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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: "Majority" rule
Message-ID: <1183@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 15:12:45 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1183
Posted: Tue Oct 30 15:12:45 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Oct-84 18:52:15 EST
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Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
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=====================
> Arguing that tax collection is a function of government sounds
> pretty odd to me - taking your money is a function of a robber,
> but I've never seen that used as an argument that robbers are
> good things.  

You people sound like a broken record sometimes. Can't you think of any
more interesting analogies to make than "Government taxation is theft"?
If you define theft as "taking money from people without their consent",
then the argument will have to become, "Is government theft a good thing?",
or, "Are we better off having government stealing our money?" I think so,
but using this sort of language is sort of misleading. (You can call taxation
theft, but I will use the term "paranoid anti-social spoiled children" to
refer to libertarians.) 
=====================

This interchange strikes a chord from history (both mine, and public
history).  In writing my B.A.Sc. essay I cam across a very interesting
paper by S. Bagno "The Communication Theory and Economics" IRE Convention
Record, 1955.  He identified money transfer with a complex network of
information channels, which leads to a large number of interesting
economic predictions that don't seem to be obtainable in more orthodox
ways.  Be that as it may; in the course of this article (which I can't
find, so I'm relying on memory) he identified one NECESSARY function
of government as the redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. In
the Dark Ages and perhaps the Middle Ages, there were no governments
to perform this function, and their place was in fact taken by robbers
and robber bands.  If there is any truth to this approach to economics,
SOMEONE has to function as a robber, if the economy is to continue
in a stable fashion.  The argument is complex, and may be wrong, but
it is interesting to contemplate, nevertheless.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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