35 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 22 Aug 2023 \ parent \ on: Which tax rate do you consider "fair" and would pay? bitcoin
Yes. But ask yourself why. Because we don't have choice.
If taxes were truly voluntary the state would have to convince people to pay for services. They say they are voluntary now but the threat of violence is the cost. If you remove that the state is just like every other service provider. They have to convince people they provide value.
I used to think this was crazy but honestly it is more sane than the alternative. We struggle with status quo bias. No one knows exactly how everything would work in a stateless society or in a society with voluntary governance organizations but many smaller more focused examples have been tried and worked well.
It's worse than just status quo bias, because there never seems to be the same concern about the state making more "services" involuntary.
I really do think it's a form of Stockholm Syndrome: people have internalized the preferences of their rulers and prioritize them over their own.
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