Topic: Taxless society idea - page 9. (Read 2932 times)

But that's what already happens (and has been happening all this time)

People are often stigmatized and labeled for just being different from the rest of the pack, and I don't necessarily mean some difference sort of carved in stone, so to speak. You can just have an opinion somewhat different from the party line, and already be a target for communal disdain and contempt. On the other hand, if you gain support and bring in enough people, you can do the same thing against those who so foolishly chose to disrespect you

In other words, the balance is still going to be mostly the same, i.e. more power means more responsibility, but on average it will level out to what we have right now. As you can see, we can change the variables (or the limits) in pretty wide range here but without dramatically affecting the bottom line, which basically means we do not need to "enhance" the human being itself as it all revolves around environment (which we can change)


It is still a difference of degree, not of kind or substance (read, it will be a gradual change)

TBH, it could happen right now, but I also think that you don't like the idea of "selection", as this suggestion would only impose people to submit in the said society. And when I think about it, this would also arise hierarchical supremacy, some would think highly of such "society", and some members would probably discriminate those who aren't. So I guess "selection" won't cut it.

Exactly, what if it's a result of false accusations--defamation. If every member "acknowledges" the responsibility of such actions/decisions (I was gonna say, 'should we include thoughts?' but I think that's getting overboard), then it could be avoided.


I see the possibility, it will surely be valued (be the first as well) in history, but doubt comes into mind, would I ever live that long to see this day?

Humans are social beings

And not to go mad they need to connect and bond with other people. So if you did something wrong, the rest of the pack may choose to ignore you until you have redeemed your wrongdoing. Obviously, the level of such "ignorance" is going to depend on the gravity of your "crime". This is not possible right now because we have not yet reached this level of integration (but we are well on our way)
 
But there are pitfalls with this idea too as someone may be ostracized for the entirely wrong reasons. So, on the one hand, we need an extremely tightly-knit society for this to work in the first place, but then, on the other hand, for this to work properly everyone should be totally responsible for his own actions and decisions to avoid what is called the herd instinct (otherwise known as the mob effect)


Actually, no, I don't mean anything such. To get an idea, think of the world as one large village where everyone knows everyone else on the societal level (and what he is potentially up to). This doesn't mean losing personal privacy, though. It should probably be valued and maintained even higher and stricter than ever in history

So, in short, until we reach such goal (society) we're still going to need "law enforcement", to make sure that "adaptation" is accordingly received. Instead of "taxless society", which the OP wants to call it, would you consider this one as "free society"? (This "society" we're discussing reminds of a movie called "The Giver", but that's for another topic)

Assuming that all members of this society are already well aware, that If we were to implement ostracism, would it still be appropriate(?), justifiable(?) whatever that person has done, in this current era?


Do you mean a cyberpunk-esque environment? (I apologize in advance, I am engrossed to sci-fi genre)

The codified law of a country typically reflects the already existing rules of "moral conduct"

If it stops doing that, and the law system is not adapted accordingly and on time, this may lead to a revolution (or a coup). That takes long years since the society doesn't change overnight. Nonetheless, these changes are objective and they are prone to accumulate over time, so they can and do have such grave consequences. But we would still need law enforcement anyway, at least as long as something else doesn't take its place

For example, the term ostracism has its roots in the Athenian democracy of Ancient Greece, where someone breaking the law would be expelled (ostracized) from Athens by the local citizenry. In the same way, if a criminal or wrongdoer could be quickly and effectively isolated from the society (to the extent of the gravity of his crime or delinquency), there would be no need for special law enforcement bodies


I think that technically (or rather, physiologically), we would still remain same human beings as before. It is our environment that we operate within that should change dramatically for us to stop being "human beings" in the most casual sense of the word

I don't think it would be good and I don't agree on implementing it. A taxless society is a society without government, without enforcers of the law, everything would be chaos. No one would follow anyone. As much as we hate taxes, we cannot avoid them and we should not. The problem arises when the people on the government has corrupted ideas. We cannot live on a perfect society since we, ourselves, the people aren't perfect. The government maintains order, we still need to use these centralized currencies and pay our part or else we would only live for ourselves.

