On Mon, May 22, 2000 at 08:19:21AM -0700, James Rogers wrote:
> On Mon, 22 May 2000, Martin Ling wrote:
> >
> > Since when exactly was the level of taxation directly inversely
> > proportional to how 'free' a country is? Unless one is arguing for a
> > system of no taxation and public services at all, the specifics seem
> > somewhat irrelevant.
>
>
> The specifics are entirely relevant. First, the amount of taxation
> essentially determines how much of your labor is slave labor (adjusted for
> rate of return, but that typically is pretty damn low). Second, taxation
> that is tied more closely to service usage is more fair than taxation
> based on other arbitrary metrics.
[snip long, but very good example of (non)efficient tax usage]
I was ambiguous. What I think I meant is that the specifics in terms of
the percentile figures for taxation are not much use with no
consideration of how that money is being used (which can be well or
badly, as you say).
Once you've decided to allow for some taxation, however (as opposed to
none at all, as Mike has suggested - and it is a vaild option) it makes
very little sense to try and compare exactly how much freedom a country
has removed, via its taxes. There are simply far too many factors.
Martin
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