Fermion
Senior Member
Posts: 4488
Joined: Nov 2002
|
Thu Mar 26, 09 01:02 AM
|
|
Quote
Originally posted by: gardener3
Quote
Originally posted by: Fermion
Quote
Originally posted by: gardener3
Quote
Originally posted by: Fermion
Quote
Originally posted by: Aash
Quote
Originally posted by: Fermion
Quote
Originally posted by: DominicConnor
Consider a government that has no interest other than getting as much tax as possible (not hard is it ?)
If you have zero tax then it gets no income
At 100%, you also get no tax either because no one bothers to earn.
It follows that there exists at least one maximum between those two points.
Uncontentious you may think ?
Taxes are so 20th century! They are an unfair and irrational way of trying to compensate for an unfair, irrational and broken economic system.
To collect the income due to the community/public, one must make an appropriate separation between public interest (and responsibility) and private interest (and responsibility) in the market place. No economic system, to my knowledge has ever addressed this problem rationally rather than ideologically. Isn't it about time we did?
Conceptually, I find this interesting, this idea that you could quantify income due to the public, although I'm not even certain what you're recommending here. Care to elaborate?
The basic principle is that the earth and all of nature's bounty, including the laws of physics and mathematics and all science, are the natural inheritance of the community as a whole. This means that if anyone exploits them for private gain, then they must compensate the community. The way to do this is by the market and it is the responsibility of the community to provide a functioning market place which, again, is a community right. Those who wish to exploit a particular resource compete in the market for the rights to whatever aspects of nature they need. They can then make whatever product they like and sell it on the open market. In essence this requires the separation of resources and other means of production (public interest/responsibility) from production itself (private interest/responsibility). Government regulates markets and collects compensation for the use of the earth/universe and private sector manages production. Each is forbidden from interfering in the other's sector.
I'll just give a very simple (and grossly over-simplified) example that will convey the idea:
There is a tree that could be cut down and used to make furniture. Those who wish to make the furniture bid for the right to the tree. The winning bidder pays the community, cuts down the tree, makes the furniture and sells it to the community. End of story.
What we have now is that those who want the tree, fight wars over it until one triumphs and the others give up or are dead. Then he claims every other tree as his own and pays the hungry crowd to do the work of cutting them down and making the furniture. He then organises the government to defend his rights to the trees and taxes the workers who cut them down in order to pay for the police and armies he needs to enforce his claim. Every now and then he tosses a few twigs to the unemployed crowd who protest in order to keep them quiet.
You may like the writings of Henry George. The problem is for most products/services the value added comes from IP as opposed to natural resources. Google does not make its money because it owns a bunch of office space.
As I recall, George was interested only in land. And he advocated a land tax. I talk about any "resource", including whatever is discernible from nature (that obviously affects IP, but not trivially, since I would reward the work that goes into discovery and invention but without granting a monopoly on what humans can learn). Otherwise, I agree there are similarities.
That is trivial since everything (by definition) is discernible from nature. Suppose I develop a new way of measuring credit risk. I contract out the idea for a fee and make millions. What resources have I used and how much should I be taxed?
It's far from trivial. Indeed you have hit on a key difficulty that I don't (yet) have an answer for (that satisfies me). Clearly you have created something valuable to the community (your customers), but equally clearly you are using community resources. At the very least these resources include (a) providing a market, (b) providing an economic environment where your method is useful and (c) the laws of nature which include the applicability of the math you have used. What I don't yet know is how to value and collect compensation for the last two (the first could be as simple as a transaction fee) without hindering your ability to market and profit from your IP and continue to make valuable contributions to the community. On the other hand I don't think the problem is so difficult as to be insoluble with some more thought.
|
|
.jpg)
