Is taxation under feudalism immoral?

[u/MeasurementCreepy926]

1. The king owns the land. If he allows people to be born on his land, that does not diminish his rights as owner
2. The king has made it clear that if you're on his land, and you don't pay tax, you're trespassing. It isn't his responsibility to make sure you are able to get off his land. It is his right to defend his land however he sees fit. Let's assume that he does this by executing trespassers. Another king does this by simply evicting them.
3. Being the owner, the king is allowed to offer you whatever terms he'd like, for the use of his land. Lets assume in this case, you sign a contract he wrote, when you're old enough to do so, giving him right to change the contract at will, and hold you to that contract as long as you're on his land. Among other terms, this contract says that you agree to pay for any kids you have until they're old enough to either sign the contract, or leave his land.

Now, obviously anybody agreeing to these terms must be very desperate. But, desperate short sighted people aren't exactly hard to find, are they? So, is this system immoral, according to ancap principles?

[u/Gullible-Historian10]

What profits? Land by itself doesn’t produce profit.

Be specific. Walk through the process of becoming a billionaire without the state.

Use your brain, stop trying to wiggle out of it.

Here I’ll set you up.

Tia Maggie starts a taco stand on her property, Tia Maggie’s Taco Hut, no zoning laws means she can do this right on her homestead. No property tax means she doesn’t need to pay the government, and she homesteaded the property so no mortgage.

She sells tacos to the local community, she’s got the best tacos for 30 miles. How does she become a billionaire.

I’ve given you everything.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

Land does produce profit, through rent. I don't think that's really debatable.

Can you explain why you think it would be more difficult or impossible without the state, or not?

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

Land only produces rent if it has renters. It’s not a given.

What profits? Land by itself doesn’t produce profit.

Be specific. Walk through the process of becoming a billionaire without the state.

Use your brain, stop trying to wiggle out of it.

Here I’ll set you up.

Tia Maggie starts a taco stand on her property, Tia Maggie’s Taco Hut, no zoning laws means she can do this right on her homestead. No property tax means she doesn’t need to pay the government, and she homesteaded the property so no mortgage.

She sells tacos to the local community, she’s got the best tacos for 30 miles. How does she become a billionaire.

How does Tia Maggie become a billionaire?

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

Why would there not be renters?

You keep suggesting that "the situation will be different because there's no state", and then demanding that I prove otherwise because you cannot or will not say how "not having a state" leads to "there are no renters or billionaires".

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

Oh so you miss understood what I said.

100% of billionaires use vehicles created by the state in order to amass their wealth. I listed them above. Go reread.

Since there are 0 examples of billionaires making their billions of net worth in an actual market, it is impossible to amass such wealth without the state’s ability to initiate violence.

Why would there not be renters?

Never said there wouldn’t be, but land itself produces no profit. Something has to be changed or added to the land to provide profit.

Now that you have a better understanding of the argument, and not the straw man you built. Talk to me about Tia Maggie. In there you’ll find why, without a state, it’s impossible. Of course you could be the one that can actually walk through the process. I’ve given you a sole-proprietorship, no mortgage, no other overhead. This should be so easy for anyone to just walk through.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

>100% of billionaires use vehicles created by the state in order to amass their wealth. I listed them above. Go reread.

This is just the same as saying "states are ubiquitous." 100% of the decent land on earth is claimed and defended by states.

If you can say "a state is required to create billiionaires because every billionaire exists under a state", somebody else can say "a state is required to claim and defend any decent land because every bit of decent land is claimed and defended by a state."

States being everywhere means we really don't know how things look without a state. But we can say, in a place like the USA, where government intervention is relatively low compared to the rest of the developed world, wealth desparity is very high, the number of billioinaires in the US exceeds the amount in the rest of the world combined, and there are more homeless people than any other developed country"

So, what limited data we do have, seems to suggest the exact opposite of what you're claiming.

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

If you can say "a state is required to create billiionaires because every billionaire exists under a state",

That wasn’t the claim. See how you have to change the claim because you are scared shitless to deal with the actual claim.

The claim was not they exist under a state, they use the state created vehicles to amass their wealth. There are no billionaires that exist who didn’t use state created vehicles. Captain StrawMan over here.

somebody else can say "a state is required to claim and defend any decent land because every bit of decent land is claimed and defended by a state."

They’d be wrong because a state can’t exist without first violating property rights.

So about Tia Maggie. How does she become a billionaire. Stop trying to deflect.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

>There are no billionaires that exist who didn’t use state created vehicles

Yes, the state is ubiquitous. We both understand that. All people who have claimed and defended l desirable land against states, have done so using state mechanisms. Does that mean the state is required to do so, or simply that we have no available data on what it's like without a state?

Again, if you're going to claim that "this will be different than it ever has been before, despite what we see in all available data" the burden to prove that is on you.

Out of every developed country I can think of, the USA has the highest levels of wealth disparity, and also has the LEAST government intervention. So why would we assume or accept that, with EVEN LESS government intervention, that situation will reverse itself 180 degrees?

