Also, I don’t think boniek is a bad person. I just wanted to clarify the position he/she has taken. We all have to make our own choices. I hope people choose peace because it is one of their higher values. But not everyone will, and no one will all of the time. We don’t live in a utopia.
Holy crap - hot topic…
Lady - Good questions. Keep LS on his toes.
Autolykos - If you get Picard, I call Riker.
Liberty Student - Good posts and trippy avatar.
I*'m using state to benefit myself.*
Sounds like statism to me.
I’m still at odds with this one… Good points people.
I do understand Rothbard on this, just not sure if I agree with him.
So far a first…
There is a middle ground between the main two opposing positions, and I am going to point it out without siding with either side on this thread.
If you have paid taxes then you can at the least take back from the state what they took from you over your life of paying taxes.(and your deceased tax paying relatives from which you would have inherited)
But this reasoning ignores the opportunity costs involved. The method of accounting you are referring to is extremely limited. It reveals and makes it quantifiable only that very limited and particular set of information that is seen.. It ignores and entirely conceals the unseen. But if I take the unseen into account, I am free to adopt another method, which, although is not nearly as numerically precise, will entirely disagree with your conclusions.
I want to point out, that except for RJM, we’re really not in opposition here, just clarifying things. Like the lady said, we’re still figuring it out.
This seems pretty reasonable. I don’t think money taken by the state is lost forever, and I don’t think that there is no way to pursue justice. And it doesn’t have to be super formal.
I solve problems for a living. Do you know what the biggest impediment to solving a problem is? Demanding that the solution solve all problems, even the unsolvable ones. You can’t define the unseen, and it’s not useful to the discussion to add in factors we cannot define, wouldn’t you agree?
You’re welcome to do anything you choose. I am not telling you what to do, I am only pointing out what is possible to do. Simple solutions anger people I think, because we’re all comfortable with using the roads without acknowledging the full cost of doing so. Humans don’t deal with guilt or responsibility well. It’s usually tied to negative emotions and our cognitive biases try to keep them from driving us to suicide over everything about which we feel remorse.
I’m not sure if this is considered taboo on this forum or not but I have created a divergant thread at https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/is-socialist-collapse-possible-without-sabotage/18324. It stems from this discussion but branches out in a specific direction and my hope is that the discussion in both threads can now be more focused.
If you have paid taxes then you can at the least take back from the state what they took from you over your life of paying taxes.(and your deceased tax paying relatives from which you would have inherited)
What about opportunity cost? I could have invested those tax dollars and turned them into more wealth. What about deflation? If I paid $10k in taxes over the past 20 years and my grandfather paid $100k in taxes over the last 100 years, how much would I have had if neither of us were taxed?
Seems like LS just addressed that above. The answer being that we cannot know.
No. I don’t agree at all. We can and do indeed define it. Otherwise it would have no place in economic theory. The broken window fallacy would be fallacious reasoning in itself. I don’t understand this objection to using the unseen. It is impermissible that we neglect such praxelolgocial valid concepts as the unseen and opportunity costs.
It is just that we are limited to making qualitative statements about this unseen. Not quantitative statements. Precise quantitate statements in general have no place in economic theory in general. I know you agree with this.
It is possible to make qualititative statements on the basis of praxeology about the much greater loss due to taxation beyond the mere numerical transfers of dollars revealed in such accounting statements. The problem is not one of mere arithmetic accounting but of praxeology.
Now, I’m not saying that this is a green light to go ahead and live off the State. This doesn’t invalidate your preferred strategy. I’m just saying that it is incorrect to resort to mere arithmetic on the basis of accounting statements to determine the extent of the robbery.
The objection is that we cannot know what the unseen is. Hence the term used, unseen. Using the solution put forth by LS we cannot pretend to know what people’s opportunity costs were, and what the fruits of their investments would have been otherwise. Also LS is not saying that this is THE solution, the only solution, or even the best solution. He is stating that it is A solution, and that it is possible, at least partially, to refund the purchasing power originally taken. Obviously you cannot give back the time lost with that money, and obviously you cannot give back any opportunities lost due to the loss of time. No one here is saying that the situation is ideal, or that the solution is ideal.
No one, as far as I can tell, is trying to determine determine the extent of robbery. The argument is only that we are aware of how much was taken and at what time. Accounting allows us to return what was stolen nominally, but obviously we cannot turn back the clocks and give people back their historical possibilities.
@LS, Correct me if I am wrong. I hate paraphrasing, don’t want to mis-represent your position.
