A government is supported under capitalism through voluntary financing methods.
How is government supported under capitalism?
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Tag Archives | taxation
How will one support government without taxation?
The removal of all taxation would be the last step to implement in the transition to a free capitalist society. The costs of a proper government — with an army (engaged only in self-defense and not imperialism), a court system, and a police force — are very small, and easily paid for by voluntary financing methods, such as insurance on contracts. Other methods are used by nonprofit agencies, like churches, to raise billions of dollars. Observe how one “know nothing capitalist” Ted Turner recently gave a billion dollars to a useless, anti-capitalist organization like the United Nations.
Comments Ayn Rand in “Government Financing in a Free Society”:
Any program of voluntary government financing has to be regarded as a goal for a distant future. What the advocates of a fully free society have to know, at present, is only the principle by which that goal can be achieved.
The principle of voluntary government financing rests on the following premises: that the government is not the owner of the citizens’ income and, therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income—that the nature of the proper governmental services must be constitutionally defined and delimited, leaving the government no power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own arbitrary discretion. Consequently, the principle of voluntary government financing regards the government as the servant, not the ruler, of the citizens—as an agent who must be paid for his services, not as a benefactor whose services are gratuitous, who dispenses something for nothing. [The Virtue of Selfishness]
Why would voluntary methods fail to work under our present system?
Only if one wants to turn government into an engine of the welfare state/new world-order (‘one country, with one big leash tied around its neck’, with the untouchable bureaucrats of the ‘United Nations’ holding the leash), do voluntary methods fail to work.
Most people (not all) would voluntarily give 5 or 10% of their income to support a government that protects rights; practically no one would give 50% to 90% of their income to support a mixed economy/welfare state, which is why the government threatens the use of force to physically take your wealth away from you.
Who would want to voluntarily pay for that? Perhaps a few people would, but they are the ones who think that they will get to hold onto the leash.
