So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well.
What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decision?
I think what oleganza is trying to say here is that while unemployment may indeed exist under any system, what we have to understand is that by creating laws and regulations to fight it, we really are doing it at someone else's expense.
For instance, if an automobile factory produces cars and people don't really need so many cars, then this factory fires workers. If it's impossible or difficult to fire them, then this means the cost goes on to consumers and prices of cars go up.
The reason unemployment exists is not because there's not enough jobs. There are plenty of job positions that can't be filled because there are no people willing and/or skillful enough to fill them. The reason unemployment exists in the wild (with no regulation) is because the market needs to readjust itself to produce something people want in the quantities people want. When government interferes into this process, it only delays this adjustment.
Right, and I guess what I'm saying is that it's fine to do so at someone else's expense. But that's the moral argument and it's a simple one, I don't see government force as illegitimate and therefore I'm fine with taxation, regardless of who is being taxed. If you believe it is illegitimate, that's ultimately your problem and you live in a reality where most people do not agree with you. That's fine, we can disagree and move on.
But the problem comes in when unsubstantiated statements come into this. I don't see any evidence presented at all that what you go on to say in your last paragraph is true.
"The reason unemployment exists is not because there's not enough jobs." I'm sorry, but my country's unemployment rate is 22%[1], and we have no welfare state worth mentioning. The minimum wage is under $1/h, and there are no restrictions on hiring nor on firing. We've had this same rate of unemployment for decades with constant economic liberalization. Now, I suppose under oleganza's view, we can still blame the very fact that government (anywhere) exists on this problem, but at a certain point you cannot blame the government anymore.
As for why unemployment exists in the US... Please factor in illegal employment created by government criminalizing drugs and other things (prostitution or gambling, for instance). Factor in minimum wage, which allows some people to earn more at the expense of those who are not employed at all. Factor in military men coming back from wars not being able to find jobs, because government used them and threw away. Factor in people who are not able to start certain businesses because it's expensive to obtain licences. So it's not just restrictions on firing people. It's so much more.
The market is a system constantly re-evaluating itself to reach equilibrium. It's a very weak view of the market which takes away from it the ability to take into account government 'interference'. Indeed, most governments don't interfere too often, prostitution and gambling have been illegal for decades in the US (legal where I live, however). I don't need to factor these things in, because the market has already factored them in. What government interference implies is a sort of Old-Testament God, who constantly interferes with its subjects. Governments try their best to interfere very little, they make sure inflation stays low-ish, they don't suddenly change economic policy except in crises. Government "interference" (the better word you might use is 'existence', since this is what I think you mean) is an ever-present fact of the market and the market has always taken it into account.
I just pointed out a number of sources of unemployment originating from government interference and you just replied with "but government interference always existed, therefore it cannot be a reason for unemployment". That's not an argument.
Did I say that? I didn't realize I made such a categorical statement! I thought I said that the market already takes the government into account, not that the government cannot be a reason for unemployment. The government certainly could be a reason for unemployment, but that doesn't mean it is always the reason for unemployment, nor does it mean that proper regulation necessarily leads to lowered employment.
How about "But that's the moral argument and it's a simple one, I don't see government force as illegitimate and therefore I'm fine with taxation, regardless of who is being taxed"?
Basically, you are okay if people who disagree with your opinion can be beaten and their money confiscated. This does not say anything good of you as a fellow human being.
Yeah, but such a statement requires no actual evidence. I can tell you I'm okay with it, because that's a fact about myself. The fact that your view is incompatible just shows that I don't consider all opinions morally valid, some are wrong. Just as to you it might appear that I am not 'good', it might appear to me that you're not 'good' if you refuse to pay taxes. It's a coincidence that my view is backed-up by society, but such is life. A libertarian might say to a person born blind, deaf and dumb who is unable to work: 'tough luck', I can say to a libertarian born in a society that forces them to support those less fortunate with taxes: 'tough luck.' I personally see nothing immoral about this.
