provide services and resources that are used daily. That's clearly just a start.
The process of collectivization is not that radical that it has not been done, and done successfully I might add. The National Socialist Party of Germany brought about great growth in their country through collectivization. The Bolsheviks brought Russia from the brink of complete collapse, include wide spread famine, back to being an industrialized world power. Starting in the 1800s and continuing for nearly 100 years, New Lanark was a prosperous society based on collectivization and socialist principles. Sure each one of these failed eventually (well, New Lanark didn't fail, it just became irrelevant).
There are exactly two reasons that collectivized states have failed. One of which w
I am not doubting your point that we could make more efficient use of space, but... Why the hell would we want [ to no longer have private bathrooms and kitchens]?
For the efficiencies and what we gain from them. Again I'm not saying that these bathrooms or kitchens are for multiple people to use at the same time. I'm just saying that the vast majority of the time the bathrooms and kitchens of the world are unused, and they are perfectly suitable for shared use. Assuming my 1 to 10 ratio (which could be way more than we actually need) it means people start to take up 1/10th the space they do now (probably a bit more since I don't think you would be able to convince people to give up all personal space). This also means 1/10th the number of utility lines for water and sewage, and possibly electricity.
It's all about an economy of scale. The less we need to maintain, the more time there is for advancement of society as a whole. The gains far out weigh the losses (which is really only the loss of not sharing with others). Sure this requires people to actually want to improve their over all quality, diversity and capacity of life, rather than wanting to be relatively better than their neighbors. It does require a change in thinking, a change in zeitgeist if you will. But this is no reason for us not to push forward for the betterment of society.
My question to you then, is why would we not want this? Why would we not want to be more efficient? Why would we not want to have more for all people (based on use, not ownership)?
I've actually been thinking about your idea, sharing TVs and such, and really, the thing that is the largest expense in my life by far is rent; TV and car is such a minuscule thing compared to that, sharing those things wouldn't actually gain me any extra free time.
Then let me expand the possibilities a little bit (it would take multiple books to layout the full details). When we talking about he removal of private property, it means all property, including land, and homes. Now that in it self does not gain anything as resources and production are still limited, but handling those in a more efficient way is. If we imagine that rent is truly comparable to the resources consumed, then we have to assume that high rent is based upon the size of the space and the scarcity of the location. Each one of us has more living space than we could possibly use at one time, or at least we have spaces that we are not always using. Move some of this space to common shared spaces. If you no longer have to have a private bathroom (and I don't mean bathrooms would be like large public bathrooms, but that we don't have one bathroom per person, but say 10 bathrooms per 100 people), and no longer have private kitchens, and since we are sharing TVs, no longer have private entertainment rooms, then the total amount of space required for a home goes way down. You end up with what is effectively one room per person (or less for couples that share space), and then shared spaces that can be reserved for private use (notice that is use, not ownership).
Above is just one way that the total resources can be reduced, and greatly reduced. Building in high density space would reduce the value of land since you can place more people in the same land. This would also reduce the scarcity of prime land, since you can put more living space on prime land. Most importantly it would greatly increase the amount of shared public land for all to enjoy.
Now we already know how our available time can go up if we reduce the amount of time it takes to produce new resources, so the reduction in time to build living space will free up societies time. But you can easily take it a step further. Doing 100 of anything at once, is usually, with rare exception, more efficient than doing them one at a time. So instead of each family making meals for themselves, we provide public service that provides meals for people. I'm not talking about soup kitchens here, I'm talking about restaurants that all can use freely. This would free tremendous amounts of time, and human resources. Of course people would still be allowed to utilize a shared kitchen space for their own meals, but it would not be necessary, and I would suspect it would only be used rarely.
I don't have time to spell out the whole thing in a forum post, but I'm sure you're smart enough to extrapolate the other possibilities.
You'd win only in the sense that what I'd most like to do with my time is have sex, all the time. Maybe drugs.
And if you wanted to do those things with your free time, and could do them without harming others, I can't see any reason why you would not want more time to partake in those activities. But the point still stands, most people could use a little more free time to do as they chose.
Once you learn the pleasure of being productive, it isn't hard to have fun most of the time.
I would also bet that you are not as productive as you could be because of the over all inefficiencies of society. Once you learn the pleasure of being productive in a truly efficient environment you will realize that you are fooling yourself into think that you are productive. Now it's possible that you do have peak efficiency, because you might work for a public works project that is already collectivized, but even that probably has plenty of bureaucracy, caused by private ownership, getting in your way of productivity.
Many of is Americans are too self-absorbed to notice. I wonder if there's a pill for that
There are no known treatments for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is the worst manifestation of being self-absorbed. And why would someone want a treatment for it when it is likely to help you become a CEO or other important and powerful person. Just saying, being self-absorbed is a product of modern western culture, as Lasch explains it, and not a product of chemical imbalance.
lol still having trouble understanding the meanings of common words, eh?
I quoted the only two definitions of "fair" that are at all applicable to taxation. Unless of course you think that taxes should be "Of pleasing appearance, especially because of a pure or fresh quality" but that is quit the stretch, and extremely subjective. Yes, I'm sure the definition you are using is more along the lines of "Having or exhibiting a disposition that is free of favoritism or bias; impartial" but how you can think that taking from one person to give to another is in anyway "free of favoritism" or "impartial" I really can't fathom.
Oh, this is your problem. I currently spend 9/10ths of my time enjoying what I do. No wonder you don't like society the way it is now.
If you are a person that has found a way to survive in the current society while also spending 9/10ths of your waking and active time doing exactly the things that you find enjoyable then you are lucky indeed. I consider myself to be well above average in my enjoyment and even that is probably less than 1/2 of my active waking time. Most people would enjoy being free of the daily chores required to maintain a healthy lifestyle and living space. Most people with children could always use more time to spend with their children, playing and educating. Most people with any loved ones could probably use more time to spend with those loved ones. It seems that even you could use some more time, since at least 1/10th of your time is being spent on things you don't enjoy.
