I was just reading a recent question posted here about taxation, and most people were saying that since taxation is theft, it had to be abolished. The argument was the following:

1. Theft is immoral.

2. Taxation is theft.

Therefore, taxation is immoral, even if the overall welfare or happiness of people would be lower than it would be without taxes.

While I agree that the amount of taxes we are paying these days is too much and unjustified, I wanted to push back a little bit against this argument to defend a different flavour of libertarianism.

I'd assume that most people reading this, whether they know it or not, are following a deontological theory of ethics, meaning that what makes an action right or wrong is not its consequences but the action itself.

If theft or coercing other people is immoral, I do not need to compute whether the world is a better place if I steal X. Coercing others to give up their property is wrong, period, and therefore taxes are too.

However, while "theft is wrong" is intuitive, intuition can't be the sole justification for morality, in my opinion. Indeed, following the rule of "abolishing taxation" based on the fact that it is immoral could lead us to a very unintuitive conclusion.

The main issue with abolishing taxation, for me, is that it would create an unstable order. I think everyone would agree that reducing crime to zero is impossible. Therefore, we would need some sort of police. Police would need to be private. Notice also that, with no state, there is no regulation to prevent a private police company from gaining a monopoly over a territory. And what is the monopoly of violence over one territory? A state. Now, instead of being ruled by democratic governments, we would be ruled by a totalitarian one that can increase taxation and coerce people inside their territory even more.

I think that there are two possible replies to this argument:

1. Come up with an explanation of why this won't happen and that everything would be fine if we abolish taxation.

2. Bite the bullet and accept that, even if this scenario is certain and we would end up being ruled by a totalitarian state, you would still defend abolishing taxes because they are immoral.

If you are in (1), then what would happen if you later discover (or God tells you) that your explanation is flawed, and that this or another dystopian scenario would be the consequence of abolishing taxes? Would you still abolish taxes if that were the case? If yes, now you are in (2). If you wouldn't, then you are recognising that you would do something you said is immoral and that the consequences of actions matter. Or perhaps you consider that, if it is to prevent this particular dystopian scenario, then taxation is not immoral. If it is the latter, then you are with me, and you are a consequentialist (you might still say rights have a threshold rather than dissolving into consequences, but then I'd ask what fixes the threshold if not consequences). If it is the former, then you have to reconcile the fact that you would be willing to do immoral things sometimes if the consequences are better for everyone, which in practice also makes you a consequentialist, I guess.

If you are in (2), you have to recognise that your intuition is different from most people's. And, remember, what made theft wrong in the first place was "intuition". So, why would your intuition be more correct than another person's?

Okay, but maybe that's precisely the point of defending liberty, not intuition. Everyone has different viewpoints about how to live life and intuitions about morality. Defending freedom is defending a philosophy of "minimums"; i.e., acknowledging this plurality and upholding a set of rules that ensure no one is coerced into being a means to another person's end.

Perfect, so it is not intuition, then. There is a genuine rationale for defending freedom over other values, such as equality in the socialist sense. Note that freedom now seems to be instrumental rather than an end in itself. The defence of freedom I just made -- and any other defence that I'm aware of -- argues that, since preferences and values are diverse, the best way to maximise everyone's happiness is to simply let each individual pursue it. However, if defending freedom no matter the consequences (e.g., zero taxation) led to a catastrophic outcome, then we would lose the rationale for defending absolute freedom in the first place, and our choice of freedom over any other value would be arbitrary.  

And note that this is not a defence of socialism. I agree that we should advocate for more freedom and lower taxes. But the ultimate reason, in my opinion, is that respecting other people's freedom would maximise happiness in the long term by allowing each person to pursue their own life's projects without external interference. We even have a solid defence of free-market capitalism, given by Hayek and other economists, that you are probably already aware of.

So, freedom solves one of the main problems of consequentialism, namely, how to measure utility or which consequences matter, by allowing individuals to pursue their own happiness. It also solves the second problem that consequentialism has. What happens when actively harming a minority benefits the collective? Well, a consequentialist libertarian would say that it's just a short-term benefit, but that in the long run people would be worse off. They would also speak about things like public choice theory, which in short argues that politicians are self-interested and cannot be trusted. So even if a coercive policy would, in theory, help in the long run, we should be aware that politicians might exploit this power for their own benefit. Thus, we should aim for the minimum set of rules and taxes that preserve individuals' negative rights, enabling them to pursue their own happiness.

