Tell HN: Vote. - Hackdot

Re:Tell HN: Vote. by krschultz on Tuesday November 04, 2008 @02:14AM (#353157)

Great in theory, but you can't secede from the effects of government. Lets say that you built a farm and where completely self sustaining. You never went out for anything, never put your waste onto the populace's sewer system. You never went out for healthcare, or drove on the public's roads, or used any technology funded by the government. What about the education you received at the tax payers expense? What about the past medical care you got as a child that you will never repay. Your theory is so irrational as to be impossible.

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Re:Tell HN: Vote. by yummyfajitas on Tuesday November 04, 2008 @08:28AM (#353380)

If this person's parents had more than the median income, they almost certainly paid enough in taxes to cover their child's education. They probably also paid for his/her health care.

The value provided by the government is merely the sum of all taxes paid - overhead/waste/corruption. Some people (the rich) get less back than they put in, some (the poor) get back more than they put in. So anyone who is sufficiently rich (1) has probably already repaid any debt they owed to society, and can legitimately secede.

(1) I ignore for the moment people who got rich from rent seeking, e.g. defense contractors, trial lawyers or members of public sector unions.

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Re:Tell HN: Vote. by wheels on Tuesday November 04, 2008 @06:08AM (#353283)

There have been some things that get pretty close. Kibbutzs in Israel simulate much of the "live peacefully with neighbors" but they tend towards collectivism.

The problem with going whole-hog anarchism is that on any significant scale (even a couple hundred people) peer-to-peer trust breaks down and anything that steps in to make processes more streamlined and reliable or introduces organizational structure becomes functionally equivalent to a government. We rely to such a huge extent on specialization of labor and trust of abstractions that such freedom doesn't scale if one expects modern amenities.

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