If the government stops providing services, should citizens stop paying taxes?#EvanPoll #poll

[jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange]

Depends somewhere on how you're defining the social contract.

At its most base form, a government is just paying protection money to a mafia. You pay them because they keep other mafias from fucking with you too much, and at least some amount a vested interest in not fucking their people up TOO much since they're the ones who make the money that they get to take as protection money.

So basically, until and unless you have another wannabe government group ready and able to step up and say they'll fight to be your government and work to protect you instead of the current one, you pay the government you got because they have force of violence to compel it from you.

@evan @mpjgregoire

[jesstheunstill@infosec.exchange]

Refusing to pay taxes is an act of rebellion, so not something to do unless you have enough other people with enough power to actually make it an effective rebellion.
@evan @mpjgregoire

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@JessTheUnstill @mpjgregoire so, the claim to legitimacy is just having enough firepower to enforce tax collection? That seems pretty Hobbesian.

[virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca]

@evan @JessTheUnstill @mpjgregoire
Legitimacy in the plain English sense of the word, something like "morally valid", is something that is earned in the eyes of every individual, not claimed by force.

Legitimacy in the sense of according to the law as defined by those who would execute it, well that is taken.

Don't mistake the latter for the former. Don't mistake law for justice.

I'm a fan of the notion that the purpose of a system is what it does.

[dolmen@mamot.fr]

@evan If gouvernment had already stopped providing any services to you (directly or indirectly), you wouldn't be able to read this toot.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@dolmen is that true?

[django@social.coop]

@evan if only the political parties could be made to pay

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@django That is an interesting idea!

[malte@radikal.social]

@evan Yes. And I have to buts. First but is that citizens should probably consider paying taxes to some other entity. Reviving the good old progressive party membership fee, where you give some of your income to a revolutionary party that also organizes for social needs, could be an idea. The other but is that I don't want my yes to imply that taxes are some kind of exchange with the government (I give you taxes, you give me services), because that undermines other values.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

Thanks all! My answer is yes, but it's illegal and probably will be a big hassle.

In Canada and other parliamentary systems, failing a budget bill is a vote of no confidence, which will lead to new elections.

I think having consequences for failing to do the essential work of governing is good policy. Stopping tax collection until the budget is in place would be a good encouragement to keep things moving.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@malte you have two butts!?!?