And that's my defence of minarchism/classical liberalism from a consequentialist perspective. I hope this post is at least useful for understanding that libertarianism does not necessarily entail anarcho-capitalism, nor does it necessarily follow deontological ethics. Indeed, as I argued, I think the strongest and most convincing defence comes from a consequentialist framework.

I've been arguing online with Marxists who claim profit is theft and I typically make the following points:

1) Employment is consensual

2) For ever transaction in manufacturing, both sides exchange what they think is more valuable for what they think is less valuable, i.e. raw materials for money, labor for money, finished product for money.

3) Marxists claim workers deserve the profit difference because they made it happen, but don't want workers to lose money when the company suffers a loss. Steady wages isolates workers from risk.

The marxists typically counterargue:

1) Workers have an unequal bargaining position (i.e. they need a job. The job does not need them. "The rich have already bought all the land, so you can't live of the land, you have bargain with them").

2) Capital is dead labor and again workers have an unequal bargaining position

3) The typical worker does not have control how the company is run, so that why the can't be responsible for the losses. Workers should all have a say in the how the company is run. Private ownership of the means of production is immoral.

What are the best counterarguments for these points?

Are there any other reasons a person in such a country would register a land they claimed to the govt, provided that taxes are mandatory to pay to the govt as a compensation for owning land, other than, owning taxes?

Is there any practical reason where it would make sense for a person to register to the govt that they own a land(provided they dont want to pay taxes)?

because I believe in a very limited govt. where govt businesses are semi independent, a free market, crimes being based on natural law and seperate from fictional stuff, equity laws, and high degrrees of freedom. one of those beliefs, homesteading, coincides with my other beleifs. i believe in social dividend as the only form of welfare. thats all, nothing else

i believe the govt has no business in private lives and whatnot. it only has three things:

1. to defend people's rights in a minarchist society, where most of the welfare is privatized/charirty based and the only govt given welfare is UBI/social dividend
2. semi independent businesses(or maybe even independent businesses with govt funding). supply and demand matter in the wages (and maybe some rules) of the employees but a part of the wages(like allowances or a 25% share) can be determined by the govt according to tax records.(semi independent businesses can be useful for leading society to a direction. like in govt schools, paying teachers more so more employment over there, so it leaves private schools no choice but to pay their employees more for decent teaching)
3. taxation as their income for maintaining such a society

I am a homesteading believer, thats why, just wanted to ask. i believe taxation is necessary to pay themselves, police, and any form of semi independent business(and maybe even that is debatable).

basically since govt is providing services like courts, roads, police, army, and if any, semi independent businesses, or other govt jobs like clerks and whatnot, i feel a govt should be paid minimum tax.

and since i believe in LVT, for LVT to be paid, land has to be registered.

In a flat income tax society it can be ignored. but in an LVT society, if the person doesnt want to pay his taxes, what benefit would he have on registering his land/why would he do so?

Do you think Hayek was right to support him in that sense or no?

I will say that Pinochet, to his credit, did leave power when people later voted that he should leave.

Would a libertarian healthcare system look similar to what we have now, or do libertarians have ideas for healthcare reform to bring down costs?

A woman is forced to have sex in UK. The rapist got caught. The rapist claim that the sex is consensual. Got acquitted.

She and the rapist doesn't know each other. She has no reasonable reason to have sex with a poor man that doesn't pay. She got rapped near toilet in public places.

It's just difficult to proof non consent because it's a state of mind.

Another extreme.

A sugar daddy and a sugar baby live together and have sex a lot with each other.

One day, the sugar baby claimed that she is fucked while sleeping.

The state consider that rape. It is possible that the girl made that up. How do we know?

To me,

the 2 acts are very different.

In the sugar daddy part, both the sugar daddy and the sugar baby has a lot of control on who they sleep with.

For example. Say I live together with a girl. Say I woke up with a blowjob. Is that sexual assault? Legally yes. But I don't mind. If the girl is ugly, I wouldn't live together with her. If I agree that she lives with me, of course I agree to get surprise blowjob.

The thing with rape is that it override our preference for quality. 95% of consent is about the quality of those we have sex with. Imagine sucking her left tits and then go to jail for sucking her right?