Labor, Development, and Maintenance--intriguing. Definitely, most of the taxes went to these three things.

Labor is probably the most "paid" (not paid by 'how much', but paid by 'how many'), considering how big and clunky the government is. Besides, no one works for free now. Inflation is good for the economy, but not for the people. Further inflation could lead to unemployment which eventually affects the economy. Deflation, on the other hand, is probably one of the keys to having a taxless society. Maintenance is also needy, not only it requires funds from the government it also needs "labor". Probably the one thing that needs most of the attention from the government. Development, this one also requires funds and labor, but I think this is on the downside. But the government should consider it because development means less labor.

A taxless society isn't delusional at all. Way before the government and tax becomes relevant, groups of people (a society) exists. The government and tax only helped us to become a civilization we are today, but in a (or one) sense a society can exist without it.

Thats capitalism, I respect the ordinary people as being the bulk of a countrys wealth in that the fastest growth can come from the very smallest of productive enterprises.  100% growth for someone who starts a business is possible and if we consider the millions across the country taking on this task then we have a great wealth of production possible.    However we have to allow the people to operate, excessive taxes restrict and even stop them.  The burden of red tape is disproportionate, the largest companies can devote a cadre of lawyers to navigate the legal minefield that government leaves in its wake where as a solo trader only knows the skills they do best and must consult others at great cost to avoid becoming illegal in their honest trade.    Large government quite often criminalizes their population by the clumsy moves and endless laws passed.   I love that opportunity for all but its not a given in even democracies now.
    Inflation as a tax undermines the smallest operations also, again they are bound to the local economy where as large companies have international arbitrage.  Inflation erodes value with little given in exchange, the largest companies will deliberately borrow to benefit from loose money policy of government with large debt.  Microsoft maybe the richest company in the world borrows to pay their share dividends because the yield on the debt is below the yield on the shares and even below the rate of inflation so debt is a negative cost to them.  The common person is worse off with large government and inflation attacks the smallest participants in an economy most aggressively.

Well, government expenses is not limited to researches alone, they have to do maintenance and development of country's infrastructure.   We can remove science research out of the budget of the government as you said, it was funded privately, but things like employees salary, infrastructure development and maintenance, penal colony maintenance and other stuff needs fund.  And  one of the government major source of fund is tax. 

with this I believe a taxless society idea is delusional because it is impossible to happen.

The so-called inflation tax is most harmful to those who receive the new money the last

And since the government printing money has this money before anyone else, they can easily abuse the purchasing power which they essentially receive for free at the expense of the whole society (real, simple people). In fact, that's what all governments do whenever their very existence is threatened (for example, in war or economic collapse)


If taxes can be paid directly, i.e. as a price for services and goods offered, a taxless society would become a reality. Moreover, it would be a better reality due to less corruption and inefficiency caused by the tax system itself (read, we could safely dismantle it altogether)

The idea is very interesting. It would be fine to try it. I have some "taxless" society ideas also. i.e. 'No' Republica, Vortexledger... Other one is Charm. 100 Charm are a Kiss, 1111 Charm are a Thank. And Curtly - but there the community will be get fees from the transactions and the from long run don't used (stolen? or loosed?) coins.

Hmm, all this time I was confused about what "law" really implies. I always thought that the governement "created" the "law". And tbh, I haven't thought about traditions to have innate "law", but there's always has been. AFAIK, these "unwritten laws", I reckon they're subjective to "moral conducts". I say that because if a "society" is to follow traditions, which are embedded with "unwritten laws", "moral conducts" are the only things to be considered--no need for the government (no need for law enforcement); no need for taxes.


Agreed. (What I'm about to say is based on how I understand "being human") If ever we achieved such circumstances, do you think we are still considered as "human beings"? Because I'm so fixated on humans being violent(or kind), irrational(or rational).

