From: Grey Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
User-fees are an excellent idea, but I don't think
incompatible with a Lib-Georgist land value tax:
Who supports the judiciary? Who supports the
Dept. of War? er, Defense? -- property owners,
who need/use local police and international police,
as well as courts, to defend their property rights.
If, hypothetically speaking, all public goods could be internalized, and
paid for with user fees, what public domain would be left to fund with land
taxes? In the case of law enforcement, decentralize it to the smallest
local level, place it under direct democratic control, and make its services
voluntary and based on user fees. I suspect the need for any kind of law
enforcement in a heavily armed society would be much less (look at the
anecdotal evidence about Kennesaw, Ga.). And a decentralized,
cooperatively-controlled police force could be combined with aspects of the
current neighborhood watch system, posse comitatus, etc., in ways that would
drastically reduce cost.
As for defense, a decentralized, stateless society would present few
concentrated targets of value to foreign predators; it would have no central
government to surrender; and local citizens' militias, federated as needed,
would make any enemy so clueless as to invade pay rent in blood for every
square foot of land occupied. Let maritime merchants pay the cost of their
own convoy systems against piracy. The rest of the foreign threats the
U.S. military defends against, it seems to me, all involve what some power
on the other side of the globe might do within a few hundred miles of its
own border.
I personally support smaller, annual fee-taxes,
rather than less frequent, much larger transaction
fees (eg. house ownership transfer fee of some $40 000),
for such night watchman state funding.
BTW, I like the comparison of a minarchist
night watchman state with the current, and
increasing, nanny state. (If you want to
get infected with that linguistic meme.)
Words and phrases are important, I doubt that
we can change public schools into gov't schools,
but if that gov't label had been given earlier, it
might have stuck, and would certainly be easier
to reform now.
That's the word I like to use, but it gets me labelled as one of them
militia nuts--odd, since I have an IWW sticker on my car.
Finally, I also favor user-fees on pollution.
I think that land-tax and pollution tax can,
and should, replace all personal income tax.
My desire for companies to pay for the benefit
of corporate limited liability makes me hesitate
to elliminate the corporate income tax altogether,
but reducing it, certainly.
Interesting--how would the pollution-fees be assessed, and pollution
measured? Through some kind of libertarian tort law? On the issue of
limited liability, Rothbard argued that it could be established (vis a vis
creditors) without any state, simply by including it up front in the terms
of the contract. Limited tort liability, he said, was of relatively minor
importance. In the case of a few industries, of course, (the nuclear power
industry in particular), they almost certainly couldn't survive without the
state's intervention to limit their liability. Good riddance!
_
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