But, as a gambling man, I would bet good money that you are full of shit and well more 1/10th of your time is spent doing things you would rather not be doing. That is unless you never have to do domestic chores, or never had to argue of a charge or bill, or never had to deal with the time lost by having to take a product in for repair, or never have to commute, or... well I'm sure you get the point. Most of us have things that we don't enjoy doing but have to do so that we can do the things we enjoy. And as much as you or I might enjoy our jobs, it does not mean that all jobs are enjoyable, and handling those tasks in a collective and efficient way, would improve the overall life style for all people.
If by fair you mean "Being in accordance with relative merit or significance" then I don't understand what would be fair about taking a persons hard earned resources from them. If you mean "Consistent with rules, logic, or ethics" then there is nothing more fair than saying that all people have the same rules applied to them. Saying that all people pay x% of their purchases as tax, is perfectly "fair".
I used to use the "fair" argument with my parents when I was a child. It did not work for me then and it will not work for you now. Sorry to say but fair is not a constructive argument.
ok, so lets say you have this system that is so efficient, what would you use your extra resources for? What would you do with them?
First of all they would not be "my" resources. Resources belong to the society as a collective whole. But that's just my opinion.
Now the answer to your question is simple. I would use the resource, human and physical, to improve society. This can be done through further invention and the production of those inventions (say through high speed personal transport for all). It can be done through improved quality of life (say through reduce workload and or increased variety). If there are currently 10 times the resources we actually need to maintain the current life style (such as have 10 times more cars than we need) then instead of having redundant resources we should have to labor 1/10th the amount of time that we do now. The other 9/10ths can be spent of leisure and enjoyment or invention and creativity.
The problem is that people measure success, as you do taxes, relatively. So that you are successful as long as you have more than someone else. If we start to measure success as an absolute, then we can all be successful, without the need to exploit or oppress others. We have the resources in this country and even world, to supply a better lifestyle for all people, even better than what the richest people live today. But because we spend all of our time trying to get ahead of others, rather than trying to move everyone ahead, we end up holding our selves back from real progress.
I am more than willing to pay extra to have my own stuff.
This is explains why you are against sales tax. Because you want to own your things, it means you will be doing a lot of purchasing, and paying a lot of tax. The truly poor on the other hand are not buying cars and other luxuries so they tend not to pay nearly as much (absolute value) in sales tax.
I'm all for efficiency...Why would you want that?...you must have a good reason for believing that is a better way.
I think it's self explanatory why I would want efficiency. If we operated more efficiently then all people would have a better over all lifestyle. When you use 1/10th of the resources we use today, then you effectively have 10 times as many resources to use. Right now auto manufactures have the capacity of producing 50 million cars a year. Imagine if they only produced 5 million or less? The other laborers and engineers could be working on other conveniences for people to utilize. Or if there is nothing more to produce, then people should be able to have more leisure time, in theory at least. Same goes for other luxuries. Why do we live in a society where most of the resources available are sitting idle. My 52 inch tv is unused more often than it is used, and when it is used, it's probably being used in a way that could be shared with many other people. But if I ever want to use a TV I have to own one the rest of the time, and when it's not in use no one else can use it either (not exactly true because I'll let most anyone use it, but most people don't know that).
I mean, would you really want to have to share all your stuff with other people? Don't you hate it when other people trash your stuff, or steal your food?
See the problem is that you are still thinking of it as "your stuff". When you stop thinking of things by who owns it, and start thing about who uses it, then you don't have to worry about someone taking "your stuff". The quickest way to reduce crime is to take away the motivations. If all people had equal access to all resources then there would be no property crimes (not saying this is a simple proposition).
Personally my stuff does not get "trashed" very often, even though I share my stuff with most anyone that asks. And since I only think of food as being mine when it's on my plate ready to eat, I have never had an issue with someone stealing my food. I have a family so sure sometimes I go to the fridge and find that something I want has been eaten, but that's just not really an issue, I just find something else.
And by the way, my slashdot id is no more than maybe 10 years old, so it doesn't really signify much about my age. But I was an adult long before I had an account on slashdot.
Oh, ok, this is more interesting than your inability to understand the word 'more.'
First of all the word was "most" not "more". Secondly, you are the one who chose to leave out important contextual information in your post. When portraying information it is up to the person presenting it to make sure they leave out ambiguity and make their position clear. Your argument is like saying that the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is longer than the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. By absolute distance travelled it is not longer, but it is if you count point to point as the crow flies, or if you only count the span that cross over sea water. So you need to supply the context, not assume that everyone thinks about taxation the way you do, which they clearly do not or else they would probably implement a plan you approve.
How exactly would you find a better method of employing motor vehicles? Is there one? I'm not sure you've considered the advantage of having a car whenever you want it.
In the United States there are 254.4 million registered passenger vehicles. There are only 203 million licensed drivers. Assuming everyone licensed driver in the united states was traveling to different destinations at the exact same time, there would still be over 50 million unused passenger vehicles. An on demand vehicle service, which automatically moved the nearest unused vehicle to a reasonably close location to someone who needed one, would bring the need for motor vehicles down considerably. That is of course making the assumption that individual vehicles where in themselves efficient.
Public Mass transit for all distances of more than reasonable walking distance within and between major metropolitan areas would reduce the need for personal vehicles much further. For shorter distances, or for traveling where mass transit does not go, such as neighborhoods not yet connected or off major travel routes (for those of us that enjoy camping and such) the the above mentioned publicly shared motor vehicles would be plenty, with their being less than 1 car per 100 licensed drivers (probably far less, but I'm just estimating).
This same pattern can be followed for nearly every resource on the planet, including TVs, video games, pools, etc. It can even apply to non-luxuries like housing. While each individual would need their own personal space to make a home, we could make a more efficient society using communal living spaces, such as kitchens, rec rooms, bathrooms, etc.