There's a larger implication, actually. You think it's moral to use force against people who disagree with you. It doesn't matter what the question is, the idea is that you are prepared to initiate the use of force, while libertarians are fundamentally opposed to that.
I just think it's important to take our fellow human beings not as objects to be taxed, but as individuals to be convinced. If you think helping some group of people is a good idea - convince me, don't just steal from me. If you steal, this doesn't make you a single bit more moral.
I don't see this 'larger implication'. Where is this objective moral scale I can look at? The one that'll tell me that I'm more moral than you, or you're more moral than me? I don't claim I'm more moral than you, I do claim we have differing morality. My morals tell me that it is okay to 'initiate force' in certain circumstances, the fact that your morals tell you the opposite has no bearings on me nor on any objective scale of morals you could point to. You've taken a principle and put it on some sort of pedestal which allows you to point to it and say: if you violate that, you're immoral. I can do the same with any given principle and neither of us comes out on top morally, nor will we ever. The unfortunate thing about your principle is that it is weak from a force perspective: in order for you to stay true to your morals, you cannot initiate force, in order for me to stay true to my morals, I can do so and I can enable the government to do so as well.
Very good. But you cannot claim the majority of people actually share your morals, because you also initiate force against them. If people weren't afraid of your force, my guess is most of them wouldn't be willing to pay taxes. It's like if you were a crusader occupying a muslim village and converting everyone living in it to christians by force. Does it make them christian? Technically yes. In reality, unlikely.
On a legal conception (my field), people don't pay taxes because they are forced to do so by force, people pay taxes for a wide variety of reasons: fear of consequences, habit, actual willingness to pay taxes, social cohesion, internalization of process. Paying taxes makes sense for businesses, and various other organisations on an economic level. Paying taxes in Australia (where I am), for example, gets you a wide variety of benefits that most people appreciate, and most of them don't feel forced to do so. Maybe at some baseline level they are 'forced' to do so, but it is done voluntarily. Just as you would say that a person taking a job because otherwise they will starve is a voluntary act, so can paying taxes be voluntary despite the background threat of prison.
Same with religion, maybe those initial people will not be Christians, but maybe their grandchildren will be if the occupation continues. The Ottomans, for example, converted people to Islam through tax incentives and education.
A test case for you:
In Canada (and Australia), for example, 89% of the land is in direct ownership by the Crown, the other 11% is rented by the Crown to individuals in the form of land tenure. Legally, the Queen is not allowed to permanently sell any land, as they are subject to the old rules of English family law, where descendants are to be entitled to inherit the land. The Queen, through the Government of Canada which represents her, is the owner of the entire country. Does she not have the right to charge whatever rent rates (taxes) she would like? And are not people paying these taxes voluntarily as long as they live on this rented land?
> people don't pay taxes because they are forced to do so by force, people pay taxes for a wide variety of reasons
Easy to test. Ask people if they would keep paying taxes if they weren't afraid of IRS (or equivalent). My experience: the answer is NO with most.
> A test case for you
The question is where this legitimacy of owning a land by the Queen comes from. The royal family simply declared certain territories their own, then used government forces (sponsored by taxation) to enforce this. So I'd argue it's the people who paid taxes who own the land, not the Queen. What you have, though, is a perverted situation in which people pay taxes to have their land taken away from them and then leased back. That's insane.
Is that the correct test, though? Ask the guy if he would take the job if he wasn't starving: He'll say 'No'. So in a system where he has no recourse to some safety net, he's not acting voluntarily in any case where the alternative is a type of negative consequence which he'd like to mitigate. I'd rather not be doing law, for example, I'd rather be reading on the beach, but the alternative could be living on social assistance (which is a definitely a thing to fear for me), still I wouldn't say that I'm involuntarily doing my job.
