jmc wrote:I've been thinking about the issue of taxation aswell.
In order to have law you need an authority to enforce it.
This authority needs funding.
There can only be one law in each country, therefore within a country the normal rules of business competition cannot be applied.
Imagine a world without a single police, ofcourse in an anarcho-capitalist system there would be private security forces but the consquences of this would be if a poor fellow's son got murdered there'd be noone to hunt down the killers or even investigate the case, I'm sure that everyone here agrees how morally repulsive this would be.
What you are describing is EXACTLY the situation in Europe for most of Europe's history. The Nobles and the Peasants had exactly this sort of relationship, especially in France. I have long argued that it was the ubiquitous nature of the English Longbow (thanks to Edward the III I believe.) that made the English far more free than continental Europe. Apparently the Nobles decided respecting the rights of armed peasants was a more sensible thing to do than to disarm them, as they did in France.
We're still discussing European History?jmc wrote: What is more what if someone who paid insurance to be protected by one private security force committed a crime against someone who was protected by another private security force... would both security forces go to war with each other.
Science minded people will understand this easily enough. Use "Negative Feedback." No system can be stable without negative feedback. In this case, it's a matter of simply letting the taxpayers decide how much government is necessary, and how much tax they should pay to support it.jmc wrote: So taxation in a country is necessary. But how do we stop government from charging too much and providing too little?.
Note, this is very different from the idea of letting Non-Taxpayers, or people who are paid by the government decide how big government should be. These people have no reason to limit Government Growth, whereas the people who actually have to PAY for government DO have an incentive to limit it to the appropriate size.
The Quiescent point is reached when the forces balance.
The way forward is the way backward. Back to basics that is. Economics and Liberty are not complicated or mutually exclusive. We need to throw out the stupid ideas that have become so popular in the last century, and re institute the ideas which have demonstrated themselves to work spectacularly well, Both in Britain and in the US.jmc wrote: Competition between countries! If you view each country as a private members club and being a tax resident as paying the fee required to become a member than by choosing not to (or to) emmigrate we are effectively choosing which county to pay taxes to and which country gives the best value of public service for a given ammount of tax.
I think the way forward is to create a world that takes a much more friendly view to startup countries, and has easier naturalisation policies regarding immigration/emmigration etc.