This is simply applying realistic resource management to everyday resources. This is not anything particularly radical or difficult to implement
If you are not an idiot, it should be pretty clear to you that by 'most' I meant 'most as a percentage of their income.' Why would I use it to mean anything different when I am referring to tax schemes?
Because not everyone thinks that percentage of income is a valid measure of taxation. When you measure as a percentage of income then you take more from those who work for a living than those that already control significant resource. But that's philosophical. Without direct context, "most" is an absolute value, not a relative one. I just think you would do better to use the phrase "highest percentage on income" rather then "most".
Why, because it isn't fair that some people have more than others?
It's far more basic than that and has nothing to do with fair. Rephrasing what you said, you can view my opinion as "because some people have". Private ownership is grossly inefficient, even if that private owner is an elected body. Only when the fully resources of a society can be pooled can efficient processes be defined. The simple fact that the vast majority of motor vehicles in the United States are not in use at any one time, is proof of the inefficiency of private ownership.
Sales tax under the system you describe becomes a hump tax: the middle class ends up paying the most.
Again you use this term "most" which seems very ambiguous in the way you are using it. The only way it would tax the middle class the most is if the middle class chose to over spend. The lowest income earners would pay 0 tax as they would be spending only on essentials (if you need it to live then it is essential). The spending will go up as the earning goes up, to the point where a person is spending as much as a person can reasonably spend on themselves. This might end up capping out somewhere in the middle earnings, but only if the middle earners feel they have to keep up with the top earners in spending. I have no problem with people being penalized for living above their means. For capitalism to work their needs to be incentive for those who earn less, to work hard to earn more. So ultimately the wealthier you are, to a point, the more absolute capital you would spend and the more tax you would pay. Not that it matters, since in any tax system, except some sort of flat citizen tax, some group has to end up paying the bulk of the tax, and what better thing to base it on than a persons chosen lifestyle.
By the way, I think capitalism is fundamentally broken, but redistributing wealth in a capitalistic system is certainly not going to solve the issues.
I was not arguing that it is or is not regressive, simply stating that your statement that "poor people pay the most, rich the least" was false. I guess I should have been clear as to which part of your statement was false. My apologies.
But as for the regressiveness of sales tax; Sales tax is only regressive when there is a tax on essentials. If there is no taxation on essentials, such as food and housing and utilities (even those last two could be considered luxuries), then the rich pay considerably more than the poor, since the rich purchase more luxuries than the poor.
Any tax on land that is not a one time tax negates the possibility of a person to ever actually own land. If we support private property and ownerships we must do away with any tax that requires continued payment for property. As long as the proposed Land Value Tax is a one time tax, then it is an idea we could reasonably support. Other wise it is just a scheme to keep a person from ever being able to own property and we might as well call it a land rental fee.
Exactly. Sales tax is one of the most regressive ways of collecting revenue (ie: poor people pay the most, rich the least). The sooner we get rid of it the better.
As much as I would love to hammer the rich and bring about an more level playing ground for all, your argument is not logical. Sales taxes is based on a percentage of purchases. Those that are rich have no ability to spend less than those that are poor. The cost of living does not go down just because you control more capital. So the rich pay at least as much sales tax as the poor (unless that are illegally circumventing sales tax, which is possibly). A item that cost X will cost an additional X*Y in sales tax, whether you have x*1 billion in capital, or simply x + x*y.
In actuality the rich pay considerably more sales tax than the poor because they have more discretionary spending. Sales taxes is a completely optional tax. Land taxes on the other hand are a racket designed to keep people from ever being fully self sufficient.
Arguing with an apparent Neo-Libertarian is like arguing with a wall. They, for some reason, feel that the right to maintain private control of resources is some natural law, like gravity or thermodynamics (Unless of course it gets in the way of their desire for free entertainment, like Intellectual Property does). You certainly are not going to change their opinion by using logic. But I applaud your attempt, not matter how futile.
So, if you don't have the right to use violence against others to take away their possessions, neither can you delegate that ability to the government.
You falsely assume, that without government, you have the right to "possessions". It has been shown time and time again, that the control of resources for private use comes only from the threat of violence. Without the threat of violence there would be nothing to stop one person from taking another person possessions. By nature the only right that a living creature has, is the right to use what ever means is necessary to do what ever they wish to do. There is no natural law that stops a person from raping and pillaging, only the fear of reprisal. Of course a person can chose not to rap or pillage, but that is their right to make that choice.
Contrary to what you may believe, there is no natural right to liberty. As a matter of pure logic, any right to liberty is in itself contradictory as your liberty can not impinge my liberty to act in ways that would impinge your liberty.
I know this is going ot be extremely unpopular, but who gave you the right to decide what to do with my offspring???
No one has the right to decided what you do with your offspring, you make that decision on your own. But just as you can decided what you do with your offspring, we can decided what we do with you. This is how law works, and it's a completely natural process.
Laws do not stop people from acting, the fear of the actions of others stops you from acting. Laws are simply a warning that if you act in a certain way that we, as individuals choosing to act together, will respond.
In a natural world its none of your damn business, and only becomes so through might, not right.
And forcing your offspring to do anything is not a matter of right, but merely you forcing your might upon someone else. We, as society, have as much right to bully you, as you have to bully your child. That is not society owning anyone, that's just nature.
After reading these comments from the men that founded our nation, it never even OCCURRED to them that we might want to lessen weapons in society.
It also never occurred to them that we would have fully automatic firearms, Portable high explosives, Self propelled ammunition, armored vehicles, or atomic weapons. If we want to go just with what occurred to the founding fathers than we should limit the right to bear arms, to only those arms that the founding fathers were aware of.
I am neither advocating for or against restricting fire arm ownership. I'm only saying that you can not be selective when choosing a line of reasoning. If you are going to argue that we should base modern understanding on what the founding fathers knew and said, then we have to take the full context into account.
