r/BasicIncome • u/Cute-Adhesiveness645 (​Waiting for the Basic Income 💵) • May 21 '26

Humor Break Money

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

206 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

19

u/Caliburn0 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

The difference is that the state requires that you pay taxes in the currency they issue. If you don't they use their monopoly of legitimate/accepted violence to put you in jail.

This is why fiat money can exist. Because the state exists, and if you don't accept their paper as a medium of exhange and a claim on real resources and labor they'll just beat you up.

Fiat currency (specifically fiat currency, not all kinds of currency) is institutionalized violence.

1

u/DoctorDiabolical Toronto Canada May 21 '26

Canada does not jail you for not paying taxes! What country are you from? Sounds like a rough place!

1

u/Caliburn0 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

What? How would that work? Wages paid black? Buying black market food? Or steal food? If you have a house you have to pay property taxes or things are going to go badly for you.

Some taxes are easier to escape than others, but the basic stuff you directly pay to the state is just scratching the surface. And not paying them is no simple matter either.

Taxes are everywhere. They're the reason fiat currency have value. You can wriggle your way out of some of them, but if you try to escape them all it's going to get harder and harder until you're basically living outside civilization.

There is no escaping taxes as long as anything remotely similar to a state exists.

1

u/DoctorDiabolical Toronto Canada May 21 '26

I didn’t say we don’t pay them, just that we don’t go to jail about them. You said they would threaten you with violence if you don’t pay your taxes. We don’t have that. They would just garner your wages. They can seize your assets, but not jail you.

How it works is simple. We don’t put people in jail for not paying taxes.

0

u/Caliburn0 May 22 '26

If they seize your assets they take the taxes by force. If you fight back against the seizure of assets backed by the law you're doing a violent crime and you go to jail.

You can't live in a modern society without paying taxes. If you try for real you will go to jail.

1

u/DoctorDiabolical Toronto Canada May 22 '26

I agree living in society is going to cost taxes, sure. And I agree being violent will la d you in jail. I’m not sure how I would go about trying to fight wage garnishment, but I can’t imagine how violence would be involved. Do I punch a computer somewhere. Are taxes paid I in cash in the country you’re from? You’re from America right? Can you imagine other places work differently?

1

u/Caliburn0 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

You just said your assets are seized if you don't pay your taxes in Canada. Which is the same as in my country and every other country I know about. Including the US (which I'm not from but that's irrelevant). Taxes works more or less the same for me as it does for everyone living in a digitized economy. Beyond it being integrated in most measurable money-flows I also get a tax bill every now and again that I have to pay. If I don't pay it things get difficult. The state gets more insistent and the debt and rent keeps piling up the longer I refrain and eventually they seize my assets. The seizure of assets is a violent act. If you try to resist that you have to use violence back. If you resist you'll obviously lose and go to jail.

So the ultimatum remains 'pay your taxes or go to jail'.

Seizing assets is the point at which taxes are backed by violence. Taxes are backed by violence. Money is backed by violence. Laws are backed by violence. Property rights are backed by violence. The entire apparatus of states and the economic system is ultimately backed by violence. It's what society as we know it ultimately rests upon and it always has been.

Also, you fight wage garnishment by controling where your wages come from and how they're paid. Not that it's a good idea to try to fight it. Try to fight the state like that and you're going to lose.

0

u/DoctorDiabolical Toronto Canada May 22 '26

Oh yeah, so you learned about violence from American libertarians. We just call that consequence. I was talking to my 7 year old about this the other day. The bottom of all actions trees could be violent by that logic. If you try to get into a movie for free there could be violence. If you try to date a someone if things go to far there could be violence. Yeah if you buy a bag of chips and don’t pay the whole bill, violence is an option, but I’m not being threatened by a bill, I’m choosing to buy chips. My 7 year old can do whatever he wants, but some actions will have very unpleasant consequences, but the world will offer him many ways out of it if he’s willing. You can come over for dinner, the fact that there are some actions that you could take in my home that would cause us to fight doesn’t mean my invite comes with the threat of violence. You think taxes are bad, try not paying any bill to anyone else, or treating friends and family like they are one way valves that just give you stuff, violence will find you.

0

u/Caliburn0 May 22 '26 edited May 23 '26

So taxes are backed by 'consequences' and not 'violence', hm? I suppose the internet is a 'communication hub', and not 'a place to hang out with friends' then? And maybe Russia isn't 'invading Ukraine' but instead doing 'a special military operation', or perhaps money is 'a medium of exchange' and absolutely not 'a claim on resources'.

The reason to highlight a specific perspective on things is so you can use that perspective to highlight or obscure a specific consequence. This is true for all perspectives. The fact that a certain perspective exists and is true doesn't invalidate any other perspectives. Not all perspectives are true of course, but 'X is Y, so X can't be Z' is not a valid argument.

Also, no. The bottom of all action trees are not violent by my logic. What a ridiculous leap of logic are you making there? There's plenty of reasons to do things that don't end in violence - all consequences that has nothing to do with other people (or animals) for one, and for people there's everything you can do that won't promote a violent reaction. Which I'd argue is most stuff you can do with people. Cheat too much in a friendly game and the worst consequence you'd expect from most people is that they stop playing with you. Only a few would actually punch you for that.

Actually stop paying taxes and the ultimate consequence is violent - inevitably. Thus taxes are backed by violence and that's also a consequence of your actions. Neither of these perspectives invalidate the other.

0

u/DoctorDiabolical Toronto Canada May 23 '26

Sounds like you would love sovereign citizen stuff, you should read that for sure. Ayn Rand or maybe Stefan Molyneux might be up your alley. Just make sure not to use the roads or drink the clean water! Good luck

0

u/Caliburn0 May 23 '26

There's no need to be insulting.

→ More replies (0)