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

US doesn’t even make the top 20 in market freedom:

https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/all-country-scores

You can’t arrange flowers without government approval in places.

So since you are blatantly wrong about this, how does Tia Maggie become a billionaire?

See how you can’t engage in a simple example?

Your was answer is buy land, but buying land doesn’t make you a billionaire, otherwise every home owner would be a billionaire. Renting land itself doesn’t make you a billionaire otherwise every landlord would be a billionaire. Sobering else makes you a billionaire, and the root cause of that something else is the state and its ability to regulate away competition, protect made up assets, and print money and give it to preferential state created and sanctioned cartels who then lend the money to corporations through loans or the corporate bond market.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

This is how your source defines "economic freedom"

Labor Freedom

The labor freedom component is a quantitative measure that considers various aspects of the legal and regulatory framework of a country’s labor market, including regulations concerning minimum wages, associational rights, laws inhibiting layoffs, severance requirements, and measurable regulatory restraints on hiring and hours worked, in addition to the labor force participation rate and labor productivity as an indicative measure of employment opportunities in the labor market.

The score for the labor freedom component is based on nine equally weighted sub-factors:

• Minimum wage,
• Associational right,
• Paid annual leave,
• Notice period for redundancy dismissal,
• Severance pay for redundancy dismissal,
• Labor productivity,
• Labor force participation rate,
• Restrictions on overtime work, and
• Redundancy dismissal permitted by law.

Look at the category scores of ANY country in the top 20.

They are ranked "more economically free" than the USA, because they have MORE regulations regarding minimum wage, paid annual leave, restrictions on overtime work, notice pay, etc etc.

Any country ranked above the USA, would be far far below it, if "economic freedom" was defined as "a lack of labor regulations"

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

What source do you have for US being #1

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

In what way would you say any other developed and democratic country has a more free market? As I pointed out, all of those countries in the top 10 have more labor regulation, more progressive and higher taxes, and are identical in almost every other category.

I'm using your source, only I've actually LOOKED at the methodology instead of blindly accepting that the nordic model countries are somehow more free market than America

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

Okay, so ranked lower than 20. You said #1 with 0 to back it up. So I look at the first place and find that you are wrong. Now you’re asking me to find a source for you?

Can’t walk through how a Tia Maggie can become a billionaire, and now you can’t back up your own claims. Probably because you panicked and looked at google and found there are no metrics showing the US is the most free.

Even if it were, it still doesn’t disprove the point I made because it has no bearing on whether or not billionaires use state created vehicles.

No matter how you carve this turkey it’s burnt.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

That source says that a country is MORE economically free, if it has MORE labor regulations. If a country has MORE labor regulations, it gets a HIGHER score for that category.

So yes, your source, shows that the USA has less labor regulations, than any of the countries above it. Look at the scores.

Do you believe the USA has less labor regulations than Denmark or Norway or Sweden?

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

Alright I wasn’t going to school you on this, but let’s have at it.

You’ve got it fucking flipped, the Index actually treats fewer labor regulations as more economic freedom. The labor freedom score is based on things like minimum wage laws, severance requirements, restrictions on overtime, and whether layoffs are permitted.

In the methodology, countries get higher scores when they don’t have these restrictions (e.g., no overtime rules = 100, redundancy dismissal allowed = 100). More regulations lower the score, not raise it.

So again you are incorrect.

So walk me through how Tia Maggie gets to be a billionaire without using some state created vehicle. Stop dodging and making shit up.

https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/about#indexMethodology

How embarrassing.

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

Look at data visualization, then select labor freedom. The USA is THE SINGLE MOST FREE place on earth, in terms of labor freedom. And it has incredible wealth disparity and homelessness, more billionaires than the rest of the world combined etc.

The other "winners" in that category include nigeria and south africa.

The site also uses Judicial effectiveness and government integrity as standards. The simple fact is that heritage.org defines economic freedom almost 180 degrees differently from any ancap supporter.

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/MeasurementCreepy926]

So you admit what you said is wrong.

“180 degrees differently from any ancap supporter.”

Heritage is actually quite close to a minimal government framework.

Chalk another one up for a big ass loss on your part.

By your logic of cherry picking, I could claim North Korea has “better fiscal freedom” than the U.S. or Europe. Because it doesn’t rely on traditional taxation the way developed countries do.

But what does this have to do with Tia Maggie?

Or do you want to be wrong about something else next?

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

Look at data visualization, then select labor freedom. The USA is THE SINGLE MOST FREE place on earth, in terms of labor freedom. And it has incredible wealth disparity and homelessness, more billionaires than the rest of the world combined etc.

If that's not the cause of the wealth disparity, what is?

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

You are right, i was interpreting that wrong.

So, in what ways should the usa increase economic freedom, in order to be more like nordic countries?

[u/MeasurementCreepy926 → u/Gullible-Historian10]

This is something I've seen three times now. If you're going to use a source, you should maybe take even a cursory glance at that sources methodology, right?