For another thing, you've forgotten that people in this country DIED for the 40 hour work week, and I don't mean guys in trenches, I mean union strikers beaten to death by (privately hired) jackboot thugs.
Not to say that unions are bad, because I believe in unionization, or to say that people did not die because of their union affiliation, but that is not why we have 40 hour work weeks. We have 40 hour work weeks, and 5 day work weeks, because of information from Henry Ford. Ford discovered that the affectiveness of employees was achieved at a peak number of hours and with certain amounts of down time in between. The numbers Ford discovered where not exactly 40 hours or 5 day out of seven, but based on our 24 hour day and the 7 day week, it was a very close approximation to have a 40 hour/5 day work week. Ultimately we have a 40 hour work week because that is how you can get the most work out of a person.
It's also been shown that knowledge workers, those that aren't repetitive manual labor, actual start to cost the company more after a certain number of hours due to increased number of mistakes.
EVERYONE wants lower taxes and reduced spending and "fiscal responsibility".
This is not true at all. I for one, which is enough for it to not be EVERYONE, do not want lower taxes. Taxes in my country are unbelievable low. On the other had I do want a change in spending, away from national offense, and away from corporate welfare.
Slashdot Mirror
"Intellectual property" is one of the few things that the US produces these days and it employs a large amount of people in a country rife with joblessness.
The United States is the world's leading manufacturer of goods.
United states unemployment rate is 9.2, which is lower than that of the European Union, and only 2 points above the world wide unemployement rate.
Just thinking you might what to actually check your facts before making wild allegations.
Certainly in the annals of all communes it has been tried.
I guess I should not have said that it had never been tested. Certainly it has been tested, but in each one of the those tests it becomes easy to find the fault that caused failure.
New Harmony, the example I am most familiar with, attempted, as the soviets did, to enforce conformity. Their failure was not one of economics, it was one of individuality. There is myth that resource collectivization needs to be brought about through conformity in all aspects of life. Owen's own New Lanark was far more successful, but even it was doomed to failure because it relied on the protection of what was effectively a benevolent dictator.
Some of the other communities you mention where based on and around religious belief and structure. These are societies that inherently provide privilege to a select group of people
Others on your list did not do away with private ownership, or attempted to manage public ownership through organizational ownership.
And lastly, all most all of them had to attempt to implement there collective structure within the domain of a society that did not support their right or ability to manage their resources in they way they chose to. A collective inside the United States, for example, is still required to pay taxes, and to do so they must raise capital.
Then you have to deal with the the tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org], and people who don't follow your rules.
The tragedy of the commons has been disputed effectively by people far more knowledgeable that I. I certainly don't need to reiterate their findings. But as for following rules, just as in any society there would be punishment for violating the contract of the society. And I'm not talking punishments like free room and board in housing with other law breakers. I'm talking the ability to voluntarily repent and correct the wrong doing, or expulsion from the society. If you don't believe in the collective approach, then you should feel free to move somewhere outside the collective.
Well that's a really lame reason to not change. Stop whining and go do it!
I'm not going to judge, but I'm guess that you are single and have no children. Once you have people that rely on you for their well being you no longer have the ability to change your financial situation on a whim. Also, I'm certainly not whining about it. I accept that I made the choices that got me where I am. I'm simple pointing out, that if I did not have to be concerned with how I would provide for self or family, as long as I was assisting with the advancement of society, then I would have more freedom, rather than less.
And that doesn't even touch upon the problems with our society and how we treat those that chose to do the single most important activity to the continuation of the society.
First of all, try not to confuse what the soviets did in the Soviet Union with communism. What the soviets did was bungle the transitional state between Capitalism and Communism, by going from Feudalism to a Malevolent Dictatorship.
Capitalism starts with the assumption that all people are greedy, and what is the best system we can create on that premise?
I do not believe that people are inherently greedy, and I doubt the nature of greed could be proven either way. What I do believe is that certain economic constructs promote greed (being the desire to have more than others), and that capitalism does so better than any other economic system. With that basis, you can see how creating a system that does not promote greed, would directly combat this miss-notion. The simplest way to devalue greed is to make all resources public. If you have no one protecting your right to hoard, then you would have no method for greed and so greed would be a non-issue.
The argument then goes, "so what is the motivation for people to work and achieve?" I do believe that it is human nature to continually want more. Even when a person has access to more than they could ever possible deal with in a life time, they still want more. This, and having full access to all achievements, would push people to continue the betterment of society as a whole. But I will admit, as much as there are some shining examples of what people can accomplish when working collectively, there has never been a test of what would happen if people had no ownership of property at all, and it's all just theoretical.
But under [collectivism], how do you deal with the fact that people like freedom? Above all, it is something they are willing to die for. They don't want to be told, "you, be a shoemaker" and nothing more. They don't want to be told that they can't leave the city they live in. How do you deal with man's innate desire for freedom?
I really wish the soviets hadn't gone and used the word communism when what they where doing had nothing to do with communism, or socialism. There is no reason for any lack of freedom under collectivization of resources. As members of a civilization well all agree to some rules. They can be as basic as "we don't kill each other" or as abstract as "we help out were needed." The rules under a collective would be know different. Each person would have the opportunity to move freely and acquire what ever job they are capable of. If an area has a need for a job and you have the skills then you can apply for the job. This is no different than under capitalism. The only difference is that all people would have free access to what ever tools where needed to acquire the skills for any job they wanted.
Sure there are some trade offs. If there is ever a shortage of a specific need, then all people will share in that responsibility equally. For example, if an area has a shortage of sanitation workers, and for some reason can't fill that shortage by immigration from another area, then each person would have to spend a portion of their work hours (which hopefully would be less than we have now anyway) on sanitation work.
