Harry,
I go along with a great deal of what you write below. It is always the case
that government is an assumption of power by one clique or another, taking
advantage of most people's wish for security and orderliness, and a
readiness to defer. The modern nation-state is that of the power of the new
middle-class of the industrial revolution as it took over in the form of
the new, much enlarged, meritocratic civil services about a century ago
(with, in turn, most of its own power subservient to their Treasury
departments). (In the UK it was only meritocratic within the culture as was
conveyed at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Even the most senior of our
politicians [of all Parties] come from those two places.) Civil services
(including Treasuries), as presently recruited and constructed, are,
however, proving themselves to be increasingly inept in the modern world
(because they are almost completely untrained in science or business
management) and will probably yield to new forms of governance in due
course. (They probably already have -- to the financial sector and
multinationals -- as future history books will clarify.)
Not enough credit is given to the powerful instinctive motivations behind
status, power and governance. (This is only lately being revealed by the
latest "Big Science", genetics and evolutionary biology.) New forms of
governance can readily arise in emergencies or new situations. For example,
after the Kobe earthquake in 1995 it was the yakuza (the Japanese mafia)
that organized civilian relief on a massive scale for the first two or
three weeks while the government was mired in chaos and confusion. In
Australia, where whole townships were established from "criminals" (with
many really nasty ones within them) and were without government
jurisdiction, they established their own laws very quickly -- as did the
prospectors of the Californian Gold Rush of 1849. Modern mafia and
skinhead gangs (often colluding rather than competing with one another) run
rings round governments in their operations of hard drug and people
trafficking (and goodness knows what else if it's highly profitable).
We'll never be short of government! Whatever it seems to be at any one
time! It depends on what clique has access to high profits and a close
knowledge of how the real world works, not the formal government that most
people are conned into believing. The one we see and which is is "obvious"
to most observers is already the one that's losing power to a new clique.
Keith
At 14:07 19/10/2010 -0700, you wrote:
Perhaps, Arthur, war is a public good to which our taxes contribute.
People can be trusted to contribute to public improvements that they want.
Seems to me that the dry sidewalks and plank roads that replaced the muddy
streets in the old western towns stemmed from agreements of the populace and
were not coercive.
Obviously, infrastructure and public services such as police and fire may be
effectively carried out by local government using revenue from taxes.
However we should note that there are more private security personnel
(Rent-a-Cops) than there are police in the US. Also there are thousands of
jurisdictions who use private fire services rather than public. (These are
extremely successful and are often at the forefront in new ways to fight
outbreaks of fire.)
More and more, taxes which once were directed to a specific need have become
general. Anything that moves is taxed and the proceeds disappear into
general funds. This is particularly noticeable with regard to sales taxes.
The murmurings in Washington about adopting a VAT is an example of the tax
that bears no relation to a quid pro quo. VAT is a pretty good tax for
governments, for it can start low (for easy acceptance) and then move up
slowly but steadily. I think that VAT in Britain has now reached 20%.
In California, the decriminalization of marijuana is likely in a couple of
weeks. An important pro argument is "Let us make it legal so we can tax it!"
Whatever technical arguments for taxes may appear in economics texts, the
reality is that taxation is a coercive method of extracting wages from a
reluctant citizenry.
Harry
********************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA 9104
818 352-4141
********************************
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 9:42 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax"
Taxes are generally needed to provide public goods. Those goods that
everyone wants or can enjoy but is no one's interest to provide since the
returns can't be privately appropriated by any one person and the benefits
can usually be enjoyed by all.
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 11:56 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax"
What a peculiar statement from Oliver.
I think it could be argued that a civilized society wouldn't need taxes.
Harry
********************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA 9104
818 352-4141
********************************
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 3:25 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax"
Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 3:48 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax"
Once we were taxed to provide funds for something related to the tax.
I the RAF we had a saying, "If it moves salute it, if it doesn't, paint it".
Now the saying is, "Can we tax it?" with no attempt to relate revenue to a
specific activity.
It sucks.
Harry
********************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA 9104
818 352-4141
********************************
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 7:45 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Questions on the "Bit Tax"
Arthur replied:
> I suggest you take a look at the following.
>
> http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/9702-05.htm
Unfortunately, this 13-years-old article hardly answers any of the
questions.
You even ask some of these questions (e.g. whether the bit tax should be
progressive) yourself, i.e. you haven't made up your mind yet.
And when you write about a "new tax", it is not clear whether this should
replace the old (income) tax or add to it. If it replaces it, it won't be
sufficient in the first decades; if it gets added, it won't be accepted.
There's much unclarity in that article. E.g. when you write that "The bit
tax would not be a user pay tax.", who if not the users should pay it? Even
if it will be collected at the ISP level, of course the users (ISP
customers) will end up paying this tax. But not to maximize excertion, that
won't happen on a Bit basis...
There also seems to be a lack of technical background, e.g. when you note
that "Collected by the telecom carriers, satellite networks and cable
systems the revenues would flow directly to the national revenue service of
the respective country."
Did you know that when emails etc. are sent from A to B (even if they are in
the same neighborhood!), these bits pass through many other countries, some
quite distant from A and B, sometimes around the planet? Why should
countries around the world collect taxes for a communication between
neighbors who have nothing to do with these countries? (This would also mean
that if the transfer happens to pass thru 22 countries, the tax will be
twice as much than if the same amount of data passes thru 11 countries
-- note that the number of countries crossed is not even within the power of
the users!) And in satellite communications, talking of countries is pretty
moot.
And it's ironic to stress the possibilities of tax evasion in the old
economy, when these possibilities would be even greater in bit-taxed
(wireless) global communications.
> http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/9806-08.htm
The concrete part about the bit tax is mostly a copy-paste job from the
first article.
Has there been any development of the Bit Tax concept in the last 12 years?
(An eternity in the digital age!) Or was it buried ~10 years ago...?
Maybe because nobody knew the answers to all those questions...
Chris
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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