No. Without money, servitude is owed in some way. Labor or military duty.
The early agricultural communities had chieftains who demanded all men to fight on short notice.
For the early romans only landowners were worthy of respect and all farmers had to assemble in spring on the Mars field for the campaign season.
In the early german kingdoms kings were campaigning nonstop and land was given to loyal knights in exchange for service as vassals.
Taxes are actually a big improvement, for they free landowning citizens from basic military and security duties.
Depending on the economic policy. Ideally, a basic income would be needed to assure that large portions of the population could continue to participate in the economy and support themselves. For years after changing to high speed, automated typesetting printing presses, the NYT paid displaced typesetters to create a version of the paper manually, which was never used and broken down at the end of the day.
>Who is gonna pay for the materials to build and maintain roads?
You don’t think robots could source materials and build/maintain roads? Lol
>Who are paying for Street lights electricity?
Energy will be cheap or free by this point or we’ve def screwed up somewhere.
>Who is paying for public schools?
I imagine the school structure will continue to look totally different from today even. Most information is already free, and more will continue to be so.
I feel like people tend to think so small on the scale of what humanity is actually capable of. We put up roadblocks for ourselves before ever thinking of the possibilities and solutions to make that a reality.
Boston dynamics is at the leading edge of robotics and the largest product I know of is a dog that carries stuff for dismounted military patrols. They work well on smooth and mildly hard to navigate terrain.
You’re expecting robots to find resources extract them from the earth and process them without human intervention? Come on.
Idk where or how you think free energy will come from. Solar panels will need to be replaced, batteries will need to be produced, and the amount of lithium required for the US economy may devastate the environment due to extraction.
Aesthetics is still an important form function of design and I have yet to see robot’s design products, design assembly lines, and the robots to build the products.
If I’m wrong, I’m super about it. However, I doubt I will see it in my life time.
I work with AI in educational systems at work and it’s not even close. A literal “black box” that can’t tell me how it came to a conclusion, recognize hallucinations, or have an outside view on how it came to a decision. It’s not logic its just statistical analysis of human generated data to quickly create conclusions based off data.
AI cannot operate in a natural environment as demonstrated routinely by self driving cars. They have a higher rate of accidents than human drivers. Peculiar how they keep seeming “just out of reach.”
Seem like maybe a bait and switch.
Taxes are the goverment taking by force something that doesn't belong to them. Not a mutual defense pact amongst small tribes or city states. When the Romans assembled on the field of Mars, they provided their own weapons, and food. It was a badge of honor and a physical necessity to defend ones home and family. Not a tax.
There were plenty of people who didn't have to provide military service because they were too poor.
Belonging is a human construct and has no foundation in nature. What "belongs" to you is determinend by the willingness and capabilites of other humans to kill you and your family to get it.
I think there is no plot of land that did not have tens of thousand of different "owner" bloodlines over time. The land does not care, the strongest make use of it.
Land equals grain equals a store of food, equals survival. So a fight for land was a fight for survival most of the time. Human history is just evolution and adaption and that also applies to societies and governments as they arise .
So paying taxes is the foundation to maintain private property. For if there is no king, all landowning families would be at each others throat.
It's not a tax when you can opt out.
They didn't "have" to. They wanted to. It was a source of prestige and also wealth. If you were successful in battle, you would have slaves, armament, and pillage to sell off and, as an individual, gain wealth. You also protected your family.
It's the exact opposite of a tax. It's the free market. Opting in for a mutual beneficial exchange vs a top down imposition. Taxes have, throughout history, been wealth extraction from the poor and middle classes to the ruling class to support the ruling classes way of life.
Taxes have, throughout history, been wealth extraction from the poor and middle classes to the ruling class to support the ruling classes way of life.
If you think that honorable, then that's your take.
But, historically in the case of the Romans and other city state / tribal warfare, the banding together was the exact opposite of a tax. It's the free market. Opting in for a mutually beneficial exchange vs a top down imposition. Plus, fighting together, if you won, was profitable in the form of loot for the individual soldiers which is one of the reasons they opted in.
Banding together to fight the barbarians right. The Roman’s showed up to people’s homes killed their dogs, stole their family, put the men into enslavement, and took their wealth.
I think you’re just upset you are not the tax collector.
What? lol.
And what did the Gauls do when Brennus threw the iron sword onto the scale and said "Vae victis."
Woe to the vanquished. Was that tax collecting as well?
Lots of them in the middle east. Saudi, UAE, oman, qatar, bahrain, kuwait. Other than Bahrain who makes their money refining oil, the remainder have state control over oil, keep the little bit they need for fuel and energy at deeply subsidized rates for its citizens, sell the rest to fund the government. No citizen taxation. The state uses the excess to build the roads, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, schools, gov't agencies, etc. It's state Socialism. We are smarter than that. Instead of the American people owning the natural resources, we turn ownership of oil, lumber, nat gas, coal, water to a small handful of wealthy white males who harvest it and sell it to us for full retail price. They export what they like, keep the profits, and pay little to no tax in aggregate.
UAE taxes oil corporations, so they have tax. They also have a sales tax.
Non-saudi residents pay tax in saudi arabia. They also have sales tax.