The problem is, people think that jobs pay more because they are highly desired, the truth is that jobs are highly desired because they pay more. I know plenty of people in my particular field who would be just as happy digging ditches as they are doing what they do now, if they were able to maintain the same lifestyle and have the same growth potential. When everyone has the exact same resources at their disposal then the desirability of jobs changes, and becomes more individualized.
Just as an anecdote, I would love to change my career. I like what I do and I am good at what I do, but I would like to make a change. And as much as you may think I am free to make a career change, I am really very limited. To get the training for the new career I would not only have to expend time (which I am willing to do) b
Finally, eliminate personal income tax and replace it with consumption based taxes such as tariffs.
I would support this as long as consuming a persons labor was taxed like any other form of consumption. Employers would still need to pay taxes for using a person labor. So effectively it would be little different than an income tax. Employees pay would go down, while a companies consumption tax increased. Labor is our countries most utilized resource and no one should be able to utilize those resources without sharing in the costs of keeping a successful nation running.
People would have money in their pocket to pay off their debts faster, and it would encourage manufacturers to begin producing stuff in the US again, creating more jobs.
Sadly this only works on paper. People would still stretch themselves to the limit of debt and companies would still look to production that had the highest profit margins.
China's economy is booming, as is Korea, Germany, Australia, Brazil.
I'm not sure that a booming economy is really a good measure of future success. The US had a Booming economy only a few years ago, and now they are struggling. China's economy appears to be on a similar or far worse path, with an economic collapse looming overhead. Germany's population is aging and shrinking, both of which have historically been detrimental to the economic stability of the a country. South Korea's population is not only showing signs of shrinking, but it's norther neighbor is still out growing them, which in the case of Korea could mean political instability. Australia and Brazil are certainly going to be interesting to watch. historically neither has been significant in the global economy, but certainly that can change very quickly in troubled times.
I was making this very argument the other day. If you have a 10% unemployment rate, you can completely eradicate it by dropping to a 36 hour work week (35 is an easier number to divide evenly, but it would probably leave us with too few employees). Sure this would mean that on average each currently employed person would have to give up a little less than 10% of their income (hardly 8% after taxes). I know I would be happy to give up 8% of my net income to gain back an hour a day, and to keep the national economy from collapsing.
I also agree that no one should be working more hours than they are paid for. This is just causing people to be over worked and others to be unemployed. But some people think that they would be out of a job if they weren't willing to work extra hours. I am glad I do not feel that way.
If I wanted, I could cut my rent in half right now, by getting a roommate, but I like living alone.
That's too bad. Living alone is horribly inefficient, and known to be psychologically damaging. In theory the human brain would evolve to deal with the solitary life style, but it would be many, many, generations before that happened. But more importantly, if designed correctly, there would be no reason for you to have to live with other people, simply share resources. Yes it means you might not be able to use the resources at the exact moment you want them, though that can be mostly mitigated through design, but I would think for most people that would be a very small price to pay for having access to significantly more resources. But ultimately social living is better for humanity so I certainly wouldn't have a problem if those that didn't want to share in the wealth of an efficient society chose not to do so. Luckily there will never be a single world government so I'm sure people like you and people like I could live in separate countries. Mine would have happy people working together for betterment of society, and yours, well, I'm not sure what would happen in a world where everyone lived a solitary life (other than die out eventually).
OK, but on another point, how are you planning on implementing this? Surely you would need some kind of central planning, and that would become overbearing and difficult (much like it was in the old Soviet Union)
Simple answer, very slowly. Marx claimed that it would require a revolution to change from capitalism to socialism, and then over time to communism. The Soviet Union failed because the attempted to move from feudalism to socialism, and then where over thrown my sovietism. I can't say for sure if Marx is right or not, but many western countries have begun implementing a social plan including large portions of industry being collectivized. Canada and England have collectivized their health care, all western countries will eventually follow, if they have not done so already. Norway, the second wealthiest, and arguable the most prosperous, country in the world, has public ownership of many key industries, such as oil and gas production, as well as telecom and banking. With the success of these forms of collectivization shown in western cultures, I believe that violent revolution is not necessary, though possibly still valid.
You start by instituting a few small projects. We could start by creating a publicly owned car rental service, like Zipcar, but owned by the citizens of an area, city or state sized, and free for use by all citizens of the area. You eventually move on to building new housing, using efficient space planning, which would again be owned by the citizenry as a whole, and not any individuals, and allow people to live in these shared spaces. You also bring utilities, including telecom, and banking, which would in theory be short lived, back under public control. While all this is going on, you raise taxes to compensate, since there will still remain a functioning free market. Over all people will have less capital in their personal pockets, but will be pulling from a much larger pool of capital to provide services and resources that are used daily. That's clearly just a start.
The process of collectivization is not that radical that it has not been done, and done successfully I might add. The National Socialist Party of Germany brought about great growth in their country through collectivization. The Bolsheviks brought Russia from the brink of complete collapse, include wide spread famine, back to being an industrialized world power. Starting in the 1800s and continuing for nearly 100 years, New Lanark was a prosperous society based on collectivization and socialist principles. Sure each one of these failed eventually (well, New Lanark didn't fail, it just became irrelevant).
There are exactly two reasons that collectivized states have failed. One of which w
I am not doubting your point that we could make more efficient use of space, but... Why the hell would we want [ to no longer have private bathrooms and kitchens]?
For the efficiencies and what we gain from them. Again I'm not saying that these bathrooms or kitchens are for multiple people to use at the same time. I'm just saying that the vast majority of the time the bathrooms and kitchens of the world are unused, and they are perfectly suitable for shared use. Assuming my 1 to 10 ratio (which could be way more than we actually need) it means people start to take up 1/10th the space they do now (probably a bit more since I don't think you would be able to convince people to give up all personal space). This also means 1/10th the number of utility lines for water and sewage, and possibly electricity.
