At some point in your life, you've probably heard somebody recite this thoughtless phrase:
"Taxation is the price we pay to live in a civilized society."
A more backwards statement has never been spouted. Any post-industrial society would, irrefutably, very quickly advance into a more civilized society, if the market demands of protection and justice were left to the competitive, patronage-funded private sector. Free enterprise is confined only to the infinite market ingenuity of mankind. When your options are market-based, you choose whatever you want.
The alternative, the government version of "service", is in fact, simply a theft-funded monopoly, comprised of the same class of sociopaths responsible for more violence than the rest of humanity combined; the almighty government class. When your options are dictated by an enormously powerful aggressor that forces you to fund their own version of a given service, the factor of choice is subtracted from the quality of service that can be provided to you.
Let's ignore for a minute the fact that private companies are tangibly motivated to satisfy customers, whereas individuals in government are only tangibly motivated to satisfy cronyists.
Let's break the concept of tax-funded service down to an equation.
Which is greater: 1 or ∞?
Hopefully, you said ∞ > 1. The value of 1 is confined, whereas the value of ∞ is limitless.
The number of options the people have access to, for any service provided by a free market industry, is ∞. In the absence of systematic economic coercion, such as taxation and forced regulation, there is no limit to the number of products & services people can imagine, and capitalize on, by serving others to get paid.
The number of options for any service monopolized by the ruling class, is 1: the government version. Even when the ruling class doesn't effectively prohibit competition outright, most people can't afford to pay for alternative versions of services they're already robbed to fund "free" versions of. By cornering most of any market via taxation, the state greatly inhibits and limits the number of private alternatives. This causes private alternatives (such as private schools) to require higher prices to sustain operation, and additionally gives them the leverage of scarcity, sending prices even higher, and excluding even more of the people from these alternative options. The remaining private alternatives raise the value of the formula to 1 + (∞ - X), with X being the number of options subtracted by the factor of the state.
So, which option has a greater chance of meeting your preferences in quality & price:
The option of 1 + [∞ - X], or the option of ∞ ?
If you can begin to imagine a rough quantification of the limiting impact of the state, you would've said ∞.
It stands to reason that safety and civility are things you seek and value, as per human instinct. If your number of avenues to receiving safety & civility are greater, you're more likely to receive optimal safety & civility. To virtually monopolize this industry requires culturally tolerated aggression (a factor almost exclusive to government). This monopoly only inhibits the safety of the people, by reducing the likelihood of the consumers from receiving their preferred service of safety.
We have been using the wrong formula for the safety and security of society. Look at any news channel, a history book, the streets, or a war museum, and you can see the result; a chaotic world of constant and catastrophic fighting and struggling.
Look to Atlantic Station or Disney World, and you can see the harmonious civility of a demand for security met by private, voluntary enterprise providing safety without robbing anybody of their earnings.
Taxation is the price we pay to live in a less civilized society.
Yes, like killing your competitors. Nothing says civilization like open warfare over territory!
There's no scenario in which it's easier to kill your competitors when your competitors have access to a private, competitive defense industry. Aggression becomes inviable as a business model in the absence of legitimized authority.
There is no scenario in which an established business could not afford better "defense" than a new, struggling competitor.
Not to mention all the nice open warfare that would occur between defense contractors. No better way to show you're better than the competition than to covertly kill people under their protection!
If that "defense" is actually aggressing against people, they're pitting themselves against the entire market for actual defense from such things. Not a lucrative business model.
Modern war only exists due to the tax streams to plunder. In the absence of taxation, war is too costly (and just awful), not to mention crippling to the reputation of a business (nobody wants to subscribe to a security company that puts the customer in danger by picking fights).
Covertly. I said covertly. As in your competitor's wards die, and no one knows who did it... But you claim it wouldn't happen under your watch.
You claim no one would patronize a business that picks fights yet drug pushers battle over territory all the time and no one cares as long as they get their drugs.
@soriano336:
Detectives.
Your next point will be that the defense contractors could have detectives too, but I hope you at least realize the conflict of interest in having employees responsible for determining their employer did nothing wrong. Literally everything that happened would be blamed on the competition...