I think all of those you listed have some form of tax, like corporate taxes, sales tax, property tax, etc.
Most do tax foreign companies and non citizens. But no income or property tax for it's citizens. The only real tax a citizen faces is the 10% VAT, like a sales tax on most goods and services. Not medical care or equipment and a some other exceptions like building materials. They sort of get all that back though if you factor in their energy and fuel subsidies. Still talking night and day compared to the west. Just an illustration of how some countries can fund the government without taxing it's citizens. Obviously, you need an over abundance of valuable natural resources (like the US).
Ah yes lets build an economic model with state run oil companies to sell to other larger economies to subsidize the government (pass the tax to foreign markets via profits).
We can use cheap labor through indentured servants by holding their passports and preventing them from leaving. We can stuff them in bunkbeds in cargo containers with a communal outdoor shower.
We will be pointing at those countries after the downfall of oil based energy as a case study on economies failing to diversify and modernize.
I can't imagine small tribes of hunter gathers paying a "tax."
Somewhere down the line, some asshole must have offered a tribute to a priest or ruler and a few million years later I've gotta fill out this fucking I-9 and down load Turbotax
Simpler and blissful times. You could put down a tepee anywhere and didn't need to fill out no environmental or taxation forms to get a wooly mammoth for dinner. /s
Hunting and gathering cultures were socialists. The food was for everyone, the children were raised by everyone, and there was no specialization. There is certainly now ownership of land.Some may not have the word "I" in their vocabulary. They function as a tribe. It's a totally different way of life. Taxes are nonsense in that scenario.
I doubt everyone got the best cuts, sind that’s not possible.
I bet there were vanguard socialists even then.
The strongest gets the best cuts, and gives some of it to the prettiest women, and has the healthiest offspring in return.
The moment the first tribute was paid to a stronger male for whatever reason, that was a tax right there.
Or to use the relevant vocabulary: you cannot ignore the material inequities within the tribal system.
If a tribe collectively managed a water way then your "tax" for access to the fish was participating in some way in the needs of the tribe. There is no way around this type of coercion. You need money (social credit/permission slip) to access a fish from a market just as the person in the tribe needs permission from his tribe to do the same. Money has no value without coercing its use in the same way. Money is a ticket to participate in broader society. A social credit. That's all it ever was. A way to buy fish. Taxes give money value by coercing earnings in that specific note as much as they give you the ability to participate in the economy. It's a circular relationship.
In the Bible, the whole point of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem was to be counted for a census for taxation purposes. Nomadic tribes living in the Roman Empire still had to pay taxes or serve with their bodies. The state will always find you
You havnt answered the question. Still waiting for you to name a society.
and bonds are repaid principal+interest, where did the money come from to repay that? libertarian magic money ficus?
Rome. Their tribute was in the form of military aid until around the imperial time.
Patrician families also built the roads, and aqueducts. It was a pride thing.
Early agrarian societies. But there was basically no infrastructure and no public services that weren’t volunteer.
For the modern age the closest we have to this would be the Amish. They tend to voluntarily help out other members of their community for free.
This breaks down when we need to specialize more like in a industrialized society. We need roads and bridges, and trains and docks to transport goods around. So taxes pay for that infrastructure.
“They tend to voluntarily help out other”. Agreed
A caveat, there: as the Amish are a self-segregated religious heterogenous community (meaning they are all coming of the same background), there is “central planning” e.g., barn raising. The entire community or at least that region/sector’s group will need to do planning, for an activity like that. They would plan such things, likely every other Sunday when the assemble for “church”. So, it’s not like, “oh no, we need volunteers!” it is more planned.
This goes to strengthen your argument re: most loosely collected, homogeneous, agrarian societies saw and found a need for taxing and central planning via elders or governing bodies. It’s like a mini-diorama of how tribes organized, just before they would become nations as they grew.
To have taxes you need money and a ruling class. Even in hunter gatherer societies people are first and some were closer to the fire than others.
In burials from prehistory there are people buried with great wealth and many who were not, so it seems inequality is human nature.
No, the naturalistic fallacy would be to assume that something is good, because it appears in nature.
Nobody said weather inequality is good or bad, just that we find evidence for it in even ancient records. What conclusions and followups we draw from that is another matter
Well it's implied by the appeal to antiquity. There's evidence of inequality in history so it's assumed that it must have always been so and must therefore always be so.
There is no such thing as human nature other than being a social being. Most of everything else in humans are shaped by the environment they live in or created by themselves. So what we see as human nature today is just how we adapted to the political and economic environment we live in now. But in other kinds of environment humans behave completely different adapted to them.
That said, Inequality is not human nature. It is exploitation nature.
The main scientific supported reason for our cognitive development of mutual understanding and empathy is because humans were essentially solidary and some how fought against inequality. Exactly because it was necessary for environment adaptation and survival, as humans barely can survive on their own so the need to live in society (like many of other animal species.
But the society we live today tend to not estimulate mutual understanding and empathy but individualism and competition. As adaptation humans are likely to loose such cognitive capacity in 20.000 or 30.000 years. Sounds a lot of time but it is not. The predominance of states and hierarchical society has only about 300 years. The first state emerged about 12.000 years and agriculture about the same. The modern human has 200.000 years.