Not quite true.

Scientific researches and discoveries can be done by the government themselves, they're called government-funded researches; or non-government, and even private companies, e.g. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government, provides space discoveries; Elon Musk's SpaceX and Tesla provides various new technologies to improve life, essentially. So it is not bound to the government, even back then some discoveries and researches are not backed-up by the government, in fact, discoveries and researches are directly presented to the authorities(the government), to gain their approval for the public.

I think you might want to "discover" and "research" about what the government really does with tax (no pun intended).

In fact, there is law

And it has always been there. The codified law you implicitly refer to in your post is only a subset of a wider system of unwritten laws and traditions existing in society. So it is not the lack of law as such which would be at the root of potential problems that a society without government would likely encounter but rather the lack of law enforcement, which is part of the government (and therefore, part of the problem). In other words, as soon as we are able to solve this little hindrance, we can happily live without any government and don't sink into lawlessness and chaos soon thereafter


We can hope for that, even if it would require a quantum leap of sorts. But at least we don't need evolution for this leap anyway (read, we don't have to wait another few million years)

Well said. A taxless society simply would not work in this day and age. Radical ideas like this, although they sound beautiful and rosy, are just idealistic adventures that have no place in a free and democratic society. I'd be more agreeable if we lived in a tyrannical communistic society, but luckily we don't.

A wise man once said, "nothing is permanent except death and taxes."

It is truly important, taxes are not only used for the development of the country itself, but also to fund new discovery and upgrades we need in life. We have technology today because of our tax, tax is being used to buy goods and services from other country, and services from government officials/public sectors. If tax does not exist, a county won't be called a country anymore.

Some people always think that the government will be corrupt, the money we pay taxes will be in vain, it only serves some individuals in the government apparatus, this thinking is not wrong when the corruption in the government is always exposed in the news every year. However, we should not just look at such a bad side, we need to look at the positives of the tax payment process, facilities, equipment, everything around us are upgraded, evils and robberies will decrease with a high educational level, no taxes, no one is responsible for these issues

I strongly agree that taxes is very important in a country because it is a contribution of every citizen in their country. The reason why we pay taxes to our government because it provides the needs of every citizen in their country which they can also use it to build establishments like public schools, hospitals, highways, centers and many more, that is why without paying taxes it will be difficult for us to build such establishment and improve a certain country. People just don't want to pay taxes due to corruption that they don't trust their government that they will use it for good.

The function of tax is not only to put money in the purse of the government for them to spend, but it is also good for them to be able to control some certain things in the country, if you look at the issue of Electricity, the reason why electricity is stable in some countries is because the citizens knows how to control their gadget, and the reason for that is that they pay tax, if they don’t pay tax, they will have nonchalant attitude over managing power which will put more load on what the country can generate.

I know that we have natural resources but these natural resources, government would not make use of it themselves, they still have to engage the citizens, and you know that the proceeds from it cannot be taken completely from them, so it would still have to come in form of tax.

That's quite informative, props to you my friend.

1) I can sympathize with this one. This applies mostly to 2nd ~ 3rd-world-countries, well, 1st-world-countries have poor people but it's not as inferior as the others.
  a) Rich people know how to "manage" their wealth, they have financial freedom. That's a given.
  b) Educated people know how to gain wealth. That's also a given.
  c) No, poor people can have a choice. It has been proven many times over, those who strive and persevere through hardships will be successful. But that will depend on your understanding of "successful". The government isn't always responsible for this.

2) I'm about to say "we can't blame them..." but I'm just gonna say, well they are "the government". (read) Depending on the "type of government", their decisions are absolute. Someone said, "we were 35 years late", it has always been a problem for almost every country, my friend.

3) Some candidates/delegated politicians mention it on their agendas--some acts on it, but fails; some just said so, just to gain supporters.
  a) I don't think he's misguided, he's naive, and lacks knowledge about the subject at hand.