But we cannot pretend to know what those opportunity costs are so the solution provided is to at least attempt to return the purchasing power that was previously stolen. We cannot give back the potential of what that purchasing power might have been. I don’t thikn one is saying this is ideal, only that it’s just A solution. If it makes you feel better you can call it a partial solution.
The objection is that we cannot know what the unseen is. Hence the term used, unseen. Via the solution put forth we cannot pretend to know what people’s opportunity costs were, and what the fruits of their investment would have been otherwise. Also LS is not saying that this is THE solution, the only solution, or even the best solution. He is stating that it is A solution, and that it is possible, at least partially, to refund the money originally taken. Obviously you cannot give back the time lost with that money, and obviously you cannot give back any opportunity’s not lost due to the lost time. No one here is saying that the situation is ideal.
But we cannot pretend to know what those opportunity costs are so the solution provided is to at least attempt to return the purchasing power that was previously stolen. We cannot give back the potential of what that purchasing power might have been. I don’t thikn one is saying this is ideal, only that it’s just A solution. If it makes you feel better you can call it a partial solution.
We’re specifically talking about returning to the people that which government has (seen) and we can trace back to the act of taking (seen). You’re trying to introduce other factors which are relevant to a broader discussion, but not this one in particular.
I do agree the unseen is important in general, but specifically, it is just a distraction, one which RJM tried to use to salvage a bad position on his part.
It is not a qualitative discussion at all. It is strictly quantitative.
I’m not trying to determine the extent of the robbery.
I think arguing the unseen is an enormous waste of time because there is no way to provide restitition for it, and Rothbard’s argument is that restitution is impossible, so on this point, Rothbard agrees with me. We can’t solve for UNSEEN, but I am saying we can definitely solve for SEEN.
This should NOT be a controversial statement, because it is quite evident.
As usual, you are spot on.
I think theoretically it is possible to solve for the seen (e.g.: direct taxes) but it is not realistically possible given the current state of things. Yes, if there was 100% transparency in government accounting I could apply for welfare and then find out where the money came from and redistribute my welfare check in proportional way.
Realistically though this would require probably far more work on my part than the welfare check is worth. That is, I could spend the same amount of time working a job and generate more money which I could (if I chose) redistribute to those who were stolen from. Also, the costs of redistributing the money back to those it was taken from is more costly than the money itself. Chances are my welfare check would end up divided into the most divisible unit (pennies) which would be more expensive to hand out then the pennies are worth and I still wouldn’t be able to properly compensate everyone it was taken from, none the less in an equitable fashion.
One could argue that I should take the welfare check and given it to the most taxed person first, until their taxes are all returned and then move on to the next person but to me this seems almost as unequitable as taxation in the first place.
On top of the inability for me to effectively redistribute the welfare check, currently the government is not 100% transparent. I (as an individual living in a socialist society) have no way of finding out even who the most taxed person is. If there are 1000s of people getting welfare checks and giving them back to the heavily taxed members of society we don’t have an effective way of tracking how much was taken so we don’t know when they have been “paid back”.
What this all sums up to is that the concept of reparations is a utopian ideal and not a realistic goal for the real world (as it stands now). The best we could do is take welfare checks and randomly give them out to people we suspect are deserving of reparations but this comes out to no better than what the government already is doing (redistributing wealth).
The only plausible arguments that I can think of for not accepting government handouts are either moral based or they are based on the assumption that if enough people don’t accept the handouts the government won’t need to take as much in the first place. I am of the opinion that the government will take as much as they can get away with without a revolt, regardless of how much is being redistributed or how well it is being redistributed.
Micah, are you familiar with Austrian economics?
Micah, are you familiar with Austrian economics?
Yes, why do you ask?
As I’ve stated above, I can agree with this if as you say, the terms used for this discussion are indeed so narrowly limited. No doubt, the amount of dollars or ounces of gold confiscated from you can be quantifiably determined. However, I’m not convinced that this is the proper demonstration that RJM is completely wrong, in principle at least Not as far as his argument goes. RJM also made the usual mistake of failing to incorporate the unseen in his economic analysis, and instead, resorted to an intellectually careless argument based on faulty assumptions he did not bother to check.
Yes, I agree as far as we are talking about restitution in the precise sense of the term. However, it is also a waste of time to only consider what is seen, as far as objecting to the idea that getting money from the State is like getting some of your loot back. There is no clear cut solution to this. If this is what you are basically saying, then I agree.
I’m somehow not bothered about spending loot taken from people that advocate looting.
I don’t advocate looting, and you’re spending loot taken from me.
No problem. I’ll send you your 1/19,000,000 share.