Maybe you should ask, instead: "Why do you pay taxes?" And allow the respondents to give you a wider set of reasons. Maybe some will say it is out of fear of the IRS, but some people might not say that, or say something different. It's still a 'test' of the matter, but it's a less leading test and it's the sort of test that follows from what I've said.
Sorry, the Queen test case was just for fun. Wanted to see what you'd say. Yeah, the Queen cannot legitimately own anything by that conception, since it is all ultimately tainted by a long historical process of beating out competitors on the British Isles.
No, I disagree that we should be asking "Why do you pay taxes?" because this is an open ended question which leaves a lot of room for speculation and asks for an opinion, not an action. Action is what matters. People might convince themselves it's actually a good idea to pay taxes if it's inevitable anyway. But if you ask them "Would you pay it?" then it's a question about an action - yes I would, or no I wouldn't. I don't see why would a person lie.
Yeah, asking why you do something is as much a question about an action as asking whether you'd do it. You're not asking "Would you pay it?" you're asking: "Would you pay it if condition x were false?" You're taking it out of reality, where condition x is true. I agree, you could ask: "Would you pay it?" but the response from the person to that question would be useless without the necessary conditional you've put in it. However, as soon as you put in the conditional about a state of affairs, the person is not analysing their action as it is, but is instead analsying their action according to a state of affairs that may exist. It's as much a mental trick as it is in a case where people convince themselves it's a good idea if it's inevitable.
That goes back to what I said before, which you ignored, if you were to ask me: "Would you still work if you were a millionaire?" I might say: "No." That's true, but it's not true for any useful purpose, because I'm not a millionaire. If you ask me: "Why do you work?" I might say: "Because I like making money." In fact, the latter case is a more truthful statement than the previous case, because I don't actually know what Millionaire-Me might do whereas I do know what Non-millionaire Me would do (work). In any event, the previous question doesn't tell you whether or not I consider the fact I work voluntary, in fact, it doesn't tell you very much anything at all. I personally do consider the fact I work voluntary, but you'd have to ask the latter question to find that fact out. If you just had the previous question and left it, you might as well assume I believe that I work involuntarily.
In the end, you ARE asking for an opinion, the way you propose is a less honest way to do so considering what the inquiry at hand is. Remember, I said that people might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes. This is a sociological fact. Even one person might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes.
If you asked me your question:
"Would you pay taxes if you weren't forced to?" I'd say: "Yes." That's all you get.
My question:
"Why do you pay taxes?" "Fear of jail if I don't, because they pay for roads, social services, because I believe they are a legitimate exercise of function of government."
I'm not lying, no reason to, I pay taxes for multiple reasons and so do most people, and these preferences themselves may be ordered, maybe on my scale of preferences the fear of jail is in-fact less than the fear of potentially unmaintained roads if I have a nice car, for example.
Actually, an idea: Presumably we can synthesise the inquiry, ask "Why" and then ask "Would you still do it", or do it in reverse order. Then, ask people what their preference scales are, etc, etc. You'll find out more information about the reasons people pay taxes, you'll also find that what I said before is true: people pay taxes for multiple reasons.
If people weren't afraid an IRS agent could come and take away their possessions and if they refused to cooperate a policeman could come and handcuff them, we would see whom most people would agree with. It's like saying "but my wife agrees with me that beating women is okay" all the while knowing you would beat her even more if she disagrees.
It's very good that you ask this question. There was always and always will be scarcity in the world. Everyone wants more than it's available right now. To avoid poverty we need ways to save, build capital and insure ourselves against rainy days. This won't eliminate poverty, but nor rape and murder will help removing it.
The only way to know how to rationally use resources is to do so without acts of violence. Then we can talk about how to make sure that most people have something useful to do and have enough money to feed themselves.
Say, I would like to be an astronaut. I'm thus unemployed because no one will voluntarily take me to an orbit just because I want that. Is it bad for society? Well, who knows? But I sure can find million other jobs to work at until we hit real resource limits and 100 trillion head count on this planet.
Comments
So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well.
What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decision?