It's all about an economy of scale. The less we need to maintain, the more time there is for advancement of society as a whole. The gains far out weigh the losses (which is really only the loss of not sharing with others). Sure this requires people to actually want to improve their over all quality, diversity and capacity of life, rather than wanting to be relatively better than their neighbors. It does require a change in thinking, a change in zeitgeist if you will. But this is no reason for us not to push forward for the betterment of society.
My question to you then, is why would we not want this? Why would we not want to be more efficient? Why would we not want to have more for all people (based on use, not ownership)?
I've actually been thinking about your idea, sharing TVs and such, and really, the thing that is the largest expense in my life by far is rent; TV and car is such a minuscule thing compared to that, sharing those things wouldn't actually gain me any extra free time.
Then let me expand the possibilities a little bit (it would take multiple books to layout the full details). When we talking about he removal of private property, it means all property, including land, and homes. Now that in it self does not gain anything as resources and production are still limited, but handling those in a more efficient way is. If we imagine that rent is truly comparable to the resources consumed, then we have to assume that high rent is based upon the size of the space and the scarcity of the location. Each one of us has more living space than we could possibly use at one time, or at least we have spaces that we are not always using. Move some of this space to common shared spaces. If you no longer have to have a private bathroom (and I don't mean bathrooms would be like large public bathrooms, but that we don't have one bathroom per person, but say 10 bathrooms per 100 people), and no longer have private kitchens, and since we are sharing TVs, no longer have private entertainment rooms, then the total amount of space required for a home goes way down. You end up with what is effectively one room per person (or less for couples that share space), and then shared spaces that can be reserved for private use (notice that is use, not ownership).
Above is just one way that the total resources can be reduced, and greatly reduced. Building in high density space would reduce the value of land since you can place more people in the same land. This would also reduce the scarcity of prime land, since you can put more living space on prime land. Most importantly it would greatly increase the amount of shared public land for all to enjoy.
Now we already know how our available time can go up if we reduce the amount of time it takes to produce new resources, so the reduction in time to build living space will free up societies time. But you can easily take it a step further. Doing 100 of anything at once, is usually, with rare exception, more efficient than doing them one at a time. So instead of each family making meals for themselves, we provide public service that provides meals for people. I'm not talking about soup kitchens here, I'm talking about restaurants that all can use freely. This would free tremendous amounts of time, and human resources. Of course people would still be allowed to utilize a shared kitchen space for their own meals, but it would not be necessary, and I would suspect it would only be used rarely.
I don't have time to spell out the whole thing in a forum post, but I'm sure you're smart enough to extrapolate the other possibilities.
You'd win only in the sense that what I'd most like to do with my time is have sex, all the time. Maybe drugs.
And if you wanted to do those things with your free time, and could do them without harming others, I can't see any reason why you would not want more time to partake in those activities. But the point still stands, most people could use a little more free time to do as they chose.
Once you learn the pleasure of being productive, it isn't hard to have fun most of the time.
I would also bet that you are not as productive as you could be because of the over all inefficiencies of society. Once you learn the pleasure of being productive in a truly efficient environment you will realize that you are fooling yourself into think that you are productive. Now it's possible that you do have peak efficiency, because you might work for a public works project that is already collectivized, but even that probably has plenty of bureaucracy, caused by private ownership, getting in your way of productivity.
Many of is Americans are too self-absorbed to notice. I wonder if there's a pill for that
There are no known treatments for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is the worst manifestation of being self-absorbed. And why would someone want a treatment for it when it is likely to help you become a CEO or other important and powerful person. Just saying, being self-absorbed is a product of modern western culture, as Lasch explains it, and not a product of chemical imbalance.
lol still having trouble understanding the meanings of common words, eh?
I quoted the only two definitions of "fair" that are at all applicable to taxation. Unless of course you think that taxes should be "Of pleasing appearance, especially because of a pure or fresh quality" but that is quit the stretch, and extremely subjective. Yes, I'm sure the definition you are using is more along the lines of "Having or exhibiting a disposition that is free of favoritism or bias; impartial" but how you can think that taking from one person to give to another is in anyway "free of favoritism" or "impartial" I really can't fathom.
Oh, this is your problem. I currently spend 9/10ths of my time enjoying what I do. No wonder you don't like society the way it is now.
If you are a person that has found a way to survive in the current society while also spending 9/10ths of your waking and active time doing exactly the things that you find enjoyable then you are lucky indeed. I consider myself to be well above average in my enjoyment and even that is probably less than 1/2 of my active waking time. Most people would enjoy being free of the daily chores required to maintain a healthy lifestyle and living space. Most people with children could always use more time to spend with their children, playing and educating. Most people with any loved ones could probably use more time to spend with those loved ones. It seems that even you could use some more time, since at least 1/10th of your time is being spent on things you don't enjoy.
But, as a gambling man, I would bet good money that you are full of shit and well more 1/10th of your time is spent doing things you would rather not be doing. That is unless you never have to do domestic chores, or never had to argue of a charge or bill, or never had to deal with the time lost by having to take a product in for repair, or never have to commute, or... well I'm sure you get the point. Most of us have things that we don't enjoy doing but have to do so that we can do the things we enjoy. And as much as you or I might enjoy our jobs, it does not mean that all jobs are enjoyable, and handling those tasks in a collective and efficient way, would improve the overall life style for all people.
No, I'm against it because it's not fair.
If by fair you mean "Being in accordance with relative merit or significance" then I don't understand what would be fair about taking a persons hard earned resources from them. If you mean "Consistent with rules, logic, or ethics" then there is nothing more fair than saying that all people have the same rules applied to them. Saying that all people pay x% of their purchases as tax, is perfectly "fair".
I used to use the "fair" argument with my parents when I was a child. It did not work for me then and it will not work for you now. Sorry to say but fair is not a constructive argument.
ok, so lets say you have this system that is so efficient, what would you use your extra resources for? What would you do with them?
First of all they would not be "my" resources. Resources belong to the society as a collective whole. But that's just my opinion.