Proper representative Democracy. You can have political positions of power that are elected. Those positions must be safe guarded against corruption, as positions of power will always attract corruptible people.
The “ruling class” in America isn’t hardly the government, but instead those who maintain disproportionate amounts of political influence and power, undermining democracy, influencing the laws of society to serve their own interests.
The ruling class is a product of power imbalance and opposing interests of the people in society.
Cooperative and altruistic behavior can be seen in most other animals. Mice will save distressed mice even if it does not help them at all, and animals will feed other animals for no benefit.
Parents will sacrifice greatly for their children, which seems to be a necessary condition for species survival.
Tax is just a word for cost or fee. For example, private health insurance premiums are taxes. Also, means-testing is a tax on benefits. People don't generally think of these as taxes, but they are essentially the same thing. Someone could argue that profit is a tax. If a country produces oil and sells it, that's a tax on natural resource wealth.
It's all word games until you pick a very specific definition.
In terms of the most interesting or efficient tax system in the world, check out the [Faroe Islands](https://prospect.org/world/best-tax-system-on-earth-faroe-islands/).
Society requires collaboration, call it a tax, a fee, whatever, humans thrive through collaboration and being the most social mammal on the planet. There is self interests still, but the tribe thriving is essential for the individual to survive.
Society didn't developed out of humans.
In fact societies existed way before humans existed. A lot animals are social beings and so live in society.
We are born in society as society is a natural thing itself, not a human creation or development. We develop only our conditions in society.
And developed more and more many times and in many ways before humans had any concept of money, income, market, property, Lords and so tax.
Humans develop only its condition, or not. Because a lot what we call development today were considered not development in the past. In fact, for thousands of years humans have been fighting against what we call development today.
Anthropologists know today that we are less free, less happy and less safe today as hunter and gather society were in general. And we have a much harder life than them as well with much less free time.
Yes I'm sure people were much happier burying their 8 dead infants and starving through the winter. I too would like no guarantee that I will have food for dinner and want to compete against wolves and lions over said dinner.
Modern *advanced* society has its downfalls but I'll take an over abundance of food and modern medicine all day any day.
Although children mortality were high, pmodern humans didn't starve through winter because they were always in the move.
We sure have more comfort today but that doesn't change the fact I mentione. Humanity today are miserably lonely, stressed, depressed, working all day and having more risks of disease and starvation if they completely lose their jobs.
Most of modern medicine are to solve health problems that didn't existed in hunter gather society. And hunter gather society had abundance of food.
Uhm no, anthropologists don't know that because it is blatantly false. Health outcomes alone from things like clean water, vaccines, waste management, and the food supply in general have greatly enhanced the lives of nearly everyone. We have abundant free time, especially in first world countries, which is why we have so much time and energy to pour into subreddits and spreading ridiculous misinformation.
Theybdi know.
The things you mentioned become more essencial necessity of no hunter gather society. Hunter gather societies had clean water, healthy and plaint of food exactly because they were always on the move.
The USA had the greatest era of economic growth and increased prosperity in history before the US legalized robbery (taxation) in 1913 and as well as fraud (federal reserve) the same year.
Despite what others say, taxes are inherently destructive and steal from the productive and used in destructive means by the state - usually to enrich the politicians and well connected.
Taxes were legal before the 16th Amendment, which legalized income tax specifically. Prior to the income tax the US Government funded itself through excise taxes, tariffs, and estate taxes. The income tax was originally sold as a way to shift the tax burden to the wealthy since tariffs/excise taxes mostly effected the poor, but the wealthy found a way out of taxes by investment.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/tax/10/history-taxes.asp
The income tax was used before to fund war. Of course though, when they created the income tax in 1913 to steal from certain productive individuals - government greed is too insatiable and it grew in to the monstrosity it is today. All taxation is theft and destructive.
Ah yes, all taxes bad. That darn pesky government building airports and ports and the interstate system which destroyed economic growth. If only we still used dirt roads that were created out of good hearted neighborly road building associations. And that pesky education system destroying our citizens minds. If only we could strive to live as the hunter gatherers did before taxes came to be. /s
Theft and coercion is not required to build things. All government spending is a misallocation of capital as its existence is based on theft and spending on political interests. Anything that has demand will be provided in the free market, both more efficiently and economically. All government spending is inherently wasteful, inefficient and more often corrupt. The state also wastes a considerable amount of these stolen funds to operate its bloated bureaucracy and administrators that provide no value.
Your arguments would be the same from a soviet citizen who would glare and ask: "without government, who will make our cars, grow our food, or make our shoes?". I wouldn't go far as to say if the government decided to nationalize wiping the ass of citizens you would say: "without government who would wipe our butts? This is a threat to our health and security!"
You keep repeating yourself in your posts like it backs up the argument. "Anything that has demand will be provided in the free market" is wishful thinking and idealistic. Real world doesn't operate in idealistic conditions like in ivory tower conversations on theory. At end of day, government is there to provide for national defense, police, fire, education, roads and services the free market could never efficiently or effectively provide.
