Yeah, asking why you do something is as much a question about an action as asking whether you'd do it. You're not asking "Would you pay it?" you're asking: "Would you pay it if condition x were false?" You're taking it out of reality, where condition x is true. I agree, you could ask: "Would you pay it?" but the response from the person to that question would be useless without the necessary conditional you've put in it. However, as soon as you put in the conditional about a state of affairs, the person is not analysing their action as it is, but is instead analsying their action according to a state of affairs that may exist. It's as much a mental trick as it is in a case where people convince themselves it's a good idea if it's inevitable.
That goes back to what I said before, which you ignored, if you were to ask me: "Would you still work if you were a millionaire?" I might say: "No." That's true, but it's not true for any useful purpose, because I'm not a millionaire. If you ask me: "Why do you work?" I might say: "Because I like making money." In fact, the latter case is a more truthful statement than the previous case, because I don't actually know what Millionaire-Me might do whereas I do know what Non-millionaire Me would do (work). In any event, the previous question doesn't tell you whether or not I consider the fact I work voluntary, in fact, it doesn't tell you very much anything at all. I personally do consider the fact I work voluntary, but you'd have to ask the latter question to find that fact out. If you just had the previous question and left it, you might as well assume I believe that I work involuntarily.
In the end, you ARE asking for an opinion, the way you propose is a less honest way to do so considering what the inquiry at hand is. Remember, I said that people might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes. This is a sociological fact. Even one person might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes.
If you asked me your question:
"Would you pay taxes if you weren't forced to?" I'd say: "Yes." That's all you get.
My question:
"Why do you pay taxes?" "Fear of jail if I don't, because they pay for roads, social services, because I believe they are a legitimate exercise of function of government."
I'm not lying, no reason to, I pay taxes for multiple reasons and so do most people, and these preferences themselves may be ordered, maybe on my scale of preferences the fear of jail is in-fact less than the fear of potentially unmaintained roads if I have a nice car, for example.
Actually, an idea: Presumably we can synthesise the inquiry, ask "Why" and then ask "Would you still do it", or do it in reverse order. Then, ask people what their preference scales are, etc, etc. You'll find out more information about the reasons people pay taxes, you'll also find that what I said before is true: people pay taxes for multiple reasons.
Is that the correct test, though? Ask the guy if he would take the job if he wasn't starving: He'll say 'No'. So in a system where he has no recourse to some safety net, he's not acting voluntarily in any case where the alternative is a type of negative consequence which he'd like to mitigate. I'd rather not be doing law, for example, I'd rather be reading on the beach, but the alternative could be living on social assistance (which is a definitely a thing to fear for me), still I wouldn't say that I'm involuntarily doing my job.
Maybe you should ask, instead: "Why do you pay taxes?" And allow the respondents to give you a wider set of reasons. Maybe some will say it is out of fear of the IRS, but some people might not say that, or say something different. It's still a 'test' of the matter, but it's a less leading test and it's the sort of test that follows from what I've said.
Sorry, the Queen test case was just for fun. Wanted to see what you'd say. Yeah, the Queen cannot legitimately own anything by that conception, since it is all ultimately tainted by a long historical process of beating out competitors on the British Isles.
On a legal conception (my field), people don't pay taxes because they are forced to do so by force, people pay taxes for a wide variety of reasons: fear of consequences, habit, actual willingness to pay taxes, social cohesion, internalization of process. Paying taxes makes sense for businesses, and various other organisations on an economic level. Paying taxes in Australia (where I am), for example, gets you a wide variety of benefits that most people appreciate, and most of them don't feel forced to do so. Maybe at some baseline level they are 'forced' to do so, but it is done voluntarily. Just as you would say that a person taking a job because otherwise they will starve is a voluntary act, so can paying taxes be voluntary despite the background threat of prison.
Same with religion, maybe those initial people will not be Christians, but maybe their grandchildren will be if the occupation continues. The Ottomans, for example, converted people to Islam through tax incentives and education.
