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Re:This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach by cma on Tuesday August 03, 2010 @10:26PM (#1573476)
>>"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money.

Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem.

See Mancur Olson's "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups"

Re:This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach by rick888 on Tuesday August 03, 2010 @11:09PM (#1573536)
"Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem."

When you are taxed, that money may or may not go toward something you want to purchase (and many times, the people in the middle and upper classes are paying for programs that they will never use). That money is gone and you have that much less to spend, save, or invest.

You also don't really have a say in where it's spent.

Re:This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach by stck on Wednesday August 04, 2010 @04:22AM (#1573973)
That's an interesting way to see taxation: as a possibility for a group of people to purchase something that otherwise would go unpurchased.

"sharing the value of common resources through taxation and public expenditure" is a related article: http://www.feasta.org/documents/feastareview/robertson.htm