In message <199408230610.XAA15960@netcom3.netcom.com> "Timothy C. May" writes:

Jason Solinsky wrote:

...

Easily. They could deny you access to services of greater value than the tax being imposed. MIT weilds this power quite successfully. This thread

Jason is confusing markets and governments.

A movie theater that sells tickets is not "taxing" its patrons--it is selling access. A university that charges tuition is not "taxing" its customers.

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To call all negotiated prices "taxes" is, bluntly, absurd. It also cheapens the language by throwing away the essential distinction between market prices and taxes.

Jason's use of the term 'tax' in a special sense is no more an abuse of the language than the attempt to change the conventional meaning of the word 'government'. He says that institutions like MIT govern the behavior of their special populations, that they can impose levies on their users, and that they can enforce rules against their users without the use of physical force.

In any case, something is a "market price" if one can walk away from the transaction. I know of almost nothing the U.S. government calls a "tax" that taxpayers are free to walk away from, to not pay (and thus not receive the service).

You can walk away from almost all US taxes by walking away from the USA. I have. What about luxury taxes, fishing licenses, flying licenses, and so forth? If you insist on calling these 'market prices', you begin to really rip the fabric of the language. -- Jim Dixon