A test case for you:
In Canada (and Australia), for example, 89% of the land is in direct ownership by the Crown, the other 11% is rented by the Crown to individuals in the form of land tenure. Legally, the Queen is not allowed to permanently sell any land, as they are subject to the old rules of English family law, where descendants are to be entitled to inherit the land. The Queen, through the Government of Canada which represents her, is the owner of the entire country. Does she not have the right to charge whatever rent rates (taxes) she would like? And are not people paying these taxes voluntarily as long as they live on this rented land?
I don't see this 'larger implication'. Where is this objective moral scale I can look at? The one that'll tell me that I'm more moral than you, or you're more moral than me? I don't claim I'm more moral than you, I do claim we have differing morality. My morals tell me that it is okay to 'initiate force' in certain circumstances, the fact that your morals tell you the opposite has no bearings on me nor on any objective scale of morals you could point to. You've taken a principle and put it on some sort of pedestal which allows you to point to it and say: if you violate that, you're immoral. I can do the same with any given principle and neither of us comes out on top morally, nor will we ever. The unfortunate thing about your principle is that it is weak from a force perspective: in order for you to stay true to your morals, you cannot initiate force, in order for me to stay true to my morals, I can do so and I can enable the government to do so as well.
Did I say that? I didn't realize I made such a categorical statement! I thought I said that the market already takes the government into account, not that the government cannot be a reason for unemployment. The government certainly could be a reason for unemployment, but that doesn't mean it is always the reason for unemployment, nor does it mean that proper regulation necessarily leads to lowered employment.
The market is a system constantly re-evaluating itself to reach equilibrium. It's a very weak view of the market which takes away from it the ability to take into account government 'interference'. Indeed, most governments don't interfere too often, prostitution and gambling have been illegal for decades in the US (legal where I live, however). I don't need to factor these things in, because the market has already factored them in. What government interference implies is a sort of Old-Testament God, who constantly interferes with its subjects. Governments try their best to interfere very little, they make sure inflation stays low-ish, they don't suddenly change economic policy except in crises. Government "interference" (the better word you might use is 'existence', since this is what I think you mean) is an ever-present fact of the market and the market has always taken it into account.
Yeah, but such a statement requires no actual evidence. I can tell you I'm okay with it, because that's a fact about myself. The fact that your view is incompatible just shows that I don't consider all opinions morally valid, some are wrong. Just as to you it might appear that I am not 'good', it might appear to me that you're not 'good' if you refuse to pay taxes. It's a coincidence that my view is backed-up by society, but such is life. A libertarian might say to a person born blind, deaf and dumb who is unable to work: 'tough luck', I can say to a libertarian born in a society that forces them to support those less fortunate with taxes: 'tough luck.' I personally see nothing immoral about this.
Right, and I guess what I'm saying is that it's fine to do so at someone else's expense. But that's the moral argument and it's a simple one, I don't see government force as illegitimate and therefore I'm fine with taxation, regardless of who is being taxed. If you believe it is illegitimate, that's ultimately your problem and you live in a reality where most people do not agree with you. That's fine, we can disagree and move on.
But the problem comes in when unsubstantiated statements come into this. I don't see any evidence presented at all that what you go on to say in your last paragraph is true.
"The reason unemployment exists is not because there's not enough jobs." I'm sorry, but my country's unemployment rate is 22%[1], and we have no welfare state worth mentioning. The minimum wage is under $1/h, and there are no restrictions on hiring nor on firing. We've had this same rate of unemployment for decades with constant economic liberalization. Now, I suppose under oleganza's view, we can still blame the very fact that government (anywhere) exists on this problem, but at a certain point you cannot blame the government anymore.
I didn't say we have to evaluate the cost in any sort of vacuum of political power, the tools are here and the tools are perfectly capable of taking into account government. In fact, the tools necessitate a governmental economic policy at this point. Government measurements often are independent measurements insofar as they are measurements done by an entity that has more neutral stake in the economic function of a nation than any constituent citizen, company or body corporate. Who is the neutral arbiter in a society without government? Added: Who else can require corporations/individuals to release correct/non-fraudulent financial data, and who else can hold them to account if they don't do so?
