“, would it be harmful for people to investigate living without taxation?"
> I'm sure you could guess what my response to this would be from my other post.
Having me guess your position is risky. I am not immune to the Internet plague that has people projecting their various attitudes or caricatures of their intellectual opponents onto others.
>I see taxation as retroactive adjustments in property holdings. Do I think we should live in a world in which each person decides, individually, whether to contribute towards public goals and projects like roads, police, courts, and a welfare minimum? No.
But that is not the question. At the most basic level, the question is why would you object to other persons investigating alternatives. Does this put persons who do not participate in danger? Or are you just being stodgy?
On a different level, the question is not whether we should fund shared benefits, but which benefits should we fund and how should we fund them. Unless the status quo is immune to all criticisms, we could at least consider the possibility of improving things. Most of the public services you mention are recent innovations, should we stop innovating?
You may not want to live in such a world, but no one is forcing you to. Why do you wish to prevent others from trying it out? If an artificial anarchist island appeared in the middle of the ocean, would that destabilize the rest of the world?
> I think we should decide together, collectively, the terms under which people have exclusive control over things, and how the burden of contributing towards public goals should be distributed.
We should or we do?
And we could not do that without taxation?
Do the differences between the various jurisdictions in the world disturb you? Or does the nation state have something special about it that gives it immunity to this principle limiting diversity?
> I think collective action and free rider problems would prevent public projects from being funded, and holdouts would hold large public projects hostage.
Assuming you see that as a bad thing, why do you think people would find it attractive? Or are you just hoping to prevent my imagined volunteers from making a mistake they would regret?
>I just think periodic retroactive adjustments to property holdings is both necessary and a good thing.
Is this a moral principle; a scientific principle; or is it your subjective evaluation? Something else?
Necessary for what, and good by what standard?
