Next time you participate in a political discussion and somebody brings up taxes. They might say that they wish taxes weren’t being wasted, or that taxes weren’t so high. That gives you the perfect opportunity to say, well, why have any taxes at all?
Chances are they have never heard of such an idea. “But how will we pay for the roads?” road tolls, of course. “What about national defense?” Who needs national defense? The United States hasn’t been invaded since the war of 1812. What about education? Private schools, homeschools, tutoring programs. Education shouldn’t be all that expensive; the main costs are buying books and hiring somebody to read them.
The beauty of it is, you don’t need to use big scary words like “libertarianism” or “anarcho-capitalism”. Just focus the discussion on how to run civilization without taxes.
The reason why people consider taxes and tax-funded business models necessary is that according to public goods doctrine, the market could not sufficiently provide these services for the underpriviled part of society.
In other words, you have a free market for cars (not actually, but comparatively more free than, say, education), but not everyone can afford a car. You have no free market for education, but everyone can afford to send their kids there.
If you tell them that privately run schools might be of better quality and cheaper, they will come up with some bogeyman about the poor then being unable to attend school. I had that debate once, in a public school of all places. My counterpart was convinced that in a free market, low-income schools would get “bad” teachers, resulting in “bad” education and “bad” job opportunities for students. It’s the pro-state mindset, the idea of parental projection “state” being able to care justly for everyone. I’m not sure if it can be broken that easily.
So, you got into an argument about public education and someody brought up the “what about the poor” argument. You could have turned that argument upside-down and totally pwned him.
You should have pointed out that public schools are funded by property taxes. Property taxes are among the cruelest because, if somebody fails to pay the tax, they lose property they already have and have paid for. “They could lose their life’s saving, if they can’t pay the property tax.”
Imagine you have a house that you finally paid off after 30 years of blood, sweat and tears. It’s all yours now, and nobody can take it away from you, right? Wrong. If you can’t pay the property taxes, you lose your house and it goes to an evil, greedy speculator at the tax auction.
From what I read in National Geographic a few years back, the native Hawaiians lost most of their land when the American conquerers imposed property taxes on them. Now, most of Hawaii is owned by rich white people.
“Don’t you care about the poor who inevitably lose their land from increases in property taxes? Don’t you care about the poor people who cannot buy a home and become independent homeowners because your property taxes? Don’t you care that only a few people can afford to own property, and the lack of competition means that rents are higher than they would be otherwise?”
Take the “what about the poor” argument and turn it against them and pound it in until it hurts.
(Note: Here in America, public education is paid for with property taxes. Maybe this doesn’t apply in Germany.)
While this is a valid point and probably quite striking in a debate concerning property taxes, it wouldn’t necessarily discredit public schooling because more politically correct ways of funding may easily be conceived. How 'bout taxing the rich? Or a Tobin tax?
Of course, one could point out how taxing the rich and currency speculations will also harm the poor in the long run, but the effects of taxation will then be weighed against the benefits brought about by free public schooling. “So, you’ll have a few disincentivized billionaires? Screw them! We’ll have millions of well-educated students to fill the productivity gap.”
Plus, you can always demand “tax reform” once a tax has some undesirable result. Let’s just eliminate property taxes for the poor/those who have a house, but can’t pay! At least give tax credits to them. Support them with some welfare program. Statist methodology has the clear advantage of no basic premises or rules. That’s why it’s sometimes hard to beat.
Another thing about public schools, especially with cultural liberals, is that they are really afraid of some conservative/Christian revolution once students are not exposed to “what is right” in public schools anymore. Where I come from, it’s more of a fear that Nazi parents will beget lots of children and indoctrinate them with Nazi thought, but you see the pattern.
In short, people see more in taxes than just an arbitrary redistribution of their wealth. Programs funded with taxes seem to convey security, consistency and moral authority. You’d have to begin there to fundamentally dismantle the legitimacy of taxation.