Resolved: The United States Should Implement a Progressive Consumption Tax

I see no reason why receiving government aid mitigates Bossy's argument. The government is trying to work for the greater good. Taxation means the government can provide services (e.g. law enforcement, military, infrastructure, social programs) better than the private sector. Bossy and I agree that the private sector is usually more efficient, but due to the fact that the government has more bargaining power than individual companies, there are instances where government intervention is preferable to no intervention. The mug example is not directly comparable. That is a functioning action: a man who is stronger (or better armed) than a person uses said power to take a product. The point of taxes are different. You take the money in order to smooth out arbitrary inequalities which may arise in a dysfunctional market. Taxes which raise the price on carbon, for example, make it so you incur extra costs on using a pollutant. It makes people directly responsible for any harm they inflict on society. Wealth is not created solely on an individual level -- although I do agree that individuals should be able to keep a large part of their income (hence a consumption tax). Society works in order to provide the institutions for the individual to work, invest, save, and create wealth. It seems logical for a community to request dues so that it can continue to provide goods and services. An analogy much more fitting would be one of a club. Like a country club. ResponsiblyIrresponsible owns a country club. Bossy and I both are members of the club. We use the pool, eat the food, play golf, and sneak into the strip club when our wives are sleeping. At the end of the month the services -- some of which we don't use (say, the workout area, cause we are fat fvcks) -- need to be paid for. Even though I do not use the services, for the ones I do use, I acquiesce and pay the bill. Bossy jumps up and down screaming "this is theft! I don't use that stuff". That is really how absurd calling taxes theft really are. Even if we assume you use almost none of the services it is your duty to pay for them because you utilize other ones. Whatever you create at the club was only created because of the services provided. It would be right and just to pay a tax in order to (1) pay for the goods you used, (2) the unspoken social contract, (3) pay the community for what it helped you create, and (4) be responsible for any damages you may have created, even if they were indirect. But it should be noted that not only social programs are in this mess. It is also national defense. Bossy focuses on the individual -- which is great, I love individuals -- but there are many services which are required for the collective society as a whole. National defense is something that *everyone* utilizes and *needs*. Without national defense we would be under threat from pretty much everyone. We would be hell under Mexico or socialist under Canada. It would be awful. Not paying for national defense would be theft because you are being a freeloader and leading to even worse aggression than paying a tax. Since taxes are the most efficient way to pay for these services, and not paying for them would lead to worse violations of freedom than paying a simple tax, he must somehow justify a weird libertarian anarchist utopia. == Fiat Money == 1. Why should it be abolished? Fiat money is extremely effective in moderating recessions and preventing total economic collapse other monetary systems provide. The Federal Reserve is the most effective weapon against economic downturn (http://www.nber.org...). 2. Fiat currency is valueless? Everything is valueless except for the value we give it. This argument is just silly. What gives anything value? Fiat currency has value because we give it value. Money backed by gold has value because we give gold value. Everything is worthless until we say it is worth something. Everything is "completely floating". So, really, everything is worthless. If anything that damages your position more than mine. 3. Due to the fact that fiat currency has a worth because we say it does (like everything pretty much), you have no right to your pretax income. The government has it. They allow us to have it because we earned it, yes, but they do have a claim on our earnings. Bossy says that gold must have some inherent worth because it is easy to trade. I think trading light weight paper-fabric mixes is probably easier, but whatever. And gold actually has zero worth. Gold prices are very volatile, much more so than the money supply (http://goldprice.org...). If we left the market to control the money supply through gold you would literally crucify our economy. Our economy needs long-term deals to work. If gold is the currency long term investments would never occur. They couldn't gauge profits because gold may deflate or hyper inflate. Having a governing entity determine the worth is much, much, MUCH more efficient than allowing a volatile gold market control our economy. Fiat currency has no backing. But it actually does -- the government printing it is the backing. That is the point. What backing does gold have? What makes it magically worth something? It is on the exact same level as fiat currency. Gold as a currency is just a tradition. The demand for gold for productive things -- which make it worth something -- is tiny. It is used mostly for recreational decoration. It is super weird that libertarians think gold has some worth when fiat currency doesn't. One is green and has backing because we say it is. One is a little bit prettier and is worth something because... we say it is. In the black market, Tide -- yes, the detergent -- is used for currency (http://nymag.com...). All money is fiat money. Everything is "floating" because it is only worth what we say it is. And that is the most efficient way to transfer goods. Fiat money proves that taxation is not theft. And it is the best, and pretty much only, way to conduct business. == Social contracts == Actually, I would defend your actions. As a libertarian you would support that, too. The water is on your private property. The water is your private property. By entering your store there is a social contract that he should pay for services you provide. You could always not care, but in a society with scarce resources, it is conceivably justified to do that. So, in reality, it could be considered stealing if you, the owner, said it was. But as a collective this annoys us so we prohibit it. Instead of having vigilantism we have a government deal with issues like this. As no taxes mean no government, we must rely on vigilante justice to enforce contracts. Getting rid of taxes means imposing *worse* coercion than we deal with today. That is the big point which must come accross. And, of course, that his analogy really isn’t immoral. Bossy then asks for a contract in writing. Have you heard of a verbal contract? Or even unspoken ones? By living, as a citizen, and utilizing services which the government provides, you consent to paying for said services. The government provides a legal system for you to use directly, but you also use it indirectly because it promotes stability. You are obligated to either pay for those services, leave the country, or vote in representatives which would abolish these institutions. You don’t need to sign on a dotted line to consent to something. I already responded to services. Bossy has to pretty much justify anarchism. Goods and services are for the common good. Focusing on the individual, although great, pretty much screws over the common man. And bossy acts like these social programs are not chosen. Seriously? Governments are at the will of the populace. The mugger in your analogy gave you an unwanted good. The government gives people goods based on how they vote. If taxation was truly theft party running on that platform, if they had good marketing skills, would win by a landslide and make the government go bankrupt. == Consensuality == The USSR was not consensual because they didn’t have elections. And bossy has a point. Forcing people to leave is rude and if they leave they have to go live under some other government who has other dumb rules, blah blah blah. The USSR was not democratic in any way, shape, or form. So that right there is the difference between the US or EU and the USSR. But in some crazy anarchist world you would also be subject to someone’s rules on private property. That would be consensual because you choose to live on his land. The tyranny of being forced to do things will always exist unless you live alone. Taxes are the least coercive way to pay for goods and services. The murder analogy is just insane. This is not even comparable to murder. And living with little-to-no consumption would not be that difficult. You could easily obtain water from a river and boil it to clean it. You can grow your own food, make clothes, etc. Sure, it would be annoying, but it is not as clear cut as the illogical, extremist, and improbable analogy you gave. Every time you buy something you would make a conscious decision to pay the tax. You could get goods with lower taxes. And the best thing about it is that you only pay it when you consume something. You are using a government service which has given you something (roads, schools to read labels, etc.) every time you pay the tax. It isn’t as bad as the government taking all of your money. It is a lot more fair than an income tax. That much is clear, and that is the only point I was trying to make.