Kevin Carson wrote By funding services out of general > revenue, we break the market price system's feedback link that tells the > consumer the real cost of what he consumes, and lets him adjust his level of > consumption on the basis of the price signal. I suspect that there are very > few (if any) true "public goods," that cannot be "internalized" and paid for > entirely by those who use them. >
Many of the (good) features of the market could be restored to the payment of government, if the collection of taxes were kept as local as possible. That way, people would be (more) able to vote with their feet. This could also allow communities to experiment with different kinds of taxes, allowing e.g. the georgists to prove the superiority (if any) of their system of land value taxation. In some sense, local tax collecting communities would then act as competing corporations � to link this thread with the other topic floating around on the list - jacob braestrup
