On Taxation

 On Taxation

 

 

1.       The more the government spends a dollar, the more of that dollar is wasted.  That is virtually an a priori fact.  The more a human spends a dollar, that entire dollar is utilized.

2.       There is much more philanthropy by private sources than any government in the world—including communist governments.

3.       It is envy that inspires the movement of poor stealing from rich—either via gangsterism or government.  Both of which are gangsterism. 

4.       If a man or woman makes ten times much money, she or he should pay ten times more taxes—so the rich do contribute more because they can—they do pay more taxes than the poor.  (Ideally a flat tax is most moral and just—and some argue utilitarian)

5.       Many see the rich and think that things are unfair.  But to get that wealthy, that woman or man had to serve thousands or millions or billions of people.  That is the only way to become wealthy in capitalism.  All things being equal.  One way of saying it is a billionaire has helped a billion people.  If you tax the billionaires—you are taking those geniuses’ gifts away from the people of America or the world or wherever you are.  Like construction.  Like plumbing.  Like heating and air conditioning.  Like automobiles.  Like Instagram.  Like Facebook.  Like smartphones.  Like computers.  Like supermarkets.  Like bars and dispensaries.  Like alcohol and marijuana.  Like agribusiness (where your food comes from).  This is very important: there is an organic—a natural—association and interconnectedness of humanity and any people that naturally occurs much much much more successfully than any government or coercive planning.  I call it augriculture.  The more you can let humans do as they please and trade and interact as they please, the happier and wealthier and more spiritual they will be.  Hence the success of America as a an example.

6.       Also—and this seems very pertinent—money is earned over multiple lifetimes.  I call it intergenerational wealth.  People love to target those who inherit money or get wealth passed down to them from their families.  But that is a grievous act.  Taxing intergenerational wealth destroys small and medium sized businesses and much of the economy.  And it so happens that all money is earned—with very few exceptions.  Including in previous lives  if it matters, everyone starts out poor.  Through a lifetime they work with their hands or something similar.  They have children who they riase to have better lives than them.  And they raise them to work and appreciate and have good morals.  Then those children have children.  And every successive generation does better financially.  Eventually the children go to college and get high paying job with their minds instead of their hands.  And these original parents are born to their grand or great grandchildren and inherit the morals and money they worked so hard for before.

7.       Things like inheritance and estate and gift and capital gains taxes are envy taxes.  And they harm everyone terribly.  They harm the economy terribly.  And the word economy actually means, by my definition, the liberty and voluntary association—the interconnectedness and welfare—of all of the people of any nation or world.  It is well-known that economy means jobs and tax dollars.  But it is less delineated that it means almost everything that matters to the citizens or people of any nation or world.  Also, every one of those dollars was already taxed—and earned.

8.       And if you target anyone—or overtax anyone disproportionately or too much, you are—not only committing an immoral act—a civil and individual rights violation—you are hurting everyone.  Too much government, no matter how allegedly good the intentions are, is much more inefficient and despotic than allowing a people to freely trade with each other—known as voluntary association. 

9.       You either think in terms of utilitarianism—which most do—or you think in terms of liberty and rights and principles—morals if you will—which regrettably very few do anymore.  If you believe you should have rights, you have to preserve others’ rights also—unless you want the law of the jungle.

10.   Nothing is free.  No dollar is unearned.  Even intergenerationally.  If it is, the individual or group will squander it on their own.