That choice is not available for the taxpayer. If the government decides to provide healthcare then the taxpayer has to pay for that even if he felt a private organisation to be the better choice. I really don't understand what you mean by taxpayers "to choose" alternatives? You talk as if taxation is voluntary.Originally Posted by Xerographica
Last edited by mohassan; 11-13-2012 at 08:25 PM.
I can't believe I had to double check to see who started this thread. You are incredibly rude, and completely off point.
The OP wanted to discuss whatever it was he said he wanted to discuss from the outset, which has XERO, XIP, NADA to do with your attempted hijack of his thread with your favorite COMPLETELY OFF-POINT meme. If you want a discussion to center around your pet paradigm of a "public sector shopping mall", and all that is wonderful about that in your mind, there is no need to hijack a thread that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. YOU CAN START YET ANOTHER THREAD ON THAT PARTICULAR SUBJECT.
Did I understand you here correctly.
Because the private sector might not have built the bridge, less people would be working, therefore less people buying both in the construction sector (materials for the bridge) and workers who could spend their wages to buy food, petrol etc?
But because the government decides to build a bridge, money is spent back into the private sector, creating this "artificial demand" that perhaps might not have existed had people not been taxed?
Do you mean artificial demand because public programs were not perhaps the choice of the consumers?
Sorry if I didnt understand you.
He wanted to critique Hazlitt...so I shared tax choice with him...which is the economically sound compromise between Hazlitt's approach and his own. Whether or not he wants to discuss the basic relationship between scarcity and choice is up to him. If he chooses to then then so be it.
And if you don't like my posts...awwwww...that's really too bad. Here...let me offer a few *sniffles* *sniffles* for you. If it will help you're welcome to take your anger out on my reputation...LOL
Either the free market, left alone, would also have invested in this selfsame enterprise, or it would not. If it would have, then the economy suffers, at the very least, from the “take” going to the intermediary bureaucracy. If not, and this is almost certain, then it follows immediately that the expenditure on E is a distortion of private utility on the market—that some other expenditure would have brought greater monetary returns. - Murray Rothbard
What, then, is the productive contribution of government? Since the value of government is not gauged on the market, and the payments to the government are not voluntary, it is impossible to estimate. It is impossible to know how much would be paid in to the government were it purely voluntary, or indeed, whether one central government in each geographical area would exist at all. Since, then, the only thing we do know is that the tax-and-spend process diverts income and resources from what they would have been doing in the “private sector,” we must conclude that the government’s productive contribution to the economy is precisely zero. Furthermore, even if it be objected that governmental services are worth something, it would have to be noted that we are again suffering from the error pointed out by Bastiat: a sole emphasis on what is seen, to the neglect of what is not seen. We may see the government’s hydroelectric dam in operation; we do not see the things that private individuals would have done with the money—whether buying consumers’ goods or investing in producers’ goods—but which they were compelled to forgo. In fact, since private consumers would have done something else, something more desired, and therefore from their point of view more productive, with the money, we can be sure that the loss in productivity incurred by the government’s tax and spending is greater than whatever productivity it has contributed. In short, strictly, the government’s productivity is not simply zero, but negative, for it has imposed a loss in productivity upon society. - Murray Rothbard
What if courts or PDAs become corrupt,criminal, etc?
Answering the Warring Defense Agencies Objection
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The most important attempt in this century to rebut anarchism and to justify the State fails totally and in each of its parts.
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Anarcho-Capitalist Reference/FAQ List
*The Political Importance of Murray N. Rothbard, by Ron Paul*
Ignored: Xerographica+Travlyr.
http://host.madison.com/business/epi...a4bcf887a.htmlThis Woman payed for a couple of bridges ramps and roads on a freeway to access her campus.
Join my Big Education Anti Price Gouging Campaign.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-bailout/page5
You're describing the current system while I was describing a tax choice system. In the current system taxpayers purchase a generic bundle of public goods. They end up paying for public goods which they do not want, need or value. In a tax choice system taxpayers would be able to choose which government organizations they gave their taxes to.
Therefore, paying taxes would not be voluntary...but people would be able to choose which public goods they wanted to help fund.
The trick here is to imagine what the consequences would be. What would be the consequences of creating a market for public goods? Well...what have the consequences been when planned economies have transitioned to market economies? The variety of available products/services have gone up and prices have gone down. In other words...the consequences have always been abundance. Why wouldn't the same thing happen in the public sector?
You could have wrote anything after the "but", and I would still have to disagree. Your tax choice system assumes that the taxpayers would be interested in any one of the available public projects. But even with your tax choice system, Hazlitt's answer stands, that taxation for a public program means that, that much capital is taken from private hands, that could have just as well been used to stimulate the economy if not more efficiently.
Last edited by mohassan; 11-13-2012 at 09:16 PM.
This really hits the nail on the head. People obviously DO argue that governmental services are worth something. Yet, the error pointed out by Bastiat...in his essay on The Seen vs the Unseen...is fundamentally important for people to understand.Furthermore, even if it be objected that governmental services are worth something, it would have to be noted that we are again suffering from the error pointed out by Bastiat: a sole emphasis on what is seen, to the neglect of what is not seen. We may see the government’s hydroelectric dam in operation; we do not see the things that private individuals would have done with the money—whether buying consumers’ goods or investing in producers’ goods—but which they were compelled to forgo. - Murray Rothbard
Unfortunately, Rothbard never considered...or at least he didn't mention...the idea of allowing taxpayers to choose which government organizations they gave their taxes to. Therefore...he went around arguing that we should just throw the baby out with the bath water. Well...that's how his argument sounds to the large majority of people.
That's why tax choice is so important. It can help us get our foot in the door. We're not making the argument that we should get rid of the government services that the large majority of people value...we're arguing that they should have the freedom to use their taxes to support whichever government organizations they value most.
You're not telling me anything that I don't already know. I've written more about Bastiat's Seen vs the Unseen than anybody else on this forum. If you don't believe me you're welcome to visit my blog...pragmatarianism...and check out my tag cloud. You'll clearly see that the opportunity cost concept is the subject that I've written the most about.
It's because I understand the opportunity cost concept so well that I understand the value of tax choice.
Now, I didn't have much success explaining to you what the outcome would be of implementing tax choice. So please go right on ahead and explain exactly what would happen if taxpayers could consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions. Would the consequences be positive, negative or neutral?
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