At 04:35 PM 2/5/97 -0800, Sean Roach wrote:

At 09:09 PM 2/4/97 -0800, jim bell wrote:

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However, fortunately I don't think it would make any difference in the overall effects. While AP would eliminate the taxation which is commonly thought of as the main way a "rich person" loses assets, in practice it would also shut down the well-hidden systems that allow some people to get rich (or, merely live off somebody else) "unfairly." Government agents come to mind, of course.

The money doesn't necessarily come from taxation, the owner of a business takes a cut of whatever money is made even if that person is unproductive. The tyrant would be the owner of the industry.

The kind of effects I'm thinking of are primarily the "military spending" situations, where: 1. Large numbers of potentially competent and useful people get put into useless jobs: "Army, Navy, and Marines, and Air Force" spring to mind. (Those people who still think military spending is really necessary obviously haven't read AP.) 2. Large amounts of money are spent on military hardware, money which goes to fund people who would otherwise develop useful products in the non-government private sector. 3. The patent system decreases competition, increases profits and prices in the marketplace due to government actions to allow and enforce monopolies. 4. Government employees are paid more for their activities than they would receive in the private sector. Ironically, in this case an "apples-to-apples" comparison is misleading: It would be wrong to compare a middle level government manager to his counterpart in private industry, because to postulate there is such a government-job assumes that the private-sector would do it post-AP.

If you are right then governments would effectively lose the ability to tax, with or without representation, as most people do not agree on everything, like how their money is spent. However, even now, as pointed out in some recent posts, our tax money is used to foreward the goals of a few, these few want to eliminate guns, crypto, free speech, ect. Although we are in oppostition, our money is still used to foreward the goals.

Yes, the main effect of AP is the elimination of the ability to tax. Now, nothing would prevents individuals from continuing to fund an organization called a "government" so that it could do those (non-coercive) things that individual wants to see done. But I think it'll be amazing how many of those heretofore-funded-by-govt projects (previously promoted as being wanted by a large fraction of the citizenry) that evaporate when the public is given the option to continue to fund them voluntarily. Let's suppose, hypothetically and for vast simplification, the government engages in two activities, "A" and "B." Further suppose government taxes from two groups, let's call them "Alphas" and "Betas." It is traditionally thought that Alphas like spending on "A", but hate spending on "B". Likewise, it is figured that Betas like spending on "B", don't like spending on "A". Post-AP, one might innocently suspect that maybe the "Alphas" would simply fund only "A", while Betas" would donate money for activity "B". Assuming the amount of funding for those activities was equal, you might think that things could go on as they already do. But no. The reality is that "Alphas" merely like spending on "A" _more_ than they do "B", and they will tolerate their own money being used for both only because the "Betas" are similarly forced. Add volunteerism to the whole mix, and not only would these two groups only fund just what they really wanted, they would soon discover they don't even want the level of spending they previously argued for, pre-AP. In practice, those services people like will continue, but it is highly unlikely that they will be supply by organizations which evolve from those currently called "governments." Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com