Now the answer to your question is simple. I would use the resource, human and physical, to improve society. This can be done through further invention and the production of those inventions (say through high speed personal transport for all). It can be done through improved quality of life (say through reduce workload and or increased variety). If there are currently 10 times the resources we actually need to maintain the current life style (such as have 10 times more cars than we need) then instead of having redundant resources we should have to labor 1/10th the amount of time that we do now. The other 9/10ths can be spent of leisure and enjoyment or invention and creativity.
The problem is that people measure success, as you do taxes, relatively. So that you are successful as long as you have more than someone else. If we start to measure success as an absolute, then we can all be successful, without the need to exploit or oppress others. We have the resources in this country and even world, to supply a better lifestyle for all people, even better than what the richest people live today. But because we spend all of our time trying to get ahead of others, rather than trying to move everyone ahead, we end up holding our selves back from real progress.
I am more than willing to pay extra to have my own stuff.
This is explains why you are against sales tax. Because you want to own your things, it means you will be doing a lot of purchasing, and paying a lot of tax. The truly poor on the other hand are not buying cars and other luxuries so they tend not to pay nearly as much (absolute value) in sales tax.
I'm all for efficiency...Why would you want that?...you must have a good reason for believing that is a better way.
I think it's self explanatory why I would want efficiency. If we operated more efficiently then all people would have a better over all lifestyle. When you use 1/10th of the resources we use today, then you effectively have 10 times as many resources to use. Right now auto manufactures have the capacity of producing 50 million cars a year. Imagine if they only produced 5 million or less? The other laborers and engineers could be working on other conveniences for people to utilize. Or if there is nothing more to produce, then people should be able to have more leisure time, in theory at least. Same goes for other luxuries. Why do we live in a society where most of the resources available are sitting idle. My 52 inch tv is unused more often than it is used, and when it is used, it's probably being used in a way that could be shared with many other people. But if I ever want to use a TV I have to own one the rest of the time, and when it's not in use no one else can use it either (not exactly true because I'll let most anyone use it, but most people don't know that).
I mean, would you really want to have to share all your stuff with other people? Don't you hate it when other people trash your stuff, or steal your food?
See the problem is that you are still thinking of it as "your stuff". When you stop thinking of things by who owns it, and start thing about who uses it, then you don't have to worry about someone taking "your stuff". The quickest way to reduce crime is to take away the motivations. If all people had equal access to all resources then there would be no property crimes (not saying this is a simple proposition).
Personally my stuff does not get "trashed" very often, even though I share my stuff with most anyone that asks. And since I only think of food as being mine when it's on my plate ready to eat, I have never had an issue with someone stealing my food. I have a family so sure sometimes I go to the fridge and find that something I want has been eaten, but that's just not really an issue, I just find something else.
And by the way, my slashdot id is no more than maybe 10 years old, so it doesn't really signify much about my age. But I was an adult long before I had an account on slashdot.
Oh, ok, this is more interesting than your inability to understand the word 'more.'
First of all the word was "most" not "more". Secondly, you are the one who chose to leave out important contextual information in your post. When portraying information it is up to the person presenting it to make sure they leave out ambiguity and make their position clear. Your argument is like saying that the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is longer than the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. By absolute distance travelled it is not longer, but it is if you count point to point as the crow flies, or if you only count the span that cross over sea water. So you need to supply the context, not assume that everyone thinks about taxation the way you do, which they clearly do not or else they would probably implement a plan you approve.
How exactly would you find a better method of employing motor vehicles? Is there one? I'm not sure you've considered the advantage of having a car whenever you want it.
In the United States there are 254.4 million registered passenger vehicles. There are only 203 million licensed drivers. Assuming everyone licensed driver in the united states was traveling to different destinations at the exact same time, there would still be over 50 million unused passenger vehicles. An on demand vehicle service, which automatically moved the nearest unused vehicle to a reasonably close location to someone who needed one, would bring the need for motor vehicles down considerably. That is of course making the assumption that individual vehicles where in themselves efficient.
Public Mass transit for all distances of more than reasonable walking distance within and between major metropolitan areas would reduce the need for personal vehicles much further. For shorter distances, or for traveling where mass transit does not go, such as neighborhoods not yet connected or off major travel routes (for those of us that enjoy camping and such) the the above mentioned publicly shared motor vehicles would be plenty, with their being less than 1 car per 100 licensed drivers (probably far less, but I'm just estimating).
This same pattern can be followed for nearly every resource on the planet, including TVs, video games, pools, etc. It can even apply to non-luxuries like housing. While each individual would need their own personal space to make a home, we could make a more efficient society using communal living spaces, such as kitchens, rec rooms, bathrooms, etc.
This is simply applying realistic resource management to everyday resources. This is not anything particularly radical or difficult to implement
If you are not an idiot, it should be pretty clear to you that by 'most' I meant 'most as a percentage of their income.' Why would I use it to mean anything different when I am referring to tax schemes?
Because not everyone thinks that percentage of income is a valid measure of taxation. When you measure as a percentage of income then you take more from those who work for a living than those that already control significant resource. But that's philosophical. Without direct context, "most" is an absolute value, not a relative one. I just think you would do better to use the phrase "highest percentage on income" rather then "most".
Why, because it isn't fair that some people have more than others?
It's far more basic than that and has nothing to do with fair. Rephrasing what you said, you can view my opinion as "because some people have". Private ownership is grossly inefficient, even if that private owner is an elected body. Only when the fully resources of a society can be pooled can efficient processes be defined. The simple fact that the vast majority of motor vehicles in the United States are not in use at any one time, is proof of the inefficiency of private ownership.
Sales tax under the system you describe becomes a hump tax: the middle class ends up paying the most.