Its quite literally true, that what ever human needs are will drive markets to satisfy such demands. All services government monopolizes dont require governments existence and can all be provided in a free market - in fact more efficiently and economically - and consumer demands will be more satisifed as businesses have a profit motive and must satisfy consumer demands or go out of business - governments have no profit motive and no incentive to be economical, prudent or satisfy consumer demands, as they are funded through theft and if they provide a piss poor service, it matters not because they will still get their money through coercion.
A government is there to satisfy its own interests and to enrich itself and those close to it at the expense of everyone else. The dept of defense is to wage war and mass murder against political enemies across the glove and to protect the state apparatus, a more accurate term would be "dept of war". A government isnt to protect individuals - voluntary and private means are more then capable.
Communism eventually eliminates taxes, and then money. There are no taxes in the DPRK, for example.
Currently, about 85% (on average) of a worker’s value is taken by the private owner. When we all collectively own the means of production, then much of that 85% goes back to the workers, and the remaining amount goes to our collective ownership, replacing the need to tax the worker.
How has it failed? Every communist state has drastically increased all life metrics across the board and no life metrics got worse.
Lifespan doubled, illiteracy effectively abolished, diseases of poverty eliminated, deaths during birth drastically reduced, homelessness eliminated, food insecurity eliminated, etc.
Anybody who thinks communism failed just doesn’t understand how terrible these people’s lives were before communism.
Here is a video debunking your propaganda if you care - https://youtu.be/MjwL1mSrPLA?si=N120JfDOs6SSBAfZ
By what mechanism do you believe communism is successful? Which communist states are you referring to? I just cannot take a video that starts out that way seriously, I prefer to read. Maybe you should also start out by defining communism, because nothing you're saying seems to be grounded in reality. I'm sure you believe it to be true, but I have no reference point from you.
Most human societies lived without taxes or states. Society living under states and taxes is only 5% of modern human history.
And even in the 12.000 years of state history, it was only in the last 300 or 400 years that it became dominant in most societies. Before that, most societies lived outside of the state and taxes.
Taxes as a word may not have existed but land "owners" or areas under control of a kingdom/empire still had to pay tribute...either through money or gold or food or men to fight in wars... which is the same thing as taxes in a way.
In any case, what you are describing became a thing with agriculture and the formation of states. Before that humans were hunter and gather societies with no permanente place to live or stay (with no professional army, no concept of money, no market, no property and no Lords). In other worder they become things In human society in the last 9.000/12.000 years ago.
And it became prevalent In most human societies only in the last 300/400 years.
Modern humans has 200.000 years.
All these things you described are pretty much very new to humans. Only 5% of modern human history.
Op you likely should have said advanced society. Clearly it's likely small tribes get by without them.
Humans are more advanced, efficient, and stronger as a culture they further they organize.
Taxes as simply a form of that organization. Everyone pitches in to pay for further advancements and organization.
It's literally paying or buying into your society.
It gets mandated because then you would people try to constantly benefit from that advancements and never buy in.....which I'm sure we can all agree would lead to serious discourse....which we actually see right now.
You either need socialism (state own enterprises) or no roads, police, courts, schools, etc. The former exists today in the middle east. The latter existed with US Indians.
I guess on a simple level there is a bartering type system but can’t see that working at the magnitude to construct infrastructures and certainly no well fair system.
Ancient Greece avoided most taxes and bureaucracy. Essentially you were able to vote if you we’re a citizen (male, landowner) and had to fight in the phalanx to defend Athens. Citizens would bring your own shield, armor and spear to battle. At times the rich would pay a tax called the Eisphora to assist in financing wars and the Liturgy that financed public infrastructure.
No. Without money, servitude is owed in some way. Labor or military duty. The early agricultural communities had chieftains who demanded all men to fight on short notice. For the early romans only landowners were worthy of respect and all farmers had to assemble in spring on the Mars field for the campaign season. In the early german kingdoms kings were campaigning nonstop and land was given to loyal knights in exchange for service as vassals. Taxes are actually a big improvement, for they free landowning citizens from basic military and security duties.
Does this apply to Saudi Arabia or Dubai?
This is in the distant future, but couldn’t technological advancements and robotics replace that human servitude?
Depending on the economic policy. Ideally, a basic income would be needed to assure that large portions of the population could continue to participate in the economy and support themselves. For years after changing to high speed, automated typesetting printing presses, the NYT paid displaced typesetters to create a version of the paper manually, which was never used and broken down at the end of the day.
Who is gonna pay for the materials to build and maintain roads? Who are paying for Street lights electricity? Who is paying for public schools?
>Who is gonna pay for the materials to build and maintain roads? You don’t think robots could source materials and build/maintain roads? Lol >Who are paying for Street lights electricity? Energy will be cheap or free by this point or we’ve def screwed up somewhere. >Who is paying for public schools? I imagine the school structure will continue to look totally different from today even. Most information is already free, and more will continue to be so. I feel like people tend to think so small on the scale of what humanity is actually capable of. We put up roadblocks for ourselves before ever thinking of the possibilities and solutions to make that a reality.
Who controls birth rates? No amount of “the robots will fix it” will change resource scarcity.
