What if all taxes were distributed to all citizens equally?

[remotemass]

What if all taxes were distributed to all citizens equally, that would then be free to fund governamental endeavours as they wished.
I think such an anarco-capitalist model could be interesting. It is very different from communism because it would completly allow free market. The great difference would be that all money collected from taxes would be put directly in the hands of citizens, which seems much better than voting...

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[Lethn]

What you're proposing sounds like a flat tax rate, I wouldn't distribute it equally though, I'd just have it across the board at about 5% or 10% and then that's it, I think I'm right in thinking that Switzerland has a flat tax rate, not sure about other countries though.

[misterbigg]

How about people just get to keep the fruits of their labor instead, and fund any government entirely through voluntary donation?

[Elwar]

What if all taxes were distributed to all citizens equally, that would then be free to fund governamental endeavours as they wished.
I think such an anarco-capitalist model could be interesting. It is very different from communism because it would completly allow free market. The great difference would be that all money collected from taxes would be put directly in the hands of citizens, which seems much better than voting...

I have thought of such a process as well.

The whole "tax" thing is always the thing that gets in the way. Requiring someone to give up their money with no choice is akin to slavery.

I believe the best system would be for any new citizens to be required to "buy into" their citizenship. This money could then be distributed in the way that you are speaking of.

Each citizen would then have the option of supporting whichever projects they wish to support using their money.

I would also contend that the citizen would actually have the option of just taking the money and leaving, but they would still be on the hook for spending that much money if they were wanting to return to citizenship.

I am getting ahead of myself though...baby steps.

Coming soon.

[blockbet.net]

How about people just get to keep the fruits of their labor instead, and fund any government entirely through voluntary donation?

This argument has been made before, and unfortunately I don't share your optimism for humanity in this aspect. People tend to only care about things that directly influence them so - why donate to hospitals if you're not sick? Why donate to schools if you don't have kids? Why donate to libraries if you don't read that much? etc.

Sure there will be generous people backing important projects, but their donations would have to be continuous and substantial to cover all the people who aren't donating anything.

Btw, how long has the current Wikipedia fundraiser been going on?

[justusranvier]

This argument has been made before, and unfortunately I don't share your optimism for humanity in this aspect. People tend to only care about things that directly influence them so - why donate to hospitals if you're not sick? Why donate to schools if you don't have kids? Why donate to libraries if you don't read that much? etc.

So basically people must be forced to contribute to things they should contribute to but refuse to willingly.

Why gets to decide the "shoulds", and why do they get to make that decision for other people?

[doobadoo]

Sound a little like the 'fair tax.'   Under which there would be one high rate sales tax on everything.  The government would then calculated a purchase level that every one needs to "get by."  For example you need to buy $20,000 of food, gas, clothes, etc per year.  The government then refunds the taxes on that 20K of purchases to you as a "pre-bate" so that your basic necessities are untaxed.

[remotemass]

How about people just get to keep the fruits of their labor instead, and fund any government entirely through voluntary donation?

I have no problems with that. My problem is really with the concentration of wealth that corporations achieve with increasing displacement of people and with more and more exploitation of them.

[doobadoo]

I have no problems with that. My problem is really with the concentration of wealth that corporations achieve with increasing displacement of people and with more and more exploitation of them.

Yeah but many would argue that the wealth concentrates because of government privileges, particularly allowing family sized businesses grow into mega corporations.  If you ban corporations, people could only become as wealthy as much as they and their immediate family could manage in their own name.  The rise of the mega-wealthy around the turn of the century was no accident.  In the 1870s a state supreme court ruled that corporations could be formed to act as an independent entity.  Up till then people were only allow to form a corporation for specific large public projects, like building a single bridge or road, and then only for a limited number of years b4 it would have to be sold to a natural person or municipality.

[Mike Christ]

I agree with the no-tax thing.  If you want a hospital in your area, you're gonna have to fund it out of pocket.  If not, the hospital goes away.  People aren't going to live in an area without a hospital, so they're also going to go away--either due to lack of hospital, or lack of hospital.  I believe people are smart enough to know that if there's no hospital, it makes it really, really hard to live, and if an accident were to occur, it would be much more likely to be fatal.

In other words, those who want to live without a hospital, are going to find a neighborhood like that.  Everyone else is going to live in a neighborhood which does want a hospital, and there will be likely a group of people who run tiny neighborhood-sized governments to make sure you help pay for that hospital to be there.

Whoops, I'm getting into Anarchism  Sorry!  But to be frank, there is no America without taxes.  For a democracy to work, you need to pay someone's salary to keep the democracy going.  Obama isn't selling anything.  He is paid through taxation.  Or, we could automate congress through machines and the internet, which I am 100% in favor of, at least until people realize governments don't need to be this big.

[Wilikon]

What if taxes were based loosely on the bitcoin distribution model?

First of all no one cares for taxes, no one loves taxes, but even the most anarchist creature is still  socially wired to behave. So we need something to take care of "stuff": road, military, transport etc, etc.

