Taxes for Pinheads

http://front.moveon.org/is-our-tax-system-fair/

I read a line in the Cheney book that just dropped my jaw, something about "unemployment is too high so let's cut taxes on the 1%."

Cheney fought to not only cut, but totally eliminate, taxes on dividends and capital gains.

Supply-side voodoonomics.

Well, that is what free market capitalism is all about. No taxation. I would have no problem with no taxation as long as it applied to everyone across the board.

I don't know where you got your definition of capitalism, but it's incorrect and I suggest you look elsewhere.

So no taxes at all. Okay then, there will be no government at all (someone has to pay for it). No public roads, schools, military, police, fire fighters, etc. You really have no problem with this?

I wasn't attempting to define capitalism. However, the free marketers are always harping on about less government. There's a reason for that and. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with less or no taxation. The ideal taken to its extreme seems to suggest a "private" world where the market decides almost everything.

"No government" in practice looks a lot more like Somalia than Utopia.

I'm not so sure... No capitalist democratic country has ever tried it that I am aware of. I don't think Somalia started out under the same conditions as present day U.S.A.

... and describing this as 'utopia-like" seems like a misrepresentation. Free-marketeers do seem to 'forsee' a possible ideal state emerging from these hypothetical conditions. I myself am skeptical, but open to understanding how such conditions might improve things for the whole country and not just the wealthiest 1%. The rich do need to realize they need a strong and healthy working class to keep them, well... rich. Without a thriving economy, their wealth will be in danger of diminishing.

My concern with no government or very little government would be the replacement of democracy with absolute free market forces... which is one potential outcome. Some would argue that is what we have now, but I don't believe that is actually the case. Not completely. Democratic principles still hold sway in a distinct and independent way from the influence of money.

SAI2 wrote:

My concern with no government or very little government would be the replacement of democracy with absolute free market forces...

Which are called "militias." You know I'm right.

Can you define or describe these "free market forces" that would replace government?
Maybe tell us how you perceive them working for the good of society.

_Howard wrote:

Can you define or describe these "free market forces" that would replace government?
Maybe tell us how you perceive them working for the good of society.

Well, it is tough, but I'll give it a try. Imagine the free market, as it is now, but with all our public services privatized. There. Not so hard after all.

Whether this would work, simply on a pragmatic level, or functional level, I personally doubt it, but it would be an interesting experiment. Not sure I would want to partake though. Capitalism, it seems to me needs democratic mechanisms external and separate from private mechanisms. They can't work in isolation to one another. (well, I personally think we could do without capitalism entirely, and just live purely without a monetary system of exchange, but that discussion would have to be for another thread I suspect.)

Your first mistake is defining the current economic system as "free market."

SAI2 wrote:

Imagine the free market, as it is now, but with all our public services privatized. Whether this would work [...] I personally doubt it

Especially since "public services" are, by definition, money losers.

_Howard wrote:

Your first mistake is defining the current economic system as "free market."

Where did I do that? I said imagine the free market... ahh, I see. Okay, Imagine the market, as it is now, etc, etc.

My point was to imagine the system we have now, privatized.

Considering that a great many of the economic problems we have today are caused by the government having been corrupted into instituting policies pushed for by the super-wealthy and the corporations, how could things get better by just turning everything over to these same people?

Old saying: "If you find yourself in a hole, quit digging." Privatization would be using a bigger shovel.