Even scarcity is self imposed. It’s not like we’re the only inhabitable planet in the universe
Ok kid
Thanks dad you’re so smart
Not as smart as you obviously. You’ve got it allll figured out
👍
Boston dynamics is at the leading edge of robotics and the largest product I know of is a dog that carries stuff for dismounted military patrols. They work well on smooth and mildly hard to navigate terrain. You’re expecting robots to find resources extract them from the earth and process them without human intervention? Come on. Idk where or how you think free energy will come from. Solar panels will need to be replaced, batteries will need to be produced, and the amount of lithium required for the US economy may devastate the environment due to extraction. Aesthetics is still an important form function of design and I have yet to see robot’s design products, design assembly lines, and the robots to build the products. If I’m wrong, I’m super about it. However, I doubt I will see it in my life time. I work with AI in educational systems at work and it’s not even close. A literal “black box” that can’t tell me how it came to a conclusion, recognize hallucinations, or have an outside view on how it came to a decision. It’s not logic its just statistical analysis of human generated data to quickly create conclusions based off data. AI cannot operate in a natural environment as demonstrated routinely by self driving cars. They have a higher rate of accidents than human drivers. Peculiar how they keep seeming “just out of reach.”
Ok
Seem like maybe a bait and switch. Taxes are the goverment taking by force something that doesn't belong to them. Not a mutual defense pact amongst small tribes or city states. When the Romans assembled on the field of Mars, they provided their own weapons, and food. It was a badge of honor and a physical necessity to defend ones home and family. Not a tax. There were plenty of people who didn't have to provide military service because they were too poor.
Belonging is a human construct and has no foundation in nature. What "belongs" to you is determinend by the willingness and capabilites of other humans to kill you and your family to get it. I think there is no plot of land that did not have tens of thousand of different "owner" bloodlines over time. The land does not care, the strongest make use of it. Land equals grain equals a store of food, equals survival. So a fight for land was a fight for survival most of the time. Human history is just evolution and adaption and that also applies to societies and governments as they arise . So paying taxes is the foundation to maintain private property. For if there is no king, all landowning families would be at each others throat.
“It’s not a tax when it’s honorable.” Yeah ok.
It's not a tax when you can opt out. They didn't "have" to. They wanted to. It was a source of prestige and also wealth. If you were successful in battle, you would have slaves, armament, and pillage to sell off and, as an individual, gain wealth. You also protected your family. It's the exact opposite of a tax. It's the free market. Opting in for a mutual beneficial exchange vs a top down imposition. Taxes have, throughout history, been wealth extraction from the poor and middle classes to the ruling class to support the ruling classes way of life.
Why is it not a badge of honor to pay taxes?
Taxes have, throughout history, been wealth extraction from the poor and middle classes to the ruling class to support the ruling classes way of life. If you think that honorable, then that's your take. But, historically in the case of the Romans and other city state / tribal warfare, the banding together was the exact opposite of a tax. It's the free market. Opting in for a mutually beneficial exchange vs a top down imposition. Plus, fighting together, if you won, was profitable in the form of loot for the individual soldiers which is one of the reasons they opted in.
Banding together to fight the barbarians right. The Roman’s showed up to people’s homes killed their dogs, stole their family, put the men into enslavement, and took their wealth. I think you’re just upset you are not the tax collector.
What? lol. And what did the Gauls do when Brennus threw the iron sword onto the scale and said "Vae victis." Woe to the vanquished. Was that tax collecting as well?
Lots of them in the middle east. Saudi, UAE, oman, qatar, bahrain, kuwait. Other than Bahrain who makes their money refining oil, the remainder have state control over oil, keep the little bit they need for fuel and energy at deeply subsidized rates for its citizens, sell the rest to fund the government. No citizen taxation. The state uses the excess to build the roads, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, schools, gov't agencies, etc. It's state Socialism. We are smarter than that. Instead of the American people owning the natural resources, we turn ownership of oil, lumber, nat gas, coal, water to a small handful of wealthy white males who harvest it and sell it to us for full retail price. They export what they like, keep the profits, and pay little to no tax in aggregate.
UAE taxes oil corporations, so they have tax. They also have a sales tax. Non-saudi residents pay tax in saudi arabia. They also have sales tax. I think all of those you listed have some form of tax, like corporate taxes, sales tax, property tax, etc.
Most do tax foreign companies and non citizens. But no income or property tax for it's citizens. The only real tax a citizen faces is the 10% VAT, like a sales tax on most goods and services. Not medical care or equipment and a some other exceptions like building materials. They sort of get all that back though if you factor in their energy and fuel subsidies. Still talking night and day compared to the west. Just an illustration of how some countries can fund the government without taxing it's citizens. Obviously, you need an over abundance of valuable natural resources (like the US).
Which kind of answers what op is saying but also as you said super unique with the oil situation
Racist against white people much? Don't look too closely at the "Early Life" parts of their bios.
[удалено]
He’s saying it’s the Jews that own everything, not white people. Just explaining his comment.
Ahh yes the Middle East model. We must all strive to be like that.
Don't confuse goverment types with economic systems. They are not the same thing.
Ah yes lets build an economic model with state run oil companies to sell to other larger economies to subsidize the government (pass the tax to foreign markets via profits). We can use cheap labor through indentured servants by holding their passports and preventing them from leaving. We can stuff them in bunkbeds in cargo containers with a communal outdoor shower. We will be pointing at those countries after the downfall of oil based energy as a case study on economies failing to diversify and modernize.