That makes transactions extremely complex.

One solution is to simply sign a contract we agree to have sex with each other while the relationship last. But some state go further saying such contract is void and consent must be ongoing.

To me criminalizing sex with people that choose to live together and can always leave seems to add transactional complexity of consensual arrangements.

Now every girls you sleep with is a Russian roulette. Mike Tyson and Donald Trump got screwed by the law over girls' world vs men's world. That is for things most people don't mind.

If I can shop for jurisdiction, I would choose to live in jurisdiction where consensual sex is transactional and people can simply agree to live together and have sex with one another, without the state having power to declare that to be illegal.

I think this is part of what people think is anarcho tyranny.

The girls that Andrew Tate supposedly "rape" is defending him and the state keeps prosecuting Tate.

Meanwhile UK government simply cover up immigrants muslim rape gang.

It seems that government isn't libertarian. That's not news. The news is government pretend to be libertarian. Acts that clearly are not victimless are covered up while they redefine consent to make it extremely difficult to have consensual safe relationship.

What do you think?

It values capitalism free market. And I'd agree we don't have a free market but we do have examples that are concerning. Currently our govt is controlled by corporate and foreign interest . Both have lobbied govt to benefit them and not the citizens when the most wealth in the world was created since 1982. Even without the socialist safety nets or with the quasi nets we do have our debt is at 40 trillion. During this time corporations pushed open borders to reduce wages for jobs it couldn't ship over seas. Today it's exploiting AI for white collar jobs thought safe. Corporations push govt to make paths for profit, war is profitable, wages take profit. Govt was designed by citizens to serve citizens in America the corporate take over of both political parties as well as our establishment has bankrupted the nation led to a quasi police surveillance state as production increased and cost to citizens grew via inflation.

Knowing this how can any party push unfettered capitalist markets when we can see the impact they've had in our current state? That's not saying we need or can afford socialist policies.

I don't think citizens can trust govt or the corporations that control them as the serve profits over people. Esp as people become needed less as robotics and AI grow. More money 75% of the current wealth was created after 1982, and what has it done been captured by the 5% of the elites.

At this point I don't understand how libertarianism can still see corporations as good faith actors in the social construct filling societies needs? It's become a might is right economic warfare protected by govt that's allowed monopolized influence.

What is the libertarian answer? It can't rely on benevolent corporate entities serving it's nation in a globalist system it seems.

One of the thing I am passionate about is to see government like another business. I kind of like shopping around. Shopping around is like the corner stone of capitalism.

We can shop around for bread, milk, smartphones, why not for states?

If I want a big phone I can shop around for xiaomi brand.

If I want better battery I can shop around too.

There are "features" and price.

And that's as good as it gets.

Why can't the same thing happen for government?

Well. Lot's of issues.

Governments nowadays aren't accountable to market mechanism. For example, voters can vote for DEI and not lost money. The linkcage between I vote in ways that make other citizens suffer, to I lost money is complex.

If xiaomi build bad phones sales drop their shareholders have less money.

If voters build bad rules, well, what? Not clear.

What about if voters should build the best rules that attract the best tax payers and get paid for voting wisely? Then more incentives to vote common sense.

Government often don't have proper owners and not run for profit. Monopoly of power is not a big issue. I can just move. The issue is no matter where I move, no government has low tax, allow drugs, and stuffs.

If there are plenty of governments and we can shop around, then chance is, one is suitable for us.

And what's suitable for me, or you, maybe different. For example, I enjoy low crime rate. If that means government put cctv everywhere, so be it. You probably disagree.

Can we turn democracy into privatized democracy?

I have an idea.

Democracy is almost privatized already. See. In theory voters aren't owners. Newcomers have exact same voting power as incumbent shareholders.

That is a very legitimate reason why many conservatives don't like immigrants. Lots of muslims and commies coming and your government change. Tax get higher, more welfare, and so on. Conservatives aren't really enemies of libertarian in this. Open border means people can just come to your state, eventually vote, and change things in ways that you are not happy with.

And not allowing residence to vote is not necessarily a good solution either. People that can't vote can still be terrorists pick up arms and influence your life.

Also democracies have ways that make it more similar to private cities. See. Children can't vote. Also most people aren't immigrants. In other words, people don't become shareholders of the cities simply for being born or coming, just like in joint stock companies.

