Quote:
Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception
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As I see it, all of this just comes back to the social "contract" not being anything like a contract. It's an excuse to force one group's wants onto others. You say I shouldn't get to benefit from society without paying, but how it really works out is every individual is paying for a ton of "benefits" that they don't actually want, subsidizing government inefficiency, propping up cronyism, etc. There's also tons of wiggle room for people to be free riders with VERY little incentive for anyone to do anything about it.
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It's a valid criticism of the current system if you ignore the benefits of the way we do things, ie, organizations are capable of existing for reasons other than profit motive or short term whims... which has important implications for things like public health and protecting the environment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tecmos Deception
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Privatizing everything wouldn't collapse society. People would still be able to get together and decide what they want to contribute towards a public society. But nobody would be threatened with violence by a nearly-omnipotent state to pay for any more than they actually want to... and since everything is private, individuals have incentive to make sure there aren't free riders or inefficiency, etc.
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What keeps people from adding lead to their gasoline? Are you going to make a law that says anyone who burns gas can't add lead to it to make it more efficient? What are you going to do if they refuse? Are you going to sue them for scrambling your children's brains with lead? Prove they are responsible.
What do you do about the natural concentration of wealth over time, if there are no means for redistribution? In a capitalist system, the more wealth you have, the better your ability to capture a greater share of all current and newly generated wealth (When a capitalist acquires an asset his ability to acquire more assets increases). For example, Paris Hilton inherits $500 million. All Paris Hilton has to do is hire brilliant minds to manage her wealth and investments. Her chance of losing money to market forces is far smaller than her chance of making money off purchasing profitable businesses and properties, or making safe investments. This requires no labor on her behalf, it is purely her money making money.
Progressive taxation is the
only force that acts against this and prevents a small number of people from eventually owning virtually all of society. (The lack of which also being a major contributor to why things have been in the shitter since Reagan)