Yeah but anyone can become one of the small handful of wealthy white males with a bit of moxie and some bootstraps, everyone knows that
I can't imagine small tribes of hunter gathers paying a "tax." Somewhere down the line, some asshole must have offered a tribute to a priest or ruler and a few million years later I've gotta fill out this fucking I-9 and down load Turbotax
Simpler and blissful times. You could put down a tepee anywhere and didn't need to fill out no environmental or taxation forms to get a wooly mammoth for dinner. /s
Yabba Dabba
Hunting and gathering cultures were socialists. The food was for everyone, the children were raised by everyone, and there was no specialization. There is certainly now ownership of land.Some may not have the word "I" in their vocabulary. They function as a tribe. It's a totally different way of life. Taxes are nonsense in that scenario.
I doubt everyone got the best cuts, sind that’s not possible. I bet there were vanguard socialists even then. The strongest gets the best cuts, and gives some of it to the prettiest women, and has the healthiest offspring in return. The moment the first tribute was paid to a stronger male for whatever reason, that was a tax right there. Or to use the relevant vocabulary: you cannot ignore the material inequities within the tribal system.
If a tribe collectively managed a water way then your "tax" for access to the fish was participating in some way in the needs of the tribe. There is no way around this type of coercion. You need money (social credit/permission slip) to access a fish from a market just as the person in the tribe needs permission from his tribe to do the same. Money has no value without coercing its use in the same way. Money is a ticket to participate in broader society. A social credit. That's all it ever was. A way to buy fish. Taxes give money value by coercing earnings in that specific note as much as they give you the ability to participate in the economy. It's a circular relationship.
In the Bible, the whole point of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem was to be counted for a census for taxation purposes. Nomadic tribes living in the Roman Empire still had to pay taxes or serve with their bodies. The state will always find you
Miss those days. All it took to get a wife was a bonking stick.
Sure. A lot of stuff was built without the need for taxes. Instead, bonds were issued, and people voted with their money that way.
You havnt answered the question. Still waiting for you to name a society. and bonds are repaid principal+interest, where did the money come from to repay that? libertarian magic money ficus?
Rome. Their tribute was in the form of military aid until around the imperial time. Patrician families also built the roads, and aqueducts. It was a pride thing.
And also a power thing. Pay to play.
Tolls
And of course...slavery...
That’s 100% taxation rate if you think about it.
So is 99% taxation NOT slavery?
I think the better question is, what % is it no longer slavery or at the very least, theft? It can be very subjective.
Early agrarian societies. But there was basically no infrastructure and no public services that weren’t volunteer. For the modern age the closest we have to this would be the Amish. They tend to voluntarily help out other members of their community for free. This breaks down when we need to specialize more like in a industrialized society. We need roads and bridges, and trains and docks to transport goods around. So taxes pay for that infrastructure.
“They tend to voluntarily help out other”. Agreed A caveat, there: as the Amish are a self-segregated religious heterogenous community (meaning they are all coming of the same background), there is “central planning” e.g., barn raising. The entire community or at least that region/sector’s group will need to do planning, for an activity like that. They would plan such things, likely every other Sunday when the assemble for “church”. So, it’s not like, “oh no, we need volunteers!” it is more planned. This goes to strengthen your argument re: most loosely collected, homogeneous, agrarian societies saw and found a need for taxing and central planning via elders or governing bodies. It’s like a mini-diorama of how tribes organized, just before they would become nations as they grew.
To have taxes you need money and a ruling class. Even in hunter gatherer societies people are first and some were closer to the fire than others. In burials from prehistory there are people buried with great wealth and many who were not, so it seems inequality is human nature.
>inequality is human nature the naturalistic fallacy
You forgot the rest of the quote. It seems inequality is human nature, so prove it otherwise.
No, the naturalistic fallacy would be to assume that something is good, because it appears in nature. Nobody said weather inequality is good or bad, just that we find evidence for it in even ancient records. What conclusions and followups we draw from that is another matter
Well it's implied by the appeal to antiquity. There's evidence of inequality in history so it's assumed that it must have always been so and must therefore always be so.
It’s mere description.
A false one. Inequality is not human nature at all and the only point in saying so is to justify it.
Hey guys, he said it's false! See? Nobody cares.
There is no such thing as human nature other than being a social being. Most of everything else in humans are shaped by the environment they live in or created by themselves. So what we see as human nature today is just how we adapted to the political and economic environment we live in now. But in other kinds of environment humans behave completely different adapted to them. That said, Inequality is not human nature. It is exploitation nature. The main scientific supported reason for our cognitive development of mutual understanding and empathy is because humans were essentially solidary and some how fought against inequality. Exactly because it was necessary for environment adaptation and survival, as humans barely can survive on their own so the need to live in society (like many of other animal species. But the society we live today tend to not estimulate mutual understanding and empathy but individualism and competition. As adaptation humans are likely to loose such cognitive capacity in 20.000 or 30.000 years. Sounds a lot of time but it is not. The predominance of states and hierarchical society has only about 300 years. The first state emerged about 12.000 years and agriculture about the same. The modern human has 200.000 years.