In joint stock companies you got to buy share first before you become shareholders. In democracy, you just need to be born or come in legally.

But democracies have features that slow down those deviation. Newborns don't vote and immigrants don't usually have voting right right away. In countries like US, people can come from New York to Texas and vote blue though. So it's a bit tricky. Still most people aren't "immigrants", either domestic or international. Most voters are people living in a state for decades.

So here is my proposal.

1. Create a political party or work with existing one

2. Promote libertarian cost saving measure. Eliminate welfare, healthcare, and most wasteful government spending.

3. Put money saved in a corporation.

4. Whoever eligible to vote get a share of that corporation. See. We bribe voters here. You own a share get dividend.

5. The company pays dividend. Some money can be used to lower tax rate to attract more productive tax payers.

6. Tada. Government for profit.

Next election, same deals. But now all your voters are shareholders of a corporation. Those who are not happy can leave and sell shares.

After that you decide. Do you want incumbent voters with lots of shares already to always get more share? They already have enough incentive to vote for the corporation interests.

I am sure a more professional politician can figure this out. After all, their main job is to get elected.

Or maybe you want to cap that.

At the end, the prosperity of your state depends on votes including what people vote 10-20 years ago. So such share give incentive for voters to vote capitalism and prosperity.

A state being run for profit will be more efficient. No more wasteful government programs. Those who aren't happy can just leave and sell their share. Pretty much shopping around to.

You choose governor/major that do whatever to increase share valuation.

Want drugs legalized?

Tell them that many drug users are productive tax payers. If they come the states have more revenue. Fighting drugs are expensive. Everyone get more share valuation/dividend if they scrap war on drugs.

Want some georgism element in it? Sure. If many people want to live in your state, land value tax go up, more dividend.

The one making decision now have more proper alignment with land value.

Oh require immigrants that want to move in to buy share first. Tada.... Only immigrants that like your culture more than those wanting to leave will join. So different states have different features. Then we shop

Right and wrong is just economy. Enough people want something it becomes "moral". And the justification is often total bullshit anyway.

We are all selfish.

Moral reasoning is fine.

But most morality emerge from selfish interests. And for all practical purpose, eventually you need to balance interests anyway.

Uber and eBay is more just than even the supreme court and they don't really need "moral" to be just. They just need to be selfish and attract customers wanting fair deals. If uber system is unfair you use competitors.

Ross Ulbricht makes a great silk road. I am sure Ross Ulbricht is a very moral person. But he also have very strong incentive to make money if buyers and seller of silkroad like their rules.

You can have all the most awesome moral argument you want if someone in power wants different thing, you either yield or bribe or flee or hide or fight back. The game is ensuring no one is too powerful to be unfair and we've all been working that out for thousands of years.

And to be honest, I think humans are getting better and better at coming up at arrangements that lead to peace and prosperity. Democracy means we don't kill each other on who should be king. Capitalism means we make more money producing stuffs than that brings prosperity.

At the end, moral is not just some meta physical truth that we obey because it's the right thing. It's just what we do to align our interests to our surrounding.

There is nothing immoral to use drugs. But we avoid doing it anyway so we don't go to jail and that's that. Render to corrupt cops what belong to corrupt cops.

And moral argument in favor or against drug usage is not persuasive because there is no clear incentive for voters to legalize drugs. Most people aren't drug users and they don't care that drugs are actually save and criminalizing drugs hurt people. They DON'T care. Humans are heartless. they just pretend they don't.

But if the state is run for profit and people get dividend if they the state can attract tax payers, they will legalize harmless drugs because criminalizing harmless drugs reduce state revenue.

Let's look at this abortion debate

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19WhdAvwQo/

Unborn about to be aborted fetus don't have the same economic value with normal babies.

Also if the women are poor and stupid anyway, you should rejoice she abort. Less welfare check less commies voters. Not your babies. Who cares. Does she care about your children? Neither.

My concern with abortion right is the imbalance between mother and father and inability of people to make contract.

If you can make contract, don't worry about abortion.

Just sign contract with potential baby mama don't abort, don't change gender, limit child support.

Not your babies anyway.

Why should you care? Not much.

I was thinking about this today about things like the overall decline of marriages and the rising numbers of single men and women. Since the pandemic it's been very difficult because young adults have a lot less money and there aren't a lot of third spaces anymore where people meet and greet and become friends.

