A look back at the bestselling book franchise that taught people to “think like economists,” by which it meant “think cynically and amorally.”

  •  EthicalAI   ( @EthicalAI@beehaw.org ) 
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    1 year ago

    Well so I think it’s first important to note that taxes are the positive right of our government to levy, per the 16th amendment, true really for every government, so we just aren’t playing on the same legal basis as one another.

    Second, if you are an anarchist, you are a leftist, because governments are the enforcers of private property rights. Personal property can exist under anarchy, because you can defend it, but as a matter of pure practicality private property can not, because you are not present to defend it, and are outnumbered by your workers, who have an incentive to not heed your claim to ownership. If you support private property, you support a government that protects private property, which requires police, which requires taxation, which kinda brings us back around to your first point that taxes are theft.

    Since you need police, a system of violence in and of themselves, and taxation to make private property work, then at the very least private property is also violence.