I think what oleganza is trying to say here is that while unemployment may indeed exist under any system, what we have to understand is that by creating laws and regulations to fight it, we really are doing it at someone else's expense.
For instance, if an automobile factory produces cars and people don't really need so many cars, then this factory fires workers. If it's impossible or difficult to fire them, then this means the cost goes on to consumers and prices of cars go up.
The reason unemployment exists is not because there's not enough jobs. There are plenty of job positions that can't be filled because there are no people willing and/or skillful enough to fill them. The reason unemployment exists in the wild (with no regulation) is because the market needs to readjust itself to produce something people want in the quantities people want. When government interferes into this process, it only delays this adjustment.
Right, and I guess what I'm saying is that it's fine to do so at someone else's expense. But that's the moral argument and it's a simple one, I don't see government force as illegitimate and therefore I'm fine with taxation, regardless of who is being taxed. If you believe it is illegitimate, that's ultimately your problem and you live in a reality where most people do not agree with you. That's fine, we can disagree and move on.
But the problem comes in when unsubstantiated statements come into this. I don't see any evidence presented at all that what you go on to say in your last paragraph is true.
"The reason unemployment exists is not because there's not enough jobs." I'm sorry, but my country's unemployment rate is 22%[1], and we have no welfare state worth mentioning. The minimum wage is under $1/h, and there are no restrictions on hiring nor on firing. We've had this same rate of unemployment for decades with constant economic liberalization. Now, I suppose under oleganza's view, we can still blame the very fact that government (anywhere) exists on this problem, but at a certain point you cannot blame the government anymore.
[1]http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/ReportResultView.as...
As for why unemployment exists in the US... Please factor in illegal employment created by government criminalizing drugs and other things (prostitution or gambling, for instance). Factor in minimum wage, which allows some people to earn more at the expense of those who are not employed at all. Factor in military men coming back from wars not being able to find jobs, because government used them and threw away. Factor in people who are not able to start certain businesses because it's expensive to obtain licences. So it's not just restrictions on firing people. It's so much more.
The market is a system constantly re-evaluating itself to reach equilibrium. It's a very weak view of the market which takes away from it the ability to take into account government 'interference'. Indeed, most governments don't interfere too often, prostitution and gambling have been illegal for decades in the US (legal where I live, however). I don't need to factor these things in, because the market has already factored them in. What government interference implies is a sort of Old-Testament God, who constantly interferes with its subjects. Governments try their best to interfere very little, they make sure inflation stays low-ish, they don't suddenly change economic policy except in crises. Government "interference" (the better word you might use is 'existence', since this is what I think you mean) is an ever-present fact of the market and the market has always taken it into account.
I just pointed out a number of sources of unemployment originating from government interference and you just replied with "but government interference always existed, therefore it cannot be a reason for unemployment". That's not an argument.
Did I say that? I didn't realize I made such a categorical statement! I thought I said that the market already takes the government into account, not that the government cannot be a reason for unemployment. The government certainly could be a reason for unemployment, but that doesn't mean it is always the reason for unemployment, nor does it mean that proper regulation necessarily leads to lowered employment.
"unsubstantiated statements" you say?
How about "But that's the moral argument and it's a simple one, I don't see government force as illegitimate and therefore I'm fine with taxation, regardless of who is being taxed"?
Basically, you are okay if people who disagree with your opinion can be beaten and their money confiscated. This does not say anything good of you as a fellow human being.
Yeah, but such a statement requires no actual evidence. I can tell you I'm okay with it, because that's a fact about myself. The fact that your view is incompatible just shows that I don't consider all opinions morally valid, some are wrong. Just as to you it might appear that I am not 'good', it might appear to me that you're not 'good' if you refuse to pay taxes. It's a coincidence that my view is backed-up by society, but such is life. A libertarian might say to a person born blind, deaf and dumb who is unable to work: 'tough luck', I can say to a libertarian born in a society that forces them to support those less fortunate with taxes: 'tough luck.' I personally see nothing immoral about this.
