Oddbean

“The concept of Anarchy is the concept of Private Property. The extent to which the State exists is the extent to which it violates property rights. The State is not a productive institution because it does not receive its money voluntarily, it receives its money coercively.” — @saifedean on @Titcoin https://v.nostr.build/wGmyJ.mp4

Private property presupposes the moral right to that thing. It can only arise if the initiation of force is prohibited from society, which means there must be some mechanism to protect against the initiation of force. To be effective that mechanism must have a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force. What is that mechanism but government properly constituted and limited? Without this mechanism we are at the mercy of the mob with the most power. (See the American regulatory state or Gaza) Government is vital for civil society, but to fulfill the needed mechanism it must be properly limited to the courts, police and military, all run according to the rule of law.

Yet making it voluntary would never work. No one would want to pay for something others use. And the poor neighborhoods would never get things klke electricity fixed when they break. Taxes are the less bad way