So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well.
What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decision?
Are you suggesting that in a society without a government there would be no unemployment? (To clarify, unemployment is the opposite of employment. Unemployment is 'not working'.)
On your first point, it's not whether or not it comes with a cost that is the relevant question. The relevant question is: If it does come with a cost, does the cost justify the benefits and/or are we willing to pay the cost?
I'm aware of the strange views of Libertarians, but I'd never heard a currency itself marked as coercive! I agree: It's a strange view of coercion where getting fired and ending up on the street provided you're fired by a private employer is less a coercive act than having to pay a percentage of your income for social benefit, or, worse yet it seems, having to use a 'coercive currency'.
I see, so a coercive currency is just fiat currency (or just currency) with an appended modifier. This modifier itself is then qualified with 'indirect' because the regulations enabling the use of these currencies is backed by government force which, although rarely utilised in the context of the commercial transaction, is ever-present. In relation to this indirect coercion these economists are (directly? or indirectly?) forcing people to spend money through monetary policy.
They're not obligated to do so, but they do have the right to do so. The name Mario is not a trademark itself since common names cannot be trademarked, although product names containing the name Mario are trademarked by Nintendo, such as Super Mario. I think Nintendo has sufficient grounds to sue because this project uses the name Mario in concert with an actual rework of a Nintendo product which itself is copyright. Most likely they won't resort to a lawsuit right away, instead will send a cease and desist.
The real solution is single-payer, a public option may have eased transition into single-payer sometime in the future, whereas a sudden transition into single-payer would have shocked the economy and been nigh impossible (it wasn't even suggested). In my country we have single-payer. Despite this, I take care of myself, perhaps not as well as you do, but I'm close. I don't expect some sort of reward for taking proper care of myself, nor do I expect others to take the same kind of care because people are often careless. Health care is a right, whether you smoke, go to the gym, eat donuts or eat broccoli.
That's one of the reasons why subsidising and regulating private health insurance is not a good approach. If the government worked the way it was supposed to (rationally), then they would have voted for a public insurance option. They went half-way, and everyone will now pay the price.
The right system is the one which gives the judge a discretion as to who pays costs, guided by court rules as well as economic sense and equitable principles.
That goes back to what I said before, which you ignored, if you were to ask me: "Would you still work if you were a millionaire?" I might say: "No." That's true, but it's not true for any useful purpose, because I'm not a millionaire. If you ask me: "Why do you work?" I might say: "Because I like making money." In fact, the latter case is a more truthful statement than the previous case, because I don't actually know what Millionaire-Me might do whereas I do know what Non-millionaire Me would do (work). In any event, the previous question doesn't tell you whether or not I consider the fact I work voluntary, in fact, it doesn't tell you very much anything at all. I personally do consider the fact I work voluntary, but you'd have to ask the latter question to find that fact out. If you just had the previous question and left it, you might as well assume I believe that I work involuntarily.
In the end, you ARE asking for an opinion, the way you propose is a less honest way to do so considering what the inquiry at hand is. Remember, I said that people might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes. This is a sociological fact. Even one person might have multiple reasons why they pay taxes.
If you asked me your question:
"Would you pay taxes if you weren't forced to?" I'd say: "Yes." That's all you get.
My question:
"Why do you pay taxes?" "Fear of jail if I don't, because they pay for roads, social services, because I believe they are a legitimate exercise of function of government."
I'm not lying, no reason to, I pay taxes for multiple reasons and so do most people, and these preferences themselves may be ordered, maybe on my scale of preferences the fear of jail is in-fact less than the fear of potentially unmaintained roads if I have a nice car, for example.
Actually, an idea: Presumably we can synthesise the inquiry, ask "Why" and then ask "Would you still do it", or do it in reverse order. Then, ask people what their preference scales are, etc, etc. You'll find out more information about the reasons people pay taxes, you'll also find that what I said before is true: people pay taxes for multiple reasons.