There's a larger implication, actually. You think it's moral to use force against people who disagree with you. It doesn't matter what the question is, the idea is that you are prepared to initiate the use of force, while libertarians are fundamentally opposed to that.
I just think it's important to take our fellow human beings not as objects to be taxed, but as individuals to be convinced. If you think helping some group of people is a good idea - convince me, don't just steal from me. If you steal, this doesn't make you a single bit more moral.
I don't see this 'larger implication'. Where is this objective moral scale I can look at? The one that'll tell me that I'm more moral than you, or you're more moral than me? I don't claim I'm more moral than you, I do claim we have differing morality. My morals tell me that it is okay to 'initiate force' in certain circumstances, the fact that your morals tell you the opposite has no bearings on me nor on any objective scale of morals you could point to. You've taken a principle and put it on some sort of pedestal which allows you to point to it and say: if you violate that, you're immoral. I can do the same with any given principle and neither of us comes out on top morally, nor will we ever. The unfortunate thing about your principle is that it is weak from a force perspective: in order for you to stay true to your morals, you cannot initiate force, in order for me to stay true to my morals, I can do so and I can enable the government to do so as well.
Very good. But you cannot claim the majority of people actually share your morals, because you also initiate force against them. If people weren't afraid of your force, my guess is most of them wouldn't be willing to pay taxes. It's like if you were a crusader occupying a muslim village and converting everyone living in it to christians by force. Does it make them christian? Technically yes. In reality, unlikely.
On a legal conception (my field), people don't pay taxes because they are forced to do so by force, people pay taxes for a wide variety of reasons: fear of consequences, habit, actual willingness to pay taxes, social cohesion, internalization of process. Paying taxes makes sense for businesses, and various other organisations on an economic level. Paying taxes in Australia (where I am), for example, gets you a wide variety of benefits that most people appreciate, and most of them don't feel forced to do so. Maybe at some baseline level they are 'forced' to do so, but it is done voluntarily. Just as you would say that a person taking a job because otherwise they will starve is a voluntary act, so can paying taxes be voluntary despite the background threat of prison.
Same with religion, maybe those initial people will not be Christians, but maybe their grandchildren will be if the occupation continues. The Ottomans, for example, converted people to Islam through tax incentives and education.
A test case for you:
In Canada (and Australia), for example, 89% of the land is in direct ownership by the Crown, the other 11% is rented by the Crown to individuals in the form of land tenure. Legally, the Queen is not allowed to permanently sell any land, as they are subject to the old rules of English family law, where descendants are to be entitled to inherit the land. The Queen, through the Government of Canada which represents her, is the owner of the entire country. Does she not have the right to charge whatever rent rates (taxes) she would like? And are not people paying these taxes voluntarily as long as they live on this rented land?
> people don't pay taxes because they are forced to do so by force, people pay taxes for a wide variety of reasons
Easy to test. Ask people if they would keep paying taxes if they weren't afraid of IRS (or equivalent). My experience: the answer is NO with most.
> A test case for you
The question is where this legitimacy of owning a land by the Queen comes from. The royal family simply declared certain territories their own, then used government forces (sponsored by taxation) to enforce this. So I'd argue it's the people who paid taxes who own the land, not the Queen. What you have, though, is a perverted situation in which people pay taxes to have their land taken away from them and then leased back. That's insane.
Is that the correct test, though? Ask the guy if he would take the job if he wasn't starving: He'll say 'No'. So in a system where he has no recourse to some safety net, he's not acting voluntarily in any case where the alternative is a type of negative consequence which he'd like to mitigate. I'd rather not be doing law, for example, I'd rather be reading on the beach, but the alternative could be living on social assistance (which is a definitely a thing to fear for me), still I wouldn't say that I'm involuntarily doing my job.
