Submitted by antifascistpotor in Libertarian

Rothbard and Nozick added nothing of value.

Discussions about “libertarians” are usually pointless because of the contorted absurdities the take as premise, for example this:

«Nozick claims that a requirement to pay taxes is on a par with slavery»

In most countries there is no «requirement to pay taxes», paying taxes is a totally voluntary option: for example I don’t pay the high taxes of Sweden by the simple device of not going to live in Sweden. There is a market in levels of taxations and people can purchase the citizenship of the country that best suits their level of taxation preference.

«Most people cannot purchase citizenship of any country»

For a proper libertarian that kind of “positive” liberty does not matter: for a libertarian if you could have the surgery that saves your life but can’t afford it, that’s your problem not the collective problem of ensuring that you have the freedom to have such surgery if you can afford it. If the jackbooted thugs of the government do not prevent you from choosing something else, then you are free, regardless of whether you can afford to choose something else.

People who don’t understand the structure of libertarian argument can be misled by the clever dissembling they are usually based on.

Property taxes that tax just the location not buildings not coercive either - the surroundings (whole of society) give locations their value - none of it landowner's effort. Why should landowners collect or enjoy all that location rent (high Central London in UK) when the surroundings/whole of society creates location values?

Right-wing libertarianism is all about freeing incumbent property owners from state interference, and their being free to use the power it gives over those without, and the state enforcing aspects of that power.

BTW in the 19th century "libertarians" argued powerfully against raising taxes to build acqueducts and sewers in cities, because of the argument that some people wanted the liberty to wallow in filth and of risking getting cholera and other plagues. An argument that was actually propertarian (the richer taxpayers had private acqueducts and sewers or resided in country mansions). That despite conservative propertarians like the romans building 2,000 years earlier acqueducts and sewers (and public saunas and baths) as a matter of course using public funds, simply as a measure of civilization. But such is the savagery of the english tory mentality.

my usual story about Trump and the Democrats: a NY/NJ real estate mobster routinely uses blackmail, intimidation and bribery to do "business", and no doubt Trump has used political bribery on a massive scale in NY/NJ and elsewhere. Why aren't the Democrats trying to find dirt on Trump about that? Because most NY/NJ politicians he would have bribed are democrats...

Some context: Trump has been for decades one of the biggest donors to political campaigns (usually to republicans, many republicans owe him a lot), and some real estate developers in any country routinely travel with a briefcase full of brown envelopes with wads of cash, and the first thing they do when meeting anyone who is someone is to automatically give out one, without asking for anything in return, just to start the meeting on a warm note.

Real estate is a nasty business anywhere, from Moscow to Rome to Bombay to Seoul, but especially so in the USA, both because of the enormity of the stakes, and ingrained cultural factors, and in NY/NJ even more so.

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kano wrote

I don't really follow the argument here and am not a libertarian but I'm pretty sure I'm forced to pay taxes.

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Fool wrote

Many countries will even advertise their membership costs. For example Ireland has an Investment Visa, granting residence for as low as €500 000.

Such Freedom™ is available for Everyone!©

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Majrelende wrote

I would rather not be guided and patronised by rich guardian angels for my own good, thank you. I also would not like to be made a slave to said rich guardian angels in thanks for their patronising me (for my own good of course).

Where can I go where I will not be guided and patronised by rich guardian angels for my own good? And if I openly disobey them they will try their best to make my life miserable? I would love to know.

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BlackedAIX wrote

Are you claiming Americans are not forced to pay taxes, as if the government doesn't routinely charge, enslave, and punish people who don't or can't pay...as if you can just move out of the US free of charge? And the 'move' argument is a old tactic for xenophobes.

If your argument claims that moving to another place with 'lower taxes' is a solution to the people who say "Taxation is theft" then you are sadly mistaken and confused. There are or were Libertarians and An-Caps attempting to create and build continent on the Pacific Ocean to start a new tax-free nation.

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SpaceMoth wrote

Perhaps the pure capitalist argument is flawed, but Georgism states that private land ownership (including land ownership by the state) is inherently coercive. Georgism states that private land ownership theft and therefore income taxation is theft because it is only because of the state's land ownership that it is enforced. Competition does not solve this problem because land has inelastic supply so all the people competing have no right to sell in the first place. It is like arguing that a free market on slaves is not coercive because there is competition so the slaves should be able to buy their freedom.

This argument is just the logical conclusion of Rothbard's view of a libertarian society. But there are plenty of libertarians who don't agree with Rothbard.

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roanoke9 wrote

Sounds like some good praxis would be posing as someone who is someone, getting that first meeting with a developer, then never being able to be found for any subsequent meetings or contacts. In minecraft.

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