the least evilest taxes are...

Economics Economics Questions
1

This is something I was going to ask for a while now in relation to this Rothbard quote from How and How Not to Desocialize:

“Whatever taxation that might exist after desocialization should, however, be as close to neutral as possible. This would mean, in addition to very low rates and amounts, that the taxation be as unobtrusive and harmless as possible, and imitate the market as closely as it can. Such imitation might include the voluntary sale of goods and services at a price, or setting a price for participating in voting. The sale of goods or services by the government would, of course, be drastically limited in our desocialized system, because of the enormous scope of privatization of government activities. Privatization will be treated below.”

Any ideas what sort of goods and services does Rothbard have in mind specifically? He is being very unspecific.

What does a government selling goods look like? A government monopoly on salt?

And selling services? That would be the government demanding a fee for issuance of marital licenses and passports and the like? Am I kicking in the dark here?

2

I like Rothbard on ideas. Not so fond of him as social planner however.

3

Libertarians should not seek to be social engineers using the principles of capitalism to maximize utility output. All taxation is theft, and we should never advocate any taxation in any form to any degree. It is immoral to say, “Well, if we’re going to mug people, let’s start mugging this certain group of people in this certain less harmful way,” because implicit in that is an acceptance of mugging in the first place.

4

Poll taxes, taxes on civil servants, contract enforcement fees, court fees, courts taking a cut of the proceeds in victim compensation, seizure of criminals assets, are the ones that I could think of off the top of my head. User fees, as well.

5

This is a thing that always left me dubious… how can “voluntary” and “government” be found in the same sentence? In my opinion Rothbard was basically taking potshots here. I really like him as an economics student and polemicist but sometimes his work left much to be desired.

6

Government can simply start developing certain stretches of land, and offer them for sale. Start out by issuing bonds or public equity, use the proceeds to build roads, and create clearings for development in a particular area. Sell the land available to all interested bidders, then participate as a land exchange group to mediate between potential buyers and sellers of land seeking each other out, and take a commision for these services from both of them.

7

Oh, and they can provide space for commercial enterprises, and asking only the consideration that all goods and services they sell will include a commision to them at a flat rate - more or less a flat rate indirect tax.

8

Carbon tax, obviously. Until the air is privatized.

9

Air can’t be privatized. Are you an environmentalist or something?

10

I suppose Rothbard may not had been able to come up with an actuall tax that was not totally disagreable with him and therefore remained vague here - knowing that he was being vague. It was an essay aiming at the Gorbachevs` of the world so schooling his readers in the ways of anarchy was not a priority.

11

Well, a good example is how some of the remaining monarchies generate revenue for themselves. The Windsors I believe have alot of rental properties. Something like that could be used to generate enough revenue to cover basic services.

12

LOL @ not getting it was a joke.

13

I don’t want people to pollute the air I breathe and I don’t want any country to look like this. If its environmentalism then yes, I’m an environmentalist.

14

You should be an anti-statist then, because what you see happens when ownership is not private.

15

I’ve heard about successful privatization of fish shoals but never heard about successful privatization of air and rivers.

16

You have never heard of privatization of rivers? What about small rivers which are within the boundaries of someone’s land? They also own the river (unless it is also parceled and sold).

17

air needn’t be privatized ‘directly’ in the traditional homesteading manner. I think existing homesteaded property rights over ones own body and ones own flaura and fauna on ones own land territory would suffice. All that would be required would be for the science/engineering problem of tracking pollution flows from one persons homesteaded property to anothers, without permission , and the latter would have a legal case against the former for the extent of damages to his actual self/property. the market for law and protection of property could be relied upon to determine ‘optimum’ penalties to balance pollution and the creation of new wealth against health and quality of existing wealth

my contention is that countering the local effects of pollution will necessarily vastly curtail the global cumulative effects (if there are any) of pollution; the ‘worst’ offenders against global air quality would be dealt with effectively by identifying them from investigating the locally damaging effects of their polluting.

a society in which these principles of property where held to, and in which it was ‘lawful’ to seek profits by correctly allocating blame for local pollution effects, would create the incentive for such technological expertise, and legal expertise to improve over time. (if one is sceptical over the current viability of technological and private legal actions, one must remember that an unhampered market in these would be expected to improve this, increasing viability)

Am I alone in this?

18

I always understood that piece as saying “Don’t try to create new, “better” taxes, just focus on lowering the rates of whichever taxes already exist”.

19

It would have been an idea to link to the actual article so others could read the passage within the greater context.

Here are the paragraphs that proceeded your quote and are part of the very same section.

How to Desocialize

Drastically Lower All Taxes

Another implication of our previous analysis is that taxation should be cut drastically. There is, in the literature on taxation, far too much discussion about which types of taxes are to be imposed, and who is to pay them and why, and not nearly enough on the height or amount of taxes to be levied. If the tax rate is low enough, then the form or principles of tax distribution really makes very little difference.

To put it starkly, if all tax rates are kept below one percent, then it really does not matter much economically whether the taxes are on incomes, sales, excises, property, or capital gains. It is important instead to focus on how much of the social product is to be siphoned off to the unproductive maw of government, and to keep that burden ultra-minimal.

While the form of taxation would not then matter economically, it would still matter politically. An income tax, for example, however low, would still maintain an oppressive system of secret police ready and willing to investigate everyone’s income and spending and hence his entire life. Economists’ opinion to the contrary, there is no tax or system of taxes that could be neutral to the market.[3]

Whatever taxation that might exist after desocialization should, however, be as close to neutral as possible. This would mean, in addition to very low rates and amounts, that the taxation be as unobtrusive and harmless as possible, and imitate the market as closely as it can. Such imitation might include the voluntary sale of goods and services at a price, or setting a price for participating in voting. The sale of goods or services by the government would, of course, be drastically limited in our desocialized system, because of the enormous scope of privatization of government activities. Privatization will be treated below.

That would be because he does not know the future.

Essentially where governments operate they crowd out or pass laws to beat / restrict the competition, that wouldn’t be the case for a failed state where it is being de-socialized (afterwards). It was a possible method suggested for making taxation as neutral as possible.

It would not be a monopoly. Consider the context. There is obviously the issue of it not remaining one, which we all know Rothbard understand - but that is outside the point of discussion.

But Rothbard was for voting. Ah! But here he is discussing a how to properly de-socialize a failed state i.e Soviet Union. As he mentions "that the taxation be as unobtrusive and harmless as possible, and imitate the market as closely as it can." Cue Misesian analogy of the market and voting.

20

He isn`t predicting the future.