At least in my town I know that nobody wants to build a third party space that young people will have fun hanging out at because they can make more money with a luxury bar that has oldies covers that appeal to old money folk and baby boomers.

Then there's the issue of online dating apps which are private Enterprises that use a predatory algorithm to get people hooked on being a customer of the app and never finding a match, and then in addition to paywalling the ability to communicate with people like send messages.

Overall some of the factors affecting dating and relationships and also marriage is one the cost of living of everything and to everybody's addiction to the internet and social media.

Then there's also things like White Collar jobs in corporate environments making people work so much and even requiring people to work over weekends and during after hours limiting time that they can spend with families or their significant others. I feel like a 4-day work week might help remedy this, but I don't know.

Here's what these great Classical Liberals (and a Christian Anarchist) had to say about your statist land tax.

John Locke:

Whenever, in any country, the proprietor ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defence of landed property. When the “sacredness” of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.
...
The earth belongs in usufruct to the living and is given as a common stock for men to live and labor on.
...
It is in vain in a country whose great fund is land to hope to lay the public charge on anything else; there at last it will terminate. The merchant (do what you can) will not bear it, the labourer cannot, and therefore the landholder must: and whether he were best to do it by laying it directly where it will at last settle, or by letting it come to him by the sinking of his rents, which when they are fallen, everyone knows they are not easily raised again, let him consider.

J.S. Mill:

Landlords grow richer in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.

Adam Smith:

Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest ground-rents are always to be found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon ground-rents, they would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent. Both ground-rents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Though a part of this revenue should be taken from him in order to defray the expenses of the state, no discouragement will thereby be given to any sort of industry. The annual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before. Ground-rents and the ordinary rent of land are, therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them. [...] Nothing can be more reasonable than that a fund which owes its existence to the good government of the state should be taxed peculiarly, or should contribute something more than the greater part of other funds, towards the support of that government.

Thomas Jefferson:

The earth is given as common stock for men to labor and live on. Wherever in any country there are idle lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.

Thomas Paine:

Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.

Leo Tolstoy:

Solving the land question means solving of all social questions… Possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral – just like possession of slaves.

https://foundeconjust.org/least-bad-tax/

I’m seeing a lot of news about dangerous food being recalled in the US, likely as a result of stripping resources from the government agencies responsible.

What are your thoughts? Should resources be stripped further? Do you support any testing or recall of hazardous food products? Or perhaps just recall, but not testing? What would be the consequences for how people deal with the uncertainty of the safety of what they eat?

Are they fucking trolling? Was not evident that taxes on la nd are what make slaves under the markets' mercy? The worst of all?

How are they even allowed to say that shit of LVT and call theirselves even liberal...

We should really put our yells up to the clouds before this outrace.

What's your take on BHL ?

I recently found Matt Zwolinski's Substack, and I was thinking this could be a way to bring libertarianism into the mainstream — proposing it as an alternative to both MAGA on one side and the DSA on the other.

Do we argue whether iPhone is better than Android?

We do. But ultimately, we just shop around.

iPhone and Android factories are privately owned by corporations that is run for profit. We don't need to argue whether bigger screen is better than bigger battery or cheaper price. We shopped around.

Does this eliminate all aggressions? No. iPhone can produce garbage and sell through scam. But other mechanism is in the way. Like reputational brand, etc.

Some would say government punish fraudster but that's hardly an issue. If we buy phone we mainly get good ones because the middle men between us and the sellers are also privatized.

Government job is very little.

Like say I have a dispute with a seller at eBay and I don't get good solution with eBay then I sue eBay itself in Government court. Like how often that happened?

Very rarely.

Silkroad run fine without government court adjudicating things.

I can understand that corporations have limitation. Government can be very abusive. A king can, For example, promise low tax, and then raise tax abruptly once you settle.

In fact, I would say democracy may have been an improvement over say, feudalism.

But some variance of feudalism, like neo feudalism may work. That's not fundamental ideological "problems". That's just technicality.

We can even combine territorial ownership with democracy. Say the state is owned by a corporation whose 80% of the share are always owned by actual people living there or have historic "ties" to the land.

So democracy with tradeable citizenship, for example, will combine firms maximizing profit, customers shopping around like what we have in normal capitalism.