The thing is we need to reinvent taxes so it creates a "positive flaw" instead of a negative one. the analogy with bitcoin would be a crypto open book were you can follow your contribution from end to end. No one has to know who you are but "investing" in your community would make sense as everyone would have access to a "blockchain of general needs" with different levels based on the size of your commune. A NASDAQ like entity would show to everyone were money is lacking and how you would want to help the tribe (local level). It would show where obvious waste are and a need for that "tribe" to move of join a better/bigger tribe if they have what you are. As soon as a "level" is reached, a new tribe has to be created.

250 years ago this kind of concept was a dream, but now the information highway is old news and big data will move faster and faster so a powerful centralized system would become unnecessary. The same way currency is moving toward decentralization with bitcoin (or something even better) that's is the way government should be and so is taxing.

[Elwar]

but even the most anarchist creature is still  socially wired to behave. So we need something to take care of "stuff": road, military, transport etc, etc.

disconnect right there

[Mike Christ]

Services would be paid for by the people who use the services.  Let's say we need to repair a road we all use in a specific part of town.  We need to raise enough money to pay some people who specialize in road repair to do the job.  In our current system of taxation, you not only need to collect the money (an automatic process, which you must comply with to survive,) but then you have to convince the mayor (or whoever's in charge) to spend that cash that you've given him on the road you'd like to be repaired.  Instead, in my case anyway, he spends it on another fucking stadium, in a completely different part of town.  And the road is still fucked up.  (It doesn't even have a sidewalk.)

If taxes were not there, one might assume the road would never get fixed.  However, if enough people got together and decided they'd like the road they drive on to be nice, they'll cough up the cash and pay someone to do it.  At least in this way, if instead of the road getting fixed, they decided to build another fucking stadium, we know it's nobody's fault but ours.  And besides that, you have complete control over where your money goes; since the folk living on the north side of town want another fucking stadium, they can pay for it (which they can't, as most people in that area are poor, as all jobs in that area are apart of entertainment and pay minimum or close to it, not to mention most of the housing is apartments and hotels.)  Those who live in the south part of town will want to invest in the road closest to them a lot more, as they'll be using it more than anyone in the north side of town.

The down side is, areas with more rich folk are going to appear much, much nicer, and areas with more poor folk are going to look as such.  But that's assuming America actually ever drops taxation, which means a lot more will be dropped before that happens.  If that occurs, I can only hope these fictional class distinctions will pull much closer to one another, where rich people aren't filthy stinking rich, and poor people aren't filthy stinking poor.

[Elwar]

It just seems foolish to me that someone could have tastes or beliefs of how disgusting or unfortunate the lower classes are, while essentially encouraging a system that creates lower classes.

I agree, but for some reason people do not support the free market and thus perpetuate the lower class.

[Ekaros]

Services would be paid for by the people who use the services.  Let's say we need to repair a road we all use in a specific part of town.  We need to raise enough money to pay some people who specialize in road repair to do the job.  In our current system of taxation, you not only need to collect the money (an automatic process, which you must comply with to survive,) but then you have to convince the mayor (or whoever's in charge) to spend that cash that you've given him on the road you'd like to be repaired.  Instead, in my case anyway, he spends it on another fucking stadium, in a completely different part of town.  And the road is still fucked up.  (It doesn't even have a sidewalk.)

If taxes were not there, one might assume the road would never get fixed.  However, if enough people got together and decided they'd like the road they drive on to be nice, they'll cough up the cash and pay someone to do it.  At least in this way, if instead of the road getting fixed, they decided to build another fucking stadium, we know it's nobody's fault but ours.  And besides that, you have complete control over where your money goes; since the folk living on the north side of town want another fucking stadium, they can pay for it (which they can't, as most people in that area are poor, as all jobs in that area are apart of entertainment and pay minimum or close to it, not to mention most of the housing is apartments and hotels.)  Those who live in the south part of town will want to invest in the road closest to them a lot more, as they'll be using it more than anyone in the north side of town.

The down side is, areas with more rich folk are going to appear much, much nicer, and areas with more poor folk are going to look as such.  But that's assuming America actually ever drops taxation, which means a lot more will be dropped before that happens.  If that occurs, I can only hope these fictional class distinctions will pull much closer to one another, where rich people aren't filthy stinking rich, and poor people aren't filthy stinking poor.

What kind of overhead does this system include? I mean in total including spend time by individuals, collecting payments and how long it would take to reach agreement on sharing the cost and reaching sufficient amount of investors for one project.

[blockbet.net]

If taxes were not there, one might assume the road would never get fixed.  However, if enough people got together and decided they'd like the road they drive on to be nice, they'll cough up the cash and pay someone to do it.

My guess would still be that 80% of the people would just assume that somebody else is going to pay for the road and they'll get to use it for free. Or they might chip in a couple of dollars just in principle, but that's not nearly enough to get the job done.