Again you use this term "most" which seems very ambiguous in the way you are using it. The only way it would tax the middle class the most is if the middle class chose to over spend. The lowest income earners would pay 0 tax as they would be spending only on essentials (if you need it to live then it is essential). The spending will go up as the earning goes up, to the point where a person is spending as much as a person can reasonably spend on themselves. This might end up capping out somewhere in the middle earnings, but only if the middle earners feel they have to keep up with the top earners in spending. I have no problem with people being penalized for living above their means. For capitalism to work their needs to be incentive for those who earn less, to work hard to earn more. So ultimately the wealthier you are, to a point, the more absolute capital you would spend and the more tax you would pay. Not that it matters, since in any tax system, except some sort of flat citizen tax, some group has to end up paying the bulk of the tax, and what better thing to base it on than a persons chosen lifestyle.
By the way, I think capitalism is fundamentally broken, but redistributing wealth in a capitalistic system is certainly not going to solve the issues.
I was not arguing that it is or is not regressive, simply stating that your statement that "poor people pay the most, rich the least" was false. I guess I should have been clear as to which part of your statement was false. My apologies.
But as for the regressiveness of sales tax; Sales tax is only regressive when there is a tax on essentials. If there is no taxation on essentials, such as food and housing and utilities (even those last two could be considered luxuries), then the rich pay considerably more than the poor, since the rich purchase more luxuries than the poor.
Any tax on land that is not a one time tax negates the possibility of a person to ever actually own land. If we support private property and ownerships we must do away with any tax that requires continued payment for property. As long as the proposed Land Value Tax is a one time tax, then it is an idea we could reasonably support. Other wise it is just a scheme to keep a person from ever being able to own property and we might as well call it a land rental fee.
Exactly. Sales tax is one of the most regressive ways of collecting revenue (ie: poor people pay the most, rich the least). The sooner we get rid of it the better.
As much as I would love to hammer the rich and bring about an more level playing ground for all, your argument is not logical. Sales taxes is based on a percentage of purchases. Those that are rich have no ability to spend less than those that are poor. The cost of living does not go down just because you control more capital. So the rich pay at least as much sales tax as the poor (unless that are illegally circumventing sales tax, which is possibly). A item that cost X will cost an additional X*Y in sales tax, whether you have x*1 billion in capital, or simply x + x*y.
In actuality the rich pay considerably more sales tax than the poor because they have more discretionary spending. Sales taxes is a completely optional tax. Land taxes on the other hand are a racket designed to keep people from ever being fully self sufficient.
Arguing with an apparent Neo-Libertarian is like arguing with a wall. They, for some reason, feel that the right to maintain private control of resources is some natural law, like gravity or thermodynamics (Unless of course it gets in the way of their desire for free entertainment, like Intellectual Property does). You certainly are not going to change their opinion by using logic. But I applaud your attempt, not matter how futile.
So, if you don't have the right to use violence against others to take away their possessions, neither can you delegate that ability to the government.
You falsely assume, that without government, you have the right to "possessions". It has been shown time and time again, that the control of resources for private use comes only from the threat of violence. Without the threat of violence there would be nothing to stop one person from taking another person possessions. By nature the only right that a living creature has, is the right to use what ever means is necessary to do what ever they wish to do. There is no natural law that stops a person from raping and pillaging, only the fear of reprisal. Of course a person can chose not to rap or pillage, but that is their right to make that choice.
Contrary to what you may believe, there is no natural right to liberty. As a matter of pure logic, any right to liberty is in itself contradictory as your liberty can not impinge my liberty to act in ways that would impinge your liberty.
I know this is going ot be extremely unpopular, but who gave you the right to decide what to do with my offspring???
No one has the right to decided what you do with your offspring, you make that decision on your own. But just as you can decided what you do with your offspring, we can decided what we do with you. This is how law works, and it's a completely natural process.
Laws do not stop people from acting, the fear of the actions of others stops you from acting. Laws are simply a warning that if you act in a certain way that we, as individuals choosing to act together, will respond.
In a natural world its none of your damn business, and only becomes so through might, not right.
And forcing your offspring to do anything is not a matter of right, but merely you forcing your might upon someone else. We, as society, have as much right to bully you, as you have to bully your child. That is not society owning anyone, that's just nature.
After reading these comments from the men that founded our nation, it never even OCCURRED to them that we might want to lessen weapons in society.
It also never occurred to them that we would have fully automatic firearms, Portable high explosives, Self propelled ammunition, armored vehicles, or atomic weapons. If we want to go just with what occurred to the founding fathers than we should limit the right to bear arms, to only those arms that the founding fathers were aware of.
I am neither advocating for or against restricting fire arm ownership. I'm only saying that you can not be selective when choosing a line of reasoning. If you are going to argue that we should base modern understanding on what the founding fathers knew and said, then we have to take the full context into account.
For another thing, you've forgotten that people in this country DIED for the 40 hour work week, and I don't mean guys in trenches, I mean union strikers beaten to death by (privately hired) jackboot thugs.
Not to say that unions are bad, because I believe in unionization, or to say that people did not die because of their union affiliation, but that is not why we have 40 hour work weeks. We have 40 hour work weeks, and 5 day work weeks, because of information from Henry Ford. Ford discovered that the affectiveness of employees was achieved at a peak number of hours and with certain amounts of down time in between. The numbers Ford discovered where not exactly 40 hours or 5 day out of seven, but based on our 24 hour day and the 7 day week, it was a very close approximation to have a 40 hour/5 day work week. Ultimately we have a 40 hour work week because that is how you can get the most work out of a person.
In case you can't look it up yourself.
It's also been shown that knowledge workers, those that aren't repetitive manual labor, actual start to cost the company more after a certain number of hours due to increased number of mistakes.
EVERYONE wants lower taxes and reduced spending and "fiscal responsibility".
This is not true at all. I for one, which is enough for it to not be EVERYONE, do not want lower taxes. Taxes in my country are unbelievable low. On the other had I do want a change in spending, away from national offense, and away from corporate welfare.