You get all sorts of benefits in return for your taxes. You can't realistically opt out of them. You can't live without using roads or being defended by the military. You can't tell society at large that when you get hit by lightning that you want they to leave you to die and not call an ambulance
Since you can't opt out, a nontaxpayer ends up being a freeloader and social parasite. The only just option is to have to contribute to the imperfect system
The whole idea of extortion is premises that people can exist somehow outside of society which is disconnected from reality.. No man is an island
> The libertarian notion that taxes are extortion is frankly childish in how overly simplistic it is.
The argument is weak because you constructed a straw man. The libertarian notion is not to live without any of the services provided by a state, but to have different providers which are in competition. The issue is that the state / gov has a monopoly but is exempt from antitrust laws.
The implementation is tricky though because in reality, when functions of the state are privatized there is often a huge amount of lobbying and corruption involved and these functions are given to a small group of big companies which effectively form a cartel once again. Then they extract all the economic value left in the infrastructure, the privatization is declared failed and undone, effectively another channel of syphoning tax money into the hands of big companies.
it never worked in practice though.
> has a monopoly but is exempt from antitrust laws
because it does a mediocre job at many things, making it quite easy to compete against it when and if it's worth it, but provides those things no private entity would, because it's anti-economical.
like, for example, the proverbial roads to nowhere.
How does inflation pay for services and infrastructure?
And you say the libertarians are childish and simplistic
Or people can agree to collaborate (like a church or workers union) without extortion of citizens. There’s plenty of examples where extortion isn’t necessary.
I’m also not suggesting taxes shouldn’t be levied at all, I’m saying land and income taxes are particularly gross, as they misalign incentives. Like I said, the more civilized a civilization is, presumably the less protection people need, so we should pay less taxes. Similarly, the more civilized a civilization the more services can be provided by the private sector. The reverse trend is true for taxes, they charge more for less.
It is inherently immoral to own land. Land belongs to the people of the society that controls it. No one in that society ever had the right to give it away. I agree that land owners should be reimbursed if we enter an LVT, but the idea that private ownership of land, an asset that can not be created and is inherently limited, should be allowed is frankly nonsensical. Land belongs to society, and thats why LVT is the best tax. Funding the government with the profit of the land makes the most sense.
It is also the poorest and most corrupt parts of the country. Shit happens on the reservations that would even make Congress blush. If you want to see what happens when land is devalued and not ownable, look at the reservations.
you can always try to build your own country in your own land and see how it goes.
"Robs you of assets faster the more valuable it is" <--False, it collects the advantages that accrue to land (a free gift of nature) in exact proportion to the benefit that the land provides. Land value is a social surplus, not a charge.
"random person will dictate what you owe" <--False, assessments are made by observing the market according to well-established principles. See: https://www.iaao.org/ and just like today, you can establish multiple levels of oversight and include the option to appeal.
Tax is someone taking money by force. Supposedly this tax is then used to protect the land / assets from being seized. Over time every country seemingly has increased taxes as stability increased (not the other way around), so in reality — it’s extortion. Give us money or we take your stuff, your “protector” takes more because you don’t have other options.
Back to the land value tax, why bother? It’s the same fundamental issue; why are we paying these taxes?
And before we get into “but the services”. I moved somewhere that has approximately zero taxes and zero services. It’s great - safer, cheaper, better run. A lot of community stuff is ran by parents or churches, people tend to just “figure it out”.
The idea of a land value tax is insane because it robs you of assets faster the more valuable it is. We had this in the past, feudal Europe, it sucked. What it will end up being is just like Europe some random person will dictate what you owe and if you don’t pay it, then someone else is granted it at a discount. Probably the bureaucrats cousin.