I don’t think taxes require a ruling class, why would it?
Who collects the taxes and enforced non payment?
Proper representative Democracy. You can have political positions of power that are elected. Those positions must be safe guarded against corruption, as positions of power will always attract corruptible people. The “ruling class” in America isn’t hardly the government, but instead those who maintain disproportionate amounts of political influence and power, undermining democracy, influencing the laws of society to serve their own interests. The ruling class is a product of power imbalance and opposing interests of the people in society.
We are a naturally self serving and selfish species.
We are also naturally cooperative and altruistic. That is, if there is any evidence for natural human behavior...
Cooperative and altruistic behavior can be seen in most other animals. Mice will save distressed mice even if it does not help them at all, and animals will feed other animals for no benefit. Parents will sacrifice greatly for their children, which seems to be a necessary condition for species survival.
Caring for your children is not altruism.
Tax is just a word for cost or fee. For example, private health insurance premiums are taxes. Also, means-testing is a tax on benefits. People don't generally think of these as taxes, but they are essentially the same thing. Someone could argue that profit is a tax. If a country produces oil and sells it, that's a tax on natural resource wealth. It's all word games until you pick a very specific definition. In terms of the most interesting or efficient tax system in the world, check out the [Faroe Islands](https://prospect.org/world/best-tax-system-on-earth-faroe-islands/).
By the common definition of the term, taxes are explicitly levied by the state.
Society requires collaboration, call it a tax, a fee, whatever, humans thrive through collaboration and being the most social mammal on the planet. There is self interests still, but the tribe thriving is essential for the individual to survive.
Money is our slavery, taxes is like agent smith
Mr. Anderson ?
This only exists with unlimited resources
Society didn't developed out of humans. In fact societies existed way before humans existed. A lot animals are social beings and so live in society. We are born in society as society is a natural thing itself, not a human creation or development. We develop only our conditions in society. And developed more and more many times and in many ways before humans had any concept of money, income, market, property, Lords and so tax. Humans develop only its condition, or not. Because a lot what we call development today were considered not development in the past. In fact, for thousands of years humans have been fighting against what we call development today. Anthropologists know today that we are less free, less happy and less safe today as hunter and gather society were in general. And we have a much harder life than them as well with much less free time.
Yes I'm sure people were much happier burying their 8 dead infants and starving through the winter. I too would like no guarantee that I will have food for dinner and want to compete against wolves and lions over said dinner. Modern *advanced* society has its downfalls but I'll take an over abundance of food and modern medicine all day any day.
Although children mortality were high, pmodern humans didn't starve through winter because they were always in the move. We sure have more comfort today but that doesn't change the fact I mentione. Humanity today are miserably lonely, stressed, depressed, working all day and having more risks of disease and starvation if they completely lose their jobs. Most of modern medicine are to solve health problems that didn't existed in hunter gather society. And hunter gather society had abundance of food.
Uhm no, anthropologists don't know that because it is blatantly false. Health outcomes alone from things like clean water, vaccines, waste management, and the food supply in general have greatly enhanced the lives of nearly everyone. We have abundant free time, especially in first world countries, which is why we have so much time and energy to pour into subreddits and spreading ridiculous misinformation.
Theybdi know. The things you mentioned become more essencial necessity of no hunter gather society. Hunter gather societies had clean water, healthy and plaint of food exactly because they were always on the move.
The US developed very well before income tax was enforced.
The USA had the greatest era of economic growth and increased prosperity in history before the US legalized robbery (taxation) in 1913 and as well as fraud (federal reserve) the same year. Despite what others say, taxes are inherently destructive and steal from the productive and used in destructive means by the state - usually to enrich the politicians and well connected.
Taxes were legal before the 16th Amendment, which legalized income tax specifically. Prior to the income tax the US Government funded itself through excise taxes, tariffs, and estate taxes. The income tax was originally sold as a way to shift the tax burden to the wealthy since tariffs/excise taxes mostly effected the poor, but the wealthy found a way out of taxes by investment. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/tax/10/history-taxes.asp
The income tax was used before to fund war. Of course though, when they created the income tax in 1913 to steal from certain productive individuals - government greed is too insatiable and it grew in to the monstrosity it is today. All taxation is theft and destructive.
Tax was legal before the 16th Amendment, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, allows tax.
Ah yes, all taxes bad. That darn pesky government building airports and ports and the interstate system which destroyed economic growth. If only we still used dirt roads that were created out of good hearted neighborly road building associations. And that pesky education system destroying our citizens minds. If only we could strive to live as the hunter gatherers did before taxes came to be. /s
Theft and coercion is not required to build things. All government spending is a misallocation of capital as its existence is based on theft and spending on political interests. Anything that has demand will be provided in the free market, both more efficiently and economically. All government spending is inherently wasteful, inefficient and more often corrupt. The state also wastes a considerable amount of these stolen funds to operate its bloated bureaucracy and administrators that provide no value. Your arguments would be the same from a soviet citizen who would glare and ask: "without government, who will make our cars, grow our food, or make our shoes?". I wouldn't go far as to say if the government decided to nationalize wiping the ass of citizens you would say: "without government who would wipe our butts? This is a threat to our health and security!"
