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Originally Posted by galleryseek
Well first I'm glad you're genuinely interested.
And also, it's very important for me to point out that worrying about the consequences of eliminating immoral acts is irrelevant. If you agree that it's wrong to kidnap (imprison) people because they do not consent to giving a group of individuals a % of their income (the state, much like how the mafia operates), then is it really relevant to worry about the potential consequences that may arise by eliminating that immorality?
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I guess I look at it a different way. These are laws by which this country runs. If you don't like them you are free to either leave or work to change them. I don't see taxes as being something that is on par with theft, but I do think that much of our tax money is wasted and if the government were smaller and ran more efficiently taxes could be much lower.
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As I've said before, people actually made the argument "Who will pick the cotton if we end slavery?"
But to entertain your question from a consequentialist point of view, who fights fires? who builds roads and bridges? who provides security?
People do. People would continue to solve these problems, except they wouldn't be funded through theft.
Think about something for a second... What if Sex.com was the only provider in which we could legally view adult content online? What if they had no competition? What if competition were made illegal? They wouldn't have an incentive to really improve their product or customer service.
This is the reason it takes an atrocity for a police officer to be fired, it's why we see the USPS in such a horrible shape that it is now, it's also the reason we see the state itself in a 16 trillion+ debt.
In a stateless/free/voluntary society, how would roads and bridges be paid for? How would services that are currently "public" be provided privately? There are many debates/approaches, and many of which arguably could work; the free market would ultimately decide the best path, as competition naturally chooses the winners.
Roads / Bridges:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capi...restrict_sr=on
http://www.5stepstoanarchy.com/what-about-the-roads/
Security / Police:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/14_1/14_1_2.pdf
Fighting fires:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capi...e_departments/
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While I understand that competition, in theory, makes a product or service better over time, there are some things I think it could cause problems with. A while back I was watching something on the history channel about the early stages of the fire department and how you had to basically buy a membership to the department in order to get service. So if you house was on fire and a competing fire department that you were not a member of showed up to the scene first you either had to pay them as well or they would just sit and watch your house burn.
The same kind of thing could happen with police. If I call them and tell them someone is breaking into house do they check to see if my membership is paid up before they call. What if there are multiple competing departments and the one I am a member of happens to be busy? Is there a central dispatch and who pays for that.
I can see where you are going with this in that a combination of volunteers and things like HOA fees and such could pay for local police and fire. . . but how is that different than a tax? If my HOA is going to charge me $100 per year to be a member of my local police department how is that different than the government just taking $100 from my taxes and giving it to the police.
What about those who are too poor to afford the service? Are they just fucked or do they get a pass and get it for free? If we are giving free passes who decides which people get them and which people don't?
I see where you are coming from with the roads, but is that not just another form of forcing taxes on the business owner? Now it isn't enough that you have to take the risk to put your own money forth to build a business, but you also have to have enough to build and upkeep the roads around the business you have built. So do local businesses also have to pay to pave the suburbs and surrounding areas? If not is that up to the people?
Lastly, what about education? I won't for a second suggest that we have a first rate public school system. It is desperate need of repair. It is bloated, corrupt and doesn't work that well. We can do a lot better. However, if education were left solely to individuals, many could not afford to send their kids to school so they would be stuck homeschooling them or they would have to find some kind of charity school. I don't think it would be long before those charity schools were overfull and turning people away.
Part of the reason private school costs half as much as public school on a per child basis is because they have the luxury of cherry picking the best students. When you have to deal with the masses it is an entirely different situation.
We haven't even touched on defense. Who is going to put up the cash to build and upkeep things like aircraft carries and to pay for all of our military expenses? You could cut the size of our military in half and it would still be something that cost 700 billion. That is a lot of cash.
I'm also assuming we just ditch medicare, medicaid and social security and assume people who are sick and old will either have family, friends or charities that take care of them?
I think some of your ideas have some merit, but to me they only work when you are talking about a small, controlled group. When you are talking about a huge country (physical size) with over 320 million people in it, it doesn't work out so well.