I don't see any other option. We should remember that we are the state, in theory. It's the whole point of a state. If that isn't the case anymore, we should fix it.
The main problem is that nowadays states operate on the basis of the same false trickle-down fable.
They don't build stuff, they pay corporations to do it for them and expect that money to somehow flow down to the people. We can clearly see that doesn't happen as inequality keeps growing.
We aren't the state, though. The state is the governing body and its surrounding entities, funded through taxes, that controls the justice system and the military.
I don't think it's a good idea to conflate "the state" and "the country" or "society". The state is the most powerful entity in the country, but it's not the only one.
And I've probably said this elsewhere, but inequality is not important. We keep hearing about it every day, so it sounds important, but it's not. Unless it's being done deliberately to keep people down, e.g. in a feudal or 20th century socialism country, but even then the fundamental problem is authoritarianism, not inequality. Inequality is a symptom, and not always of something bad.
I don't care that Tesla owners in the early 2010s had Roadsters and I didn't. Roadsters paved the way for Model Ss, which paved the way for Model 3s, which - if the Cybertruck hadn't got in the way - paved the way for Model 2s.
I don't care that at some point in history only rich people had (terrible) glasses. Basically everyone (outside of impoverished countries whose government officials absorb the cash from overseas to help) now has access to high quality lenses - far better than those the rich people of the past could access.
Temporary inequality leads to - over time - an uplift of the fundamental things for everyone. That's the only thing that matters - the baseline now vs what it used to be. Not the difference between baseline and the rich. The rich will spend on a thousand trivial things that won't matter, but also on things that will eventually be accessible to everyone.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That's literally in the constitution and not just that of the USA.
> I don't care that
Rich people do care, they want the best healthcare the world can provide, the best education for their children, and want it now, not in 50 years when the "rising tide lifts all boats". Do you consider yourself inferior to them? Then why wouldn't you care?
> Temporary inequality leads to - over time - an uplift of the fundamental things for everyone
"A rising tide lifts all boats", "Trickle down" these are all aphorisms invented by rich people in order to justify their hoarding while there are people who can't afford a roof over their heads. To keep the outcasts calm, waiting for their turn to enjoy a small fraction of what others enjoy entirely now.
> > "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
> That's literally in the constitution and not just that of the USA.
I don't see how this is relevant to whether the state is synonymous with the population of a country.
> Do you consider yourself inferior to them? Then why wouldn't you care?
I don't consider "inferior" to be "I don't have a Porsche and they do". Or even "I can't force taxpayers to pay for a $10m operation and followup treatment and someone else can afford it out of the value they've created", which I think is what you're thinking I should say.
Is that what you're saying? Happy to discuss, but you seem to be talking in emotive language rather than speaking plainly, and I'm just trying to get at the a plain description of what you mean.
> I don't consider "inferior" to be "I don't have a Porsche and they do".
You keep fixating on luxury cars for some reason, I'm talking about fundamental rights recognized in the universal declaration of human rights. I couldn't care less about owning a Porsche or a Tesla.
I care about the health and education of my family and I don't want to live in a society where people die because of lack of treatments. You say "a $10m operation", I'm sorry to say that shows again you're out of touch. People die every day because they can't afford insulin, which costs about $3 per vial to produce.
> You keep fixating on luxury cars for some reason, I'm talking about fundamental rights recognized in the universal declaration of human rights. I couldn't care less about owning a Porsche or a Tesla.
I'm not fixating - there's no point introducing pop psychology. They're just an easy way to explain a mechanism. I also mentioned hyper-expensive medical treatments, and corrective lenses. If you only saw luxury cars in that list, I don't think you should be diagnosing anyone else with fixation.
> People die every day because they can't afford insulin, which costs about $3 per vial to produce.
This isn't a human rights issue; nor is it a rich people bad issue. It's an economics/corruption/bad regulations issue. People get rich by making something lots of people want for $3 a go. People want to do that.
In a functional democracy, the state is working in the best interest of the people. And your assertion that GP is arguing that the state is "synonymous with the population" is a straw man, as they didn't say that.
Let's look at the phrase "value they've created" that you used. That's a bit of an idealistic way of thinking. After all those with money and power in society have historically used that money and power to get more money and power. Does a king sitting on a throne produce more "value" than the farmers that feed his cities? Does the hedge fund manager choosing stocks to buy and companies to liquidate produce more value than doctors who save people's lives?