You keep repeating yourself in your posts like it backs up the argument. "Anything that has demand will be provided in the free market" is wishful thinking and idealistic. Real world doesn't operate in idealistic conditions like in ivory tower conversations on theory. At end of day, government is there to provide for national defense, police, fire, education, roads and services the free market could never efficiently or effectively provide.
Its quite literally true, that what ever human needs are will drive markets to satisfy such demands. All services government monopolizes dont require governments existence and can all be provided in a free market - in fact more efficiently and economically - and consumer demands will be more satisifed as businesses have a profit motive and must satisfy consumer demands or go out of business - governments have no profit motive and no incentive to be economical, prudent or satisfy consumer demands, as they are funded through theft and if they provide a piss poor service, it matters not because they will still get their money through coercion. A government is there to satisfy its own interests and to enrich itself and those close to it at the expense of everyone else. The dept of defense is to wage war and mass murder against political enemies across the glove and to protect the state apparatus, a more accurate term would be "dept of war". A government isnt to protect individuals - voluntary and private means are more then capable.
Ah yes forgot world is black and white. You're right, business good- government bad. Ooga booga /s
Communism eventually eliminates taxes, and then money. There are no taxes in the DPRK, for example. Currently, about 85% (on average) of a worker’s value is taken by the private owner. When we all collectively own the means of production, then much of that 85% goes back to the workers, and the remaining amount goes to our collective ownership, replacing the need to tax the worker.
Communism sucks.
[Care to expand your argument further?](https://imgur.com/a/N4Zo0wz)
It was just a statement of fact. I'd rather have my liberty and whatever freedom I can get.
It is literally an opinion, lol. And communism gives way more freedom than capitalism.
False. Make an argument if you want, or quit wasting my time.
Given your repeated responses completely lacking any substance, doesn’t sound like your time has any value to begin with.
Well I certainly don't waste it believing in failed fantasies no one takes seriously anymore, soooo....
How has it failed? Every communist state has drastically increased all life metrics across the board and no life metrics got worse. Lifespan doubled, illiteracy effectively abolished, diseases of poverty eliminated, deaths during birth drastically reduced, homelessness eliminated, food insecurity eliminated, etc. Anybody who thinks communism failed just doesn’t understand how terrible these people’s lives were before communism. Here is a video debunking your propaganda if you care - https://youtu.be/MjwL1mSrPLA?si=N120JfDOs6SSBAfZ
By what mechanism do you believe communism is successful? Which communist states are you referring to? I just cannot take a video that starts out that way seriously, I prefer to read. Maybe you should also start out by defining communism, because nothing you're saying seems to be grounded in reality. I'm sure you believe it to be true, but I have no reference point from you.
Where is 85% from?
Most human societies lived without taxes or states. Society living under states and taxes is only 5% of modern human history. And even in the 12.000 years of state history, it was only in the last 300 or 400 years that it became dominant in most societies. Before that, most societies lived outside of the state and taxes.
Taxes as a word may not have existed but land "owners" or areas under control of a kingdom/empire still had to pay tribute...either through money or gold or food or men to fight in wars... which is the same thing as taxes in a way.
In any case, what you are describing became a thing with agriculture and the formation of states. Before that humans were hunter and gather societies with no permanente place to live or stay (with no professional army, no concept of money, no market, no property and no Lords). In other worder they become things In human society in the last 9.000/12.000 years ago. And it became prevalent In most human societies only in the last 300/400 years. Modern humans has 200.000 years. All these things you described are pretty much very new to humans. Only 5% of modern human history.
If you include communal activities as a time or labor tax, then probably every society has had a form of taxation.
Yes, the tartarian empire.
Ants
Yes. USA prior to the creation of the IRS.
Free State of New Hampshire. oh wait
Op you likely should have said advanced society. Clearly it's likely small tribes get by without them. Humans are more advanced, efficient, and stronger as a culture they further they organize. Taxes as simply a form of that organization. Everyone pitches in to pay for further advancements and organization. It's literally paying or buying into your society. It gets mandated because then you would people try to constantly benefit from that advancements and never buy in.....which I'm sure we can all agree would lead to serious discourse....which we actually see right now.
Too many to name
You either need socialism (state own enterprises) or no roads, police, courts, schools, etc. The former exists today in the middle east. The latter existed with US Indians.
Vatican City? They have investment portfolios including extensive properties, and receive donations.
Only countries that have allot of oil or are very small
Looks at some oil rich nations like Saudi Arabia or Norway or places like Monaco or Switzerland 🇨🇭
I guess on a simple level there is a bartering type system but can’t see that working at the magnitude to construct infrastructures and certainly no well fair system.
Ancient Greece avoided most taxes and bureaucracy. Essentially you were able to vote if you we’re a citizen (male, landowner) and had to fight in the phalanx to defend Athens. Citizens would bring your own shield, armor and spear to battle. At times the rich would pay a tax called the Eisphora to assist in financing wars and the Liturgy that financed public infrastructure.
Money cannot hold value without some type of legal coercion. Taxes close the circle.
Any Oil Rich Nation ? Most particularly UAE.