However unrealistic it is, I’m just curious what people think. Do you think the government would just inflate its way out of its problem, or has there ever been instances where governments have collapsed due to people refusing to pay taxes?
If everyone stopped paying every tax, we’d see the hue-and-cry from the government flunkies about how people are being greedy and hate the poor/children/etc. After that it’s difficult to predict.
Why would anyone accept government debt if there was no tax base to guarantee it? When the government issues debt, it is secured by the ability to tax.
Governments have collapsed when the people under them have withdrawn consent. We can assume that if people are not willing to pay taxes, they do not consent. I can’t imagine a situation where people stop paying taxes and still support their government.
they would terrorize us by making a few hundred high profile arrests and throw them all in jail for life. people would start paying again. only if the states refused to allow the arrests would it work.
I wouldn’t doubt their capacity to do so. Living on this planet, I’ve come to the conclusion that hell freezes over ever winter. Now I’m just wondering how long people are going drive intoxicated down the foggy road to serfdom, before they realize they’ve driven off the cliff.
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Inflation won’t work, people will just stop using government currency.
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Perhaps the closest example I can think of is the american revolution, but it isn’t really a good example as the British still had a tax base at home. French Revolution may have been closer, as part of the reason was from tax protests.
What would happen if people just stopped paying taxes?
Crooks would have to get real jobs.
Not that it’s entirely relevant to the opening post, but does anybody have a link to that Rothbard article suggesting why libertarians should accept government money and use government roads, as opposed to being “more consistent” (I guess from a certain perspective) by refusing to comply with government (although, if you were to go to jail you’d still be living off the taxpayer, so I guess my family was telling me to kill myself last night)?
Business owners would have to stop collecting withholding tax for the state.
It seems to me, then, that the criterion, the ground on which we must stand, to be moral and rational in a state-run world, is to: (1) work and agitate as best we can, in behalf of liberty; (2) while working in the matrix of our given world, to refuse to add to its statism; and (3) to refuse absolutely to participate in State activities that are immoral and criminal per se.
to answer your question: everybody would go back to living in caves[:P] j/k
I thought we were supposed to be crawling around in mud?
I laughed at your comment. I don’t know why? Then suddenly, I realized because I could truly see politicians (Pelosi, Reed,… and Republicans) making such comments. I guess the absurd truth to a certain extent can be humorous.[:D]
interesting point..
This has happened once or twice in modern history.
I believe sometime after or during the Russian Revolution The government lost the ability to tax and borrow thus the government had to roll out the printing press in oder to inflate their way out of debt.
If all tax’s were eliminated I think income expenditure would go up 15%.
The threat of sovereign default may increase and thus our government would probably be forced to roll out the printing press.