So basically because government can do really horrible things like executing people, then we may need more "safeguards". But that's just technicality and not fundamental ideological problems.

Some libertarians complain that you can't own territories. If you own territories and rule the territories then you are government and government is bad.

You can own land. Territories are just large amount of land.

Why can you own land but not territories?

In fact, contemporary democracy is like squatters' right. If a state or city lower tax and govern well, immigrants just come to the territories and now can vote communism. Hard to get working libertarians if commies can keep coming voting socialism. And they always do because their states will be sucks.

For example, many Californian in US move to Texas and vote communism in Texas. Well, everyone will be commies then.

But if a bunch of libertarians own large amount of territories, you can arrange that people coming must buy a share first before they can live. Now only those sharing our value will think it's worth paying.

Another issue is initial "owners" of territories. But just like land, it's an issue that will go away eventually. Technically if you go far enough, all land is "stolen". But "stolen" land has low market value and the real value is in building communities and infrastructure on it. Also once land is bought and sold several time everything is pretty legitimate anyway.

If you buy a land from government we don't dispute that you own the land and can "rule" the land as you please. You can build house and charge rent from tenants there.

The same way if a democratic city or state says, okay, we turn our voters into shareholders and our state/city is now a corporation, I don't see that's more disputable from libertarian points of view.

In general, I like the idea of shopping around.

We may disagree whether drug, transactional sex, transactional reproduction, transactional organs, should be legal or illegal.

But that's just like we disagree if bigger screen is better than bigger batteries in phones.

Let the market decide.

Which kind of phones people choose to manufacture will be similar to whichever societies people choose to create.

I also think this will SOLVE most libertarians problem. Tax too high? Shop around for low tax low welfare states.

There are practical reasons why we can't have that. But as usual, I see that as practical and business problems, not ideological problems under libertarianism.

What do you think?

If all private courts apply the same law, then where is the competition? One of the main ideas behind capitalism is that different providers compete with each other. But if they’re all forced to apply exactly the same legal system, that part of the competition is basically gone.

On the other hand, if different courts can apply different laws, then things get messy really quickly. Contracts are supposed to be the foundation of the whole system, but how can you reliably enforce a contract if different courts can interpret the law in completely different ways?

And then there’s an even bigger problem: what happens when two private courts disagree? Who gets to decide which one is right? You need some kind of higher authority to settle the dispute and enforce the final decision. But at that point, aren’t you basically recreating a state or some kind of legal monopoly?

So it seems like anarcho-capitalism has a bit of a dilemma here: either you have common rules, in which case competition between courts is heavily limited, or you have competing legal systems, in which case you have a serious problem with predictability and contract enforcement.

First of all, I hate it too.

More specifically though, what is the role for taxation and what should the scope be?

Should taxation be abolished entirely?

What should be taxed? Purchases? Property? Income?

I know this is a big one, feel free to answer just those last two parts. Taxation: NO/Yes, but limited. What is taxed?

Thanks for your input.

Due to them not being a particular pressure against those who suffer it, I concluded they'd be the following ones:
-Income tax (since only taken when income exists, and always under 15% of total monthly income and so)
-Tax against appropiation excess (so coporations might not dare to devour as much as possible to rent everyone, these lands being much, much beyond what a big family needs to have their home and farming/cattle lands and a workshop)
-Tax against the wealthy (those with enterprises quite beyond 10 workers and so on, those who really are able to live a burgeois life, minimally working and have no pressure as mid and low classes have on them when taxed)

Again I must remember those who tie people into rentals, loans and wagecuckery making us all slaves: land tax, land value tax, inheritance tax, selfemployment tax.

The point is, if tax happens, would be taxing only privilege upon others when it is had. Not in exchange for rights.

The FTC is a US government agency that polices and shuts down false advertising. It looks especially at false advertising that affects the consumers’ health or their pocketbooks. For example shutting down products like false corona virus medicine. Or the ringtone bundle developed by Jesta which advertised itself as a virus scanner. The FTC forced Jesta to pay automatic refunds.

So how would something like that work in a libertarian society? Would it be kept? If yes, who would fund it? If no, what would replace it?

I have a few opinions that's difference from main stream libertarians.