Firstly, would you aggressively kill people under the protection of others? And how would you address these problems, if you were the manager of a defence company, or of some other company? And why is it that I've never heard of a security company deliberately breaking into the house or building of another company's client? Could it be because it just doesn't happen?
Nobody would patronize a defense company, with the job of protecting its customers, if it is picking fights which endangers its customers.
Wait... does the state stop people from "covertly" killing people now ?
@churdtzu:
What I would do has nothing to do with anything. I'm not a serial killer, but I recognize that serial killers exist. Anything less is simply delusional. What you're basically trying to state is that everyone involved in war for their own personal benefit now would magically give that up if there were no government. Which is utter bullshit. They'd just recruit their own troops and the wars would be internal between neighboring towns.
Don't believe me? Look at fucking history, there's plenty of examples of warring "kingdoms" and people attempting to take power through warfare.
Might be because the police would arrest their asses. Or because they keep it quiet. What, do you think they're going to hold a parade to announce they broke into a building protected by a rival?
What part of "covertly" do you not understand?
Without government, war is generally gone too.
Chimpanzees have been known to go to war against rival groups.
Most tribal societies war against neighboring tribal societies.
Government isn't the origin of war, limited resources and survival instinct are.
Chimpanzees have a kind of government... and the government has an interest in war.
@roy2016
But A) This just underscores the impossibility of there being no "government." Groups will always have a leader, even when it's wild animals!
B) You claim "the chimpanzee government" had an interest in war, but what do you think that interest was? It's not like she was supporting a military industrial complex... so either it was personal or she felt it was necessary for her tribe's survival. So you'd need to show those reasons wouldn't come up in a "government free" society.
Limited resources isn't nearly as much of an obstacle as it was, and it especially wouldn't be in a free society.
Those tribal societies didn't have to up against networks of millions of consumer-accountable protection companies.
Fucking comment limits...
No, you just think that because you (I'm assuming) live in a first world country which is sucking up all the resources from other places. There's a reason we constantly meddle in the Middle East for oil, and it isn't just a hard-on for war.
So? That doesn't change the fact that war is endemic to human history and would continue with or without government. And consumer accountability? Jesus... ok, tell me how many people stopped buying iPhones when we found out the factory workers were committing suicide because conditions were so bad.
Oh, right... none.
There is no such fucking thing as consumer accountability unless the consumers themselves are directly negatively affected. If other people die then so what?
Moreover, any company doing anything wrong keeps that shit under wraps. Companies don't hold parades when they illegally dump chemicals in water supplies, they hire lawyers and marketers to make sure they look squeeky clean. You think a defense contractor won't have the cash to make it look like the competitor is causing the problems (regardless of whether or not they actually are?)
Capitalism is not magic, it doesn't change human nature... and human nature is to do anything that will give you an advantage.
excellent post congratulations
Excellent piece muh Jake
This was beautifully written, and articulated rather well. Again, as a human who prefers to simply be morally consistent, I understand that using the threat of force against peaceful individuals, against total strangers who have not harmed me, is wrong. When you realize that the actions of government and its enforcers are considered IMMORAL by most people if you remove the badge and title, and put them in plain clothes, it removes the excuse of anyone with a conscience. And this is how I, and thousands I know of, have given up the insane belief that enough people voting for an immoral act can make it moral.
Its wrong for me to get in my car to harass people on the road using the threat of my weapon and a gang who will back me up, just because I don't like the speed someone is going.
It's just as immoral for someone with a badge, title and votes behind him to do the same.
Votes don't grant superhuman rights.
Rule by force is the problem.
Great article Jake, but now I have to go get some free market ice cream! That is what I want right now.
Um, you realize infinity + or - anything finite is still infinity?
The number is originally infinite, made finite by the limitation.
No, it's still infinite. Infinity minus any finite number is the same infinity you started with. You can't make it smaller by subtracting finite numbers from it.
the number of possible solutions is limited by the number of people in the world. Not infinity.
1 person can think of ∞ solutions
if you thought of one solution every second for your entire 100 year life it would still not be infinity. If would just be a large number. 3.1E9 * 7E12 = 2.1e22 is still < infinity
I up-voted this. Does that mean I am not a statist?
yes
Taxation is the price we pay for civilization?
I love the respond by Mark Skousen:
You can find it here.
Didn't eve know you were on Steemit! lol