[Bitcoinm]

If taxes were not there, one might assume the road would never get fixed.  However, if enough people got together and decided they'd like the road they drive on to be nice, they'll cough up the cash and pay someone to do it.

My guess would still be that 80% of the people would just assume that somebody else is going to pay for the road and they'll get to use it for free. Or they might chip in a couple of dollars just in principle, but that's not nearly enough to get the job done.

A free market allows for innovations.  Perhaps some roads are funded by toll boothes, perhaps some electronically scan your license plate and bill you later if you agree to drive on the road, and perhaps someone finds a way to make advertisements cover the cost of the road and everyone gets to drive on it for free.

[Mike Christ]

What kind of overhead does this system include? I mean in total including spend time by individuals, collecting payments and how long it would take to reach agreement on sharing the cost and reaching sufficient amount of investors for one project.

Beats the piss outta me  It could be as simple as a community joining together and figuring out how they'll go about it, to an automated system, perhaps a website, which collects funds to be distributed by a trusted member of society (LOL) for the contractors who auctioned for the job.

What about a two-way auction; workers decide on prices they'd like to work for, and people decide how much they're willing to spend for the projects--people as in, entities, groups of people, or maybe one charitable rich individual (LOL)

My guess would still be that 80% of the people would just assume that somebody else is going to pay for the road and they'll get to use it for free. Or they might chip in a couple of dollars just in principle, but that's not nearly enough to get the job done.

That's what gets me the most.  It'd be hard for America to ever see this day because Americans are trained to be Americans, and Americans pay for their room and board out of pocket, and everything else is taken from them automatically--fixing a road would be considered another expense they don't want, despite no longer having to pay taxes.

[Ekaros]

What kind of overhead does this system include? I mean in total including spend time by individuals, collecting payments and how long it would take to reach agreement on sharing the cost and reaching sufficient amount of investors for one project.

Beats the piss outta me   It could be as simple as a community joining together and figuring out how they'll go about it, to an automated system, perhaps a website, which collects funds to be distributed by a trusted member of society (LOL) for the contractors who auctioned for the job.

What about a two-way auction; workers decide on prices they'd like to work for, and people decide how much they're willing to spend for the projects--people as in, entities, groups of people, or maybe one charitable rich individual (LOL)

Two way auctions is interesting system. Still, would need some sort of common platform. First get group of people agreeing on what will be bid on at on what terms including placing a seed bid in, then people can bid into their part into system and at same time other side provides bids to provide the service. At some point these two would be met and possibly after certain time the lowest bid for providing service would win and the bids for service would be moved to trusted party possibly.

Not really good explanation, but I think this kind of system might be needed at some point. It's not perfect as there needs to be one or two third parties or trust in service providers.

Still, the question remains is this efficient use of resources, mainly would people bidding to get service use their time to produce something. While some party could be much more efficient in using taxed resources.

[Mike Christ]

It just seems foolish to me that someone could have tastes or beliefs of how disgusting or unfortunate the lower classes are, while essentially encouraging a system that creates lower classes.

The problem is, we're assuming fiat will still be a thing and the only thing we're replacing here is taxation.  Given the current state of America, this will run into a problem of the poor being unable to fund their own projects, while the rich live away from the poor in their mansions and beautiful cities for rich-onlies.  In order for a no-taxation system to work, you've first gotta get rid of government, which keeps the circle of rich-being-rich and poor-being-poor going.  Let's assume, instead, that we're in a capitalistic society in which Bitcoin is the popular currency, and due to it being deflationary, people earn wealth, rather than releasing debts.  Thus, those who save will cease to be quite as poor, so long as they don't let go of their digital gold to some hooker with a referral to a ponzi scheme, and those who are rich will have actual wealth, as opposed to the silliness of what we have now.  At this point, when regulation and patents are nixed, all that can be done is to educate the masses (and I mean real education,) and pray they don't allow themselves to slip into another scheme like the one we're in right now.  Used to be, you were poor because you made poor decisions.  Today, unless you're born into wealth, you're poor by default, and will likely remain poor.  Workers will need to feel they're worth MUCH more than their time is currently worth, which can be accomplished by first abolishing the minimum wage.  Minimum wage assumes that $7.25 is actually a living wage.  Obama wants to increase this to $9, and I still don't call this a living wage, especially when considering wages are not competing with inflation.  Without minimum wage, people would (hopefully) fight for better wages (since there's no substandard invisible bar that $7.25 is better than nothing.)  In the end, people fund the rich.  Without the poor, the rich cannot be rich, yet very few seem to acknowledge this to its fullest extent: it's as if you could scream it at the top of your lungs and it still wouldn't ring as true.  The poor must stand up for themselves, and demand higher wages from those with extreme wealth.  Without a government to protect the rich, it will actually be possible.  As it stands, it is not, and the poor continue to be exploited for they spend too much time working to ever know the difference of their circumstance and how swiftly it can change.

Forgive me, for I don't mean to come off as hypocritical; I'm speaking in hypotheticals, mostly for fun