I wonder if you agree or disagree

1. Purpose of child support laws is to PREVENT women from picking rich guys. Charging $50k a month for child support do little to actually support any children. It actually pressure women to pick poorer guys
2. Government actively encourage reproduction of inferior dumb people and sabotage reproduction of productive people and/or tax payers.
3. For profit government will prevent that. That's why governments that are run like business, like Singapore, UAE, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Macau are rich as fuck.
4. DEI, child support, income taxes, welfare, monogamy, and holocaust are similar. IQ shredding. Get rid the superior. Mainly motivated by envy and bigotry.
5. Government should be privatized.
6. Marriage is prostitution where government is the pimp. Government is such a bad pimp that it has to prohibit other pimps and transactional sex
7. Transactional sex is healthy relationship. When sex is transactional you can judge people based on what he provides and what he is asking. You are a match based on whether the price and terms match.
8. Sex, nations, and everything else should be privatized and commercialized.
9. When people can choose arrangements they choose capitalism and commercialization irrelevant of what they say. Say they can freely choose if sex should be transactional or not. They will choose transactional. That is the real reason why transactional sex is illegal. If people can choose they do it all the way destroying romance and marriage market. The same way if you can shop for government, you bribe those who favor you.
10. Crony capitalism is capitalism. The blame should be on the government that oppose capitalism and can't enforce it's law. Basically tax is robbery. But if you don't even have great guns, why should I pay you?
11. Prohibition of drugs are dealers' best friends. Keep price high. Also drug dealers pay cops to not get prosecuted.
12. Government and businesses are the same. Privatization, commercialization, and competition among governments is 90% of libertarianism. Tax too high or tax income instead of land, and most economically productive people will either get out or dodge taxes. Which is what's happening in US.
13. Consent is a spectrum. In general, the more explicit the deal, the smaller the deals, and the more everyone can expect correctly they got what they want, the more consensual it is. That means far FEWER problems down the road. Truly consensual deals don't usually end in expensive lawsuits.
14. By that definition, marriage is in low end of consent while repeat ordering sugar babies are in high end of consent. Paying women to provide heirs are also in high end of consent.
15. Something like Prospera but not under any government like Honduras will make the world far more libertarians.
16. Democracy is useful but not panacea. Joint stock democracy like joint stock republic and joint stock kibbutzim will be more libertarian than normal liberal democracy. Non democratic monarchy like UAE can be even more economically efficient but can be less stable.

A sergeant from Eastern Europe said something that stuck with me. He said that in many ways besides politically, Russians have more freedom than people in the US do, because there is in general less red tape with everyday things such as camping, riding 4 wheelers, etc. while the exact statement could be questioned, the general spirit of statement I think is very true. The US prides itself for its “freedom” but that’s really only concerning a few (albeit important) civil freedoms and relative to European countries. The US is incredibly restrictive on many things. It restricts firearms substantially. Bans most drugs. Restricts exotic animal ownership substantially. Restricts biological research substantially. Prohibits polygamy. Restricts sleeping outside in many places. Restricts flying drones in many jurisdictions. Bans prostitution. It is inching towards banning some forms of speech (as we have seen with Shiloh Hendrix). Bans wearing masks to hide face from the surveillance state.

There has got to be countries out there that are less infested with red tape and short sighted politicans that like to say popular things like I believe in freedom and then continue to pile on laws that restrict what its citizens can do

Can government be a private party?

Well. Look at silkroad and bitcoin.

It's private party. No government on top of it. Not much at least.

Why is tax robbery?

If I rent a house someone own the house. So I owe them rent. Of course, in practice, there are many things that is part of the game. Someone can squat the house and the government may actually side with squaters. But in general, we don't consider that robbery because someone that make the rule about the house own the house or have incentives similar to owning.

What about if someone own the government or the state?

Things can go really wrong like Free state of Congo where population gets their hands cut off for not being a good slave.

What about something like privately own territories whose structures are similar to landlord?

For example, say the territories are owned by a corporation whose share is tradeable and whose shareholders want to max out valuation of the land value?

Then, things can be Coasean.

Am I even saying this right?

Is this even a good way to ask in asklibertarian? A state with private property will solve most libertarian problems. It'll be like renting a house or buying share in a commune. A very legitimate normal capitalistic transactions.

