[ExI] General comment about all this quasi-libertarianism discussion

[Kelly Anderson]

On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 10:11 PM, Damien Sullivan
<phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 09:27:52PM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> Also, perhaps more fundamentally, what I said at the end of the earlier
> paragraph.  To work, the norm is strong enough to *be coercive*.
> Instead of paying taxes because the police will come and take your goods
> and shoot you if you shoot at them, you'll pay your social dues because
> if you don't no one will talk to you or sell you food or let you cross
> their land.

Damien, I think you are missing a key aspect of a truly libertarian
government here. In that sort of government, there are no income or
property taxes. What is taxed, as was the case in the early US
government, are luxury items, import/export items and perhaps
insurance on contracts and a few other things.

This is probably impossible to achieve today because of the
entitlements that have grown up over the past 100 years, but
theoretically, I don't think most libertarians support income taxes.
When you say, "but that would not raise enough money to run the
government." You have to reconsider on a basic scale how large the
government should be.

Not that it is a widely held libertarian position (that I know of) but
I personally believe that the wars in the middle east should be paid
for entirely and exclusively with an oil/gasoline tax. This would have
the nice feature that the true cost of gasoline would be reflected at
the pump (instead of at tax time) and it would help people to make the
shift to non-petroleum systems. I think most real Libertarians just
want to get out of the war. I am not so sure that is entirely
feasible.

-Kelly