A state that controls its own currency doesn’t need taxes.
They only exist to control inflation. We could achieve the same thing with high interest rate, printing all the money we need and having zero tax on anything.
Taking out loans creates money, including when private banks do it. That’s what national debt does too.
Definitely. There would be more dollars in circulation for a start. Ultimately the government is the final "sink" for dollars in the system. That and loan repayments (but unlike taxes, loan repayments could be made in any currency).
This is the first time I've encountered anybody else who has figured this out and says it openly.
For those who wonder how: If it wasn't for taxes being collected in the currency of the government, people and businesses would conduct their affairs in other currencies that do not decrease in value from inflation. That's also the reason why there will never be any simple taxation system, such as land value tax or whatnot. In order to keep everybody using the government currency, the taxes demanded in that currency has to be applied to every and any economic activity imaginable, otherwise people will flock to other currencies after having paid their dues, and the government currency value collapses.
This is also the reason why the public sector workforce is of an enormous size, even in supposedly capitalist countries. Public sector workers cannot choose another currency for their paycheck.
This is the reason why most third world countries cannot create a stable government currency: Their tax collection is not effective or comprehensive enough. Unless all the population is put under government issued money by rigorous taxation, they will choose other currency.
I'm not saying the same thing as the Wikipedia page. They say that taxes can counter inflation by reducing spending. But this comes from the erroneous belief that inflation is created by spending (or even worse, by labour wages). Inflation is created by an increase in the money supply, which mainly comes from completely different debt than consumer spending.
I'm not saying like them that increased taxes reduce inflation and props up the currency value in this way. The evidence is against this. What I'm saying is that a comprehensive taxation system that gets into every imaginable nook and cranny of economic activity or life in general, is what is required to give the government currency any value at all. Without having complicated taxes on basically everything, the currency would be worthless or worth much less, as we see in the third world. The US of course has the option to bully other countries to use their currency, by military means. But this is not true for the euro or pound, for example.
This is an interesting theory. Basically, as I understand it, you already want to do these things, but since the government can compel you to pay tax on them in its currency, you stick to that currency out of convenience/necessity. If the taxation system is not comprehensive (or you can evade it), you will use the official currency as little as possible, diminishing the amount of useful things transacted in it and thus its value.
Yes! That's exactly how I meant. And it doesn't matter too much if the taxes are high or low, what's important is that they are collected on every activity. I think the prime example is sales taxes in the different states in the US. They are so low (0%-7%) as to be marginal, and collecting them surely costs the consumer economy much more than the gains the state governments have from them.
The rational policy would be to abolish sales taxes and transfer that tax burden by increasing other taxes – but the purpose of the sales tax is primarily to make sure business is always conducted in the government currency, and thereby giving the US Dollar a value. Try to use a foreign currency, bullion, or whatnot to purchase consumer goods in any big box store and you'll be shown the door. The same in most of Europe. Then try to use your foreign dollars or euros to buy consumer goods in the third world, and your money will be more than welcome.
The monetary side is Quantity of Money times Velocity of money. Both affect inflation. It is therefore Possible to have inflation with fixed money supply.
You may argue it is not likely, or it is not relevant, but to argue it is impossible is like arguing about physics but disbelieving in the laws of motion.
I'm a beginner here - how does this make sense? Why would spending money lots affect inflation?
My simple conceptualisation:
If I sell my heap of junk car to my neighbour for $10000 this week, which he buys for sentimental reasons, and he sells it back to me for $10000 next week, for sentimental reasons, and we continue doing this every week, what would drive inflation?
Conversely, if the government doubled the money supply, suddenly people from outside are earning much more money than they used to for the same work, and to them $10000 is worth half what it was, enough to get them to bid $12000 and get the car. They might only do that once, but the price has inflated.
A cryptocurrency where all the voting nodes are run by the state could fulfill the same objective. The problem is that cryptocurrencies as we know them are based upon a publicly verifiable ledger. Inevitably, the state would want an "off the books" way to move money around, which would lead to a shadow currency, and the resulting disequilibrium would destabilize either the state or the "official" currency.
The main problem is that nowadays states operate on the basis of the same false trickle-down fable.
They don't build stuff, they pay corporations to do it for them and expect that money to somehow flow down to the people. We can clearly see that doesn't happen as inequality keeps growing.