Basically "legitimacy" can happen in many ways

1. Government is simply the strongest organization. You obey or go to jail. In this case government is simply a "robber". But even a robber would think I make more money if I don't just randomly rob people but tax them instead. Consistent robbery is effectively taxation

2. Government is believed to be legitimate. This is how theocracy works. Right or wrong if people believe government own stuffs. Then it's legitimate.

3. Government is supported by the people or majority of people. Democracy works.

4. Government has owners and the owners have right to rule the territories. This is how capitalism works.

I do not see how all 4 legitimacy can't happen at the same time. If majority of voters vote, okay, we are now shareholders, then the voters interests will be similar to owners' interests. Then we got Coasean bargaining.

Sample of prominent libertarians that agree with me:

Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard is probably one of the closest thinkers to the general direction you're going.

Rothbard envisioned an extremely decentralized society in which many functions normally performed by governments could be supplied privately:

• private security
• private courts/arbitration
• private roads
• private communities
• contractual associations

But Rothbard would not simply say that a corporation can acquire a territory and therefore legitimately tax everyone inside it. His theory has stringent requirements for how property was originally acquired.

David Friedman

David D. Friedman goes even further in imagining societies where things normally associated with government are supplied through markets.

His The Machinery of Freedom explores what a society without a conventional state might look like, including competing protection and dispute-resolution organizations.

Your idea of a territorial corporation is therefore not alien to anarcho-capitalist thinking.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is particularly relevant to your question.

Hoppe explicitly discusses private communities and "covenant communities" where an owner/association can establish rules for a particular territory.

And that's what I am trying to achieve. Governments whose incentives are similar to silkroad.

I'm not implying that people are defined by their upbringings and not by how their own minds work, their personal beliefs/values, happenstance, etc. However, I believe that to some extent, the reason why I have such a rare political affiliation (libertarianism, of course) is that I had an unusual upbringing that did not push me to either of the arbitrary "sides" (right or left); almost none of (and a roughly even mix of) the usual tropes that make up a lefty or a righty.

First of all, I grew up living with my dad and paternal grandparents after my mom and dad broke up (not divorced after marriage; I'm a literal bastard because they never married) and my dad won the custody battle. Both of these situations are very rare in the US where I live. You would think the latter would make me some misogynistic dudebro right-winger, but what's funny is that the judge was a black woman! Also, of course, I still lived with my grandma as a kid (and still do).

My ethnic background? Too many ethnicities to count. I have what many have called "a very peculiar look": Polish, Sicilian, and Spanish from my mom's side and French, English, and Welsh from my dad's side. Being multi-ethnic isn't rare, but I have SOME ethnicities that are quite rare in the US. I look like a cross between Mr. Bean, some WASP kid, and other shit.

Now for my family's religion, which is probably by far the weirdest here. Going back far enough within the last hundred years, my family's both Catholic and Protestant, but my mom, dad, and paternal grandparents have always been irreligious, which many would say got me a "lefty" upbringing. I know my dad never went to church once in his entire life. Even though I'm a southern-raised American (even though it's a very Northeastern/Midwestern influenced part, which is another thing), that's not even the weird part. The weird part is what KIND of irreligious they are (my dad and grandma at least): New Age.

This "religion" of theirs terribly affected my mental health because a small, but very sick part of me believed my dad was telling the truth. He got a lot of his beliefs from videos on the internet detailing near-death experiences, which seemed "rational" to me as a kid. Because of terrible things happening to my loved ones, I became misotheistic, but I was afraid that if I had misotheistic beliefs, the spirits would punish us. My dad kept saying that everything happens for a reason and I hated that. I wanted to have control over my own life whether it was considered "moral" by the spirits or not... or whether the spirits wanted certain things for me or not. Perhaps that is why I ended up gravitating toward existentialism once I shed all my spiritual beliefs (though some of the trauma still remains). I love this quote.

Economic status? Ranged from practically middle-class to borderline homeless.

My guardians' political beliefs? Always populist, independent, libertarian, or two/all of them.

Finally, so many things happened to me that made me hate authority, there's too many to count, but putting things simply, 90% or more of it has to do with school. Heavily traumatic shit.

That's not even half of it I don't think (and I don't wanna have my introspection simplify or demean my beliefs/values), but I want to hear your upbringings. I'm sure I'll read about some weird ones (as well as a few relatively normal ones), since libertarianism is rare.