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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @ZezzebbulTheMysterious 15h \ on: Which is Worse: Taxes or Fiat Money? econ
Fiat is worse by far. Taxation, or maintenance of the commons, becomes inevitable in sufficiently advanced social system systems. It is unavoidable, the argument is for the specifics of what is taxed, how it is taxed, etc.
Even a hypothetical 10 person Bitcoin citadel is going to need everyone to contribute in some way, that is tax. 10 people will argue over the specifics.
But Fiat:
Humanity thrived for thousands of years under regimes of taxation, to the the ruler, the King, the State. It is sound money, or lack there of, that is causing such social issues in our society today. Fiat, or unbound money, leads to lack of discipline.
It was the unbinding of physical quantities (like gold in storage), from monetary supply that lead to such dramatic devaluations per unit of account. Inflation eats away at peoples savings and purchasing power, it acts as a invisible tax to all economic participants.
If we could eliminate tax entirely, every sufficiently advanced social system would fail. Bad.
If we could eliminate fiat (by going back to sound money, where the politician cannot change the monetary supply by fiat), we may trend towards utopia.
Fiat is worst IMO though
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If we could eliminate tax entirely, every sufficiently advanced social system would fail. Bad
Nah, most depend on private free markets to make them work. If you killed tax every needed service would have a massive incentive to be met by the market. The ones that are just government scams would die though. But if people wanted them, they could voluntarily pool their resources to meet the needs. Pretty much every government program can or has been done non-violently accomplished. Even security. The transition could be messy but probably not as bad as we think.
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It depends how we define taxation.
The free market providing services, even on a voluntary basis, becomes de facto involuntary tax due to social pressure or necessity. Its just ongoing payment for something. That the monetary flow goes:
Me -> Service Provider
vs
Me-> Gov tax -> Service Provider , may have efficiency gains, but its not so simple.
I consider tax to be maintenance of a service or common property.
In the case of Land, that's paying for the state guns to defend it, you cant remove it without removing the defense. Someone is getting paid for the risk.
Could we get better value for our monetary spend to private providers vs Gov distribution to private providers from Taxation?
Maybe, but i am also not convinced a private market would always come out cheaper. There are efficiencies and negotiation at scale by governments too.
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