Taxes are the means of transferring worth to folks like firefighters, police officers, construction works etc... You know, the folks who hold up infrastructure and need to eat food and stuff. And I can count on one hand the number of people I've met who would donate to these institutions in this economy.
Now if there's a way to reroute existing tax funds that used to go to rubbish into things that are really necessary, I'm all ears. And there may just be a way to work out something that enough heckling of public officials may... just may... get off the ground.
Step 1: Earmarks are verboten. I've lost count of how many times I've seen a bill pass congress with a whole heap of pork-barrel nonsense (subsidies to shady companies anyone?) because some senator has to do a kickback to the folks who paid for his/her election.
Step 2: Every law that is to be passed is read out loud from front page to end in congress by a designated reader from each party. They may take turns if they're tired, but no one is allowed to leave, have bathroom breaks, nap, chat or be otherwise distracted.
You actually get to bloody know WTF you're passing. Someone raises a hand and goes, "hey, that's stupid!" Everyone stops and discusses what it is that's stupid and the thing gets amended on the spot.
Step 3: No consecutive reelections... for anything. No exceptions! The chance that you won't be here the next term is a damn good way to ensure people remember you for the right reasons in your current term so you can come back the term after that to finish what you started. It also takes away the incentive to seek office as a career. No, you get to government to serve. Now pick up a broom, damn it!
...I'm sure someone else has some bright other ideas short of throwing out taxes, which functional societies will always have in some form until we throw out currency altogether.
Yet people give money to institutions every day, voluntarily. Not to mention, plenty of construction projects exist outside of government, as does security. Clearly some institutions are of value to us. If we thought we were getting real value out of our tax payments, the government would not need to use threats against us to collect it. We'd line right up to give our money away.
>Now if there's a way to reroute existing tax funds that used to go to rubbish into things that are really necessary, I'm all ears. And there may just be a way to work out something that enough heckling of public officials may... just may... get off the ground.
And what, to you, are things that are "really necessary"? That's one of the things that grinds governments to a halt in democratic societies - the need to agree on how to spend other people's money. It is never pretty.
>Ambitious ideas for change that have no chance of getting traction.
Every new layer of legislation that gets added in the name of "accountability" does little more than add paperwork, costs, and personnel to the payrolls. Then we complain yet more about government waste and inefficiency. It always sounds nice to talk about how to hold the crooks in power to task, but they're still the ones in charge of enacting the laws.
>until we throw out currency altogether.
What was this "Earth" of which you spoke?
Police officers, firefighters, teachers... Could it be that we don't really need any government to finance them? The demand is there. Private companies will be more than happy to fill it. All the government does is pretends that those things can't be done without it and then uses some of the money collected to finance things it wants, but you disagree with.
First, see my replies to you on why government == violence.
Now imagine if I extract some money from you ("for the children") and provide you with some "service". Service could even be valuable to you. But if at some point you get disappointed at my actions and decide to protect yourself from my aggression, I'd educate your children that your family is using my service and must shut up and pay for it. How'd you like it when your child will call the cops because daddy is against schools and public wifi? Government is nothing different, just on a larger scale.
I think this is a misstatement. Taxes are not the means of transferring worth to those individual people, taxes are the means of paying for that very infrastructure.
Without that ability, taxes would be effectively eliminated, since you could just avoid paying them without ill effects.
Also most of the public enemies who currently prosper thanks to the protection of the corrupt legal system (patent trolls, monopolists, politicians, financial fraudsters, etc.) would be quickly eliminated by a bullet to the head from the first passerby.
Let's start with the possible, shall we?
If your question is whether we can still have a civilized, stable and prosperous society, ask yourself would the demand for the good things that are currently provided by the government go? Would people still need roads and fire protection and security?
- Preventing the emergence of warring factions [1]
- Enforcement of rules underlying market transactions (e.g., contract law, property rights, policing, etc.)
- Underinvestment in public goods, such as basic research and national defense [2]
There is zero evidence that these three things are addressable at scale without some type of government, although of course we are free to argue forever about the level of centralisation, marginal tax rates, precise scope of activities, and so on.
How do you deal with petty crime? It would be impractical to set up a temporary court for every theft.
How do you hold the criminals while they're prosecuted, if they're prosecuted? Anarchists generally don't like prisons. Do you have a jail as a temporary holding cell?
How do you stop external forces from taking over? As the old adage goes "If you want peace, prepare for war.".
But in general, try to think of people from the middle ages wondering how would a country work without a king and what a crazy idea a democracy is. Or how stupid and primitive those troglodytes are for not believing in god. Or who's gonna pick cotton if we didn't have slaves. The problems you mention are not that difficult to solve. What's difficult is to show people that what they think is the best system out there is actually immoral.
Any particular volumes?
"Everyday Anarchy" by Stefan Molyneux demonstrates how we already live most of our lives in complete anarchy and how it actually works pretty good.
Both are available for free.
"No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker." - Mikhail Bakunin
You're overestimating my risk for memetic infection and underestimating how much prior exposure I may have had to this subject. I often ask people for examples or book recommendations to learn more about them as much as I do to learn about a subject.[0]
Besides, it couldn't possibly be worse than Mussolini's autobiography.
[0]: An example. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6056707
The authors response was worth more to me than the response of other commentators because I find that socialists often like to say that X or Y society wasn't socialist. So as an exercise I asked what they consider a socialist society.
(And I was genuinely interested in what they had to say, so I wasn't lying.)
I'd be surprised if someone touting anarcho-capitalist politics would be in favour of private prisons, at least the flavour we're used to today, where governments pay companies to house inmates. There isn't anything particularly anarchist about such a thing.
"Police officers, firefighters, teachers... Could it be that we don't really need any government to finance them? The demand is there. Private companies will be more than happy to fill it."
"I agree. Let's use Bitcoin. It's possible right here today and you don't give anyone a cut."
I hope people read the books OP mentioned. Anyone who advocates that we get rid police officers, firefighters, and teachers in place of private entities is an extremist. Plain and simple.
He mentions David D. Friedman and Stefan Molyneux whom are libertarians. It doesn't matter if the government is funding private prisons, private prisons have one goal and one goal only: to get as many prisoners as possible. They will do whatever they can to get more prisoners. They've permanently damaged families across the country. How would you fund prisons beyond taxes? Bill the prisoner? The family? What about someone who maintains their innocence? The point of the matter is that snitko has come into a thread and contributed absolutely nothing.
In a system I advocate, private prisons are, just like police and firefighters, funded by private citizens. A private citizen doesn't want to pay for the prisoner being held longer than it is truly required for him to become a decent member of the society again. If such a private prison decided to cheat its customers and extract more money by holding prisoners longer than needed, a customer may decide to stop paying it or switch to another prison (that is, switch to another protection agency). In many cases, people would not be send to prison at all, because it wouldn't be economically feasible from the protection agency customers point of view.
Now tell me, what's so extreme about my position? Why is it not reasonable?
Other people may be tempted to talk about NSA as issue of civil liberties and govt supervision rather than economy though. Why not to fund EFF and civil liberties group instead?