[ExI] Judging radical possibilities

[Dan]

On Monday, September 26, 2011 11:21 AM Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com wrote:
On 26 September 2011 16:23, Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> And many other places. And, in US history, the Whiskey Rebellion among other
>> times. (In one way, one might view the run up to the secession from the British
>> Empire as mass tax evasion followed by tax protest followed by actual hostilities.)
>
> There is however a difference between a tax strike and ordinary tax evasion, where
> the goal is not necessarily that of obtaining the abolishment/reduction of a tax or
> challenging the power imposing it, but rather simply that of... avoiding payment.
 
Agreed that there's a difference. It's also true that it's probably not the evasion leading to protest and rebellion, but the state reacting by enforcement that leads to the latter. And this might explain why enforcement tends to be lax in most places at most times. I'm not saying this is a conscious decision by the state, but it's probably a Darwinian thing: states that enforce like hell tend to foment protests and rebellions that lead to them being overthrown.
 
> One reason anti-tax movements in Italy have never been very strong, and mostly
> limited to political and theoretical debate, is that at a time around one third of the
> Italian economy was not paying taxes at all, and tax evaders usually are reluctant
> to attract attention on themselves or even to the class and sector they belong to.

That's true too. Protest and rebellion are not low profile and likely to only happen when enough people either don't fear reprisals or when they feel it's much worse to continue than to protest and rebell. But I gather, fitting in to what I wrote above, many if not most states don't allow things to get the bad for fear of inciting their own downfall. (In Darwinian fashion, those that do aren't around long and their successors likely learn. Sure seems to be the case in the US and much of Europe.)
 
Regards,
 
Dan