Maybe you should ask, instead: "Why do you pay taxes?" And allow the respondents to give you a wider set of reasons. Maybe some will say it is out of fear of the IRS, but some people might not say that, or say something different. It's still a 'test' of the matter, but it's a less leading test and it's the sort of test that follows from what I've said.
Sorry, the Queen test case was just for fun. Wanted to see what you'd say. Yeah, the Queen cannot legitimately own anything by that conception, since it is all ultimately tainted by a long historical process of beating out competitors on the British Isles.
No, I disagree that we should be asking "Why do you pay taxes?" because this is an open ended question which leaves a lot of room for speculation and asks for an opinion, not an action. Action is what matters. People might convince themselves it's actually a good idea to pay taxes if it's inevitable anyway. But if you ask them "Would you pay it?" then it's a question about an action - yes I would, or no I wouldn't. I don't see why would a person lie.
Yeah, asking why you do something is as much a question about an action as asking whether you'd do it. You're not asking "Would you pay it?" you're asking: "Would you pay it if condition x were false?" You're taking it out of reality, where condition x is true. I agree, you could ask: "Would you pay it?" but the response from the person to that question would be useless without the necessary conditional you've put in it. However, as soon as you put in the conditional about a state of affairs, the person is not analysing their action as it is, but is instead analsying their action according to a state of affairs that may exist. It's as much a mental trick as it is in a case where people convince themselves it's a good idea if it's inevitable.
That goes back to what I said before, which you ignored, if you were to ask me: "Would you still work if you were a millionaire?" I might say: "No." That's true, but it's not true for any useful purpose, because I'm not a millionaire. If you ask me: "Why do you work?" I might say: "Because I like making money." In fact, the latter case is a more truthful statement than the previous case, because I don't actually know what Millionaire-Me might do whereas I do know what Non-millionaire Me would do (work). In any event, the previous question doesn't tell you whether or not I consider the fact I work voluntary, in fact, it doesn't tell you very much anything at all. I personally do consider the fact I work voluntary, but you'd have to ask the latter question to find that fact out. If you just had the previous question and left it, you might as well assume I believe that I work involuntarily.
In the end, you ARE asking for an opinion, the way you propose is a less honest way to do so considering what the inquiry at hand is. Remember, I said that people might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes. This is a sociological fact. Even one person might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes.
If you asked me your question:
"Would you pay taxes if you weren't forced to?" I'd say: "Yes." That's all you get.
My question:
"Why do you pay taxes?" "Fear of jail if I don't, because they pay for roads, social services, because I believe they are a legitimate exercise of function of government."
I'm not lying, no reason to, I pay taxes for multiple reasons and so do most people, and these preferences themselves may be ordered, maybe on my scale of preferences the fear of jail is in-fact less than the fear of potentially unmaintained roads if I have a nice car, for example.
Actually, an idea: Presumably we can synthesise the inquiry, ask "Why" and then ask "Would you still do it", or do it in reverse order. Then, ask people what their preference scales are, etc, etc. You'll find out more information about the reasons people pay taxes, you'll also find that what I said before is true: people pay taxes for multiple reasons.
If people weren't afraid an IRS agent could come and take away their possessions and if they refused to cooperate a policeman could come and handcuff them, we would see whom most people would agree with. It's like saying "but my wife agrees with me that beating women is okay" all the while knowing you would beat her even more if she disagrees.
It's very good that you ask this question. There was always and always will be scarcity in the world. Everyone wants more than it's available right now. To avoid poverty we need ways to save, build capital and insure ourselves against rainy days. This won't eliminate poverty, but nor rape and murder will help removing it.
The only way to know how to rationally use resources is to do so without acts of violence. Then we can talk about how to make sure that most people have something useful to do and have enough money to feed themselves.
Say, I would like to be an astronaut. I'm thus unemployed because no one will voluntarily take me to an orbit just because I want that. Is it bad for society? Well, who knows? But I sure can find million other jobs to work at until we hit real resource limits and 100 trillion head count on this planet.