547 What Are Taxes Really For?

[Martin Hash]

[Fife]

So the global economy is just a big zero-sum game of Monopoly?

Let's start by revoking Parker Bros' copyright.

The coming equalization is going to be glorious.


:goteam: :drunk:

[Martin Hash]

Monopoly was developed to teach how Capitalism works.

p.s. Only the artwork is copyrighted.

[Fife]

Yes, Monopoly models reality because of its intelligent design.

We must replace Monopoly with something more egalitarian in this zero-sum Hellscape we live in.

How about Yahtzee?

[Speaker to Animals]

Monopoly was developed to teach how Capitalism works.

p.s. Only the artwork is copyrighted.

That must be why most games I ever played ended in fist fights and destruction.

[Speaker to Animals]

It ends up being a market transaction, though. When people decide they don't get anything in return for their shitty tax rates, they just pack their shit and leave the tax jurisdiction.

I am not opposed to progressive taxation at all, but people need to receive something in return for what they are paying, and the people receiving need to pay something. Otherwise, the payers flee and the receivers burn everything to the ground. You get the situation we saw this month in New York where the governor wrote something to the effect: fuck no we cannot raise taxes on the rich any more. They already pay some of the highest taxes in the country, account for more than half of the budget, and they are going to fucking leave if it gets worse.

As far as wealth redistribution, the problem with the initial wealth redistribution to the top is a problem of capitalism. Fixing it with more exploitation isn't going to make matters better. The fundamental problem is the inequitable distribution of property and means. Workers don't own their own tools. Most people don't actually own their own houses, and even if they do on paper, they are still paying rent to the state. Most people are not needed in the high-tech economy that is ramping up. They need to be transitioned to the countryside with their own land, their own tools, and the ability to forge their own lives.

How you get from here to there is not an easy answer, though I would point out that forced redistribution of property and wealth isn't going to fix it at all. If anything, the state will never truly do this in such a way that gives people autonomy. It's going to be redistributed with dependency in mind, graft, and coercion.

I would rather focus on the economic system that creates the problem.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think you were almost right when you argued people receiving welfare who are not disabled should have to work, even if it means digging pointless holes in the ground. I think you were wrong in that people require meaning in their lives, and pointless labor is going to cause a lot of problems. A mit'a system like the Inca had isn't a bad idea. We have LOTS of civil engineering work going on all the time. Roadwork. Bridge repairs. Hell, we really need to bury every last power line in this country ASAP for national security. There are lots of things people can do. If they find themselves unable to pay when they are physically able to work, then they can do all sorts of good work that improves society and provides them with meaning and accomplishment.

When democrats argue to their constituents that the government should provide all this free shit, it is understood that those constituents wouldn't pay a dime for any of it. But if they all knew they'd have to put in some extra labor to pay for the free education, for example, like serving on a university work farm and burying power lines in exchange for free tuition, I wonder how many would still be all for it?

For my part, I think that would be awesome. We have a university in my area where tuition is paid by working on farms. It's a great idea. The students seem to love it there too.

I think it a huge mistake to move away from the transactional paradigm of taxation. It's not just about getting something in return for what you pay into the system, but also paying into the system for what you get in return.

[Martin Hash]

Math is NOT fair; if wealth is not redistributed, it WILL concentrate. At some point, the other 300 million people aren't going to care how high the tide is.

[brewster]

Monopoly was developed to teach how Capitalism works.

But not in a good way. It was supposed to teach how rents concentrated wealth, a microcosm of how wealth creates wealth in the Picketty playbook. The story of the game itself is actually a great illustration of how creativity is often pirated and taken credit for by the most ruthless brillant "businessmen".

Said the creator:

“It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences,” she wrote in a political magazine. “It might well have been called the ‘Game of Life’, as it contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world, and the object is the same as the human race in general seem to have, ie, the accumulation of wealth.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ng-origins

[brewster]

We have LOTS of civil engineering work going on all the time. Roadwork. Bridge repairs. Hell, we really need to bury every last power line in this country ASAP for national security. There are lots of things people can do. If they find themselves unable to pay when they are physically able to work, then they can do all sorts of good work that improves society and provides them with meaning and accomplishment.

But then you'll be trampling on some union or other that gets paid real money for that shit.