Would people prefer to pay no tax under a pure capitalism system ?

[Swirlythingy2025]

Just wondering what others think due to a politics debate with collegues, if we lived in a society with pure capitalism and no state involvement, would people actually prefer to pay no tax at all?

Most services are more efficient when they are centralised. Too many people would refuse to contribute towards things like park and verge maintenance, road repairs, courts and prisons, environment agency testing etc. Things that people would buy like bin collections would be tricky and would likely lead to an increase in fly tipping and rubbish burning. Deprived areas would be pitch black and strewn with rubbish. Private policing would be a shit show. Private defence??

I think the NHS is not going to keep pace with the burden placed upon it by unhealthy lifestyles and needs to either cut what it provides or we will have to pay vastly more. There isn’t an easy political solution to it so I imagine we will just bumble on. I like the system, if I get cancer it’s reassuring that I won’t be bankrupted or have my insurance pulled, but have lost the social contract of - I will do my best to not need you, but if I do you will be there for me.
In terms of schools we are better as a society with an educated population but more and more is put on schools and the expectation on parents to do extraordinarily basic stuff (feed breakfast, teach dressing and toilet training) and very basic stuff (reading, ensuring homework is done, attendance) is falling away. If you cba to take your kid to school, teach them to put on their coat, and spend 10 minutes in the evening reading together then you definitely won’t be paying for it which will lead to even less social mobility. There is lower and lower expectations on physical skills - there was a thread recently about this where a swim teacher said kids are lacking the core strength to lift themselves out of swimming pools. The whole country needs a good bollocking about our collective lack of responsibility, laziness and greed, frankly. It’s not sustainable.

There's an excellent book called A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear about people who actually tried this in the US a few years back. It does not end well.

Pure capitalism doesnt have to mean no tax though, does it. The profits of capitalisation can still be taxed to fund public services. The question becomes, what should be public services be. The delivery of them can be by private enterprise, paid for by taxation :)

No, because then people would starve. And who knows if I might be one of them, should something happen to mean I couldn't work. Even if I was one of the lucky ones who could support myself, vastly unequal societies have a lot of crime so you'd have to live in a gilded cage to protect yourself from attack by those who have nothing.

Rich people don't like paying their taxes and try to avoid doing so, so I hardly think they'll willingly fully support the government as an act of charity.
What would happen to people who are too sick to work?

Low tax countries like the UAE have huge fiscal reserves generated by oil and gas. They invest this in central infrastructure to attract global trade. How would a Low or no tax system work when a country has no resources to trade globally- ?

We'd go back to Victorian times. Institutions to house the poor and sick. Voluntary medical staff. Rich people who set up schools and hospitals for the poor. Slum areas with low mortality rates.

as far as I can tell, the greatest prosperity eras (maximum average prosperity per person) have coincided with

'rules based order' (however imperfect)
high political and economic stability (however imperfect)
regulated private sector (however imperfect)
wealth redistribution (however imperfect)

I don't know how those things get achieved without taxation (however imperfect).

Sounds grim as fuck.

I think there should be a big reset. We should have a low level of taxation for the things the state absolutely has to pay for (ie that is the point of the state):

• defence
• law and order

I would also advocate huge state funding for children and education (ie sure start and schools) because society as a whole suffers so much if children are messed up and benefits so much from educating its people.

Everything else should be left to individuals, families, communities, charities and companies. You pay to use roads or trains. You save up for future illness. You look after your own old people. You pay social insurance for healthcare etc. People pick and choose what they want. If they only want basic healthcare they only pay for that.

A large part of the reason why our tax system is so insanely complicated is that private enterprise goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying tax. Every time a new loophole is discovered and exploited, more tax legislation is needed to plug it. Private enterprise is not known for its altruism.

And if someone who's only paid for basic healthcare suddenly develops a disease that exceeds their ability to pay, what then? We just watch them die on the street?

I ordered that Libertarian Bear book just now, sounds like exactly my sense of humour, lol

No taxes means no government. This means no border controls, so free for all immigration. No mandates on minimum salaries, or working conditions, no free education, no NHS. No government or NHS pensions. No free press. No Court system. No controls on how much utility companies can charge customers. Absolutely nothing for seniors. No protection/rescue for failing major companies. No trade deals or trade barriers. No rights whatsoever. It will be might is right.

I'd just be happy to pay a reasonable amount of tax considering what we get out the system.

Right now we are paying way too much tax for a broken (but necessary) social health care system, and a swiftly dwindling welfare safety net.

Our tax money is being used to line greedy people's pockets. We'd have way more than enough for our health care, benefits, roads, education etc if it weren't for that.

I'd probably do better under this system but I don't support it. I like that we have a society where everyone can get the healthcare they need and social supports are available. It might not be perfect but it's better than everyone for themselves.

The basic package would include dying inside I think. But yes, you choose what you want to pay for. I would say that the most basic care would be anything life saving, perhaps under a certain age. So heart attacks or cancer. But some people would prefer not to pay for life-prolonging treatment aged 85 or for ‘nice to haves’ like IVF.

I think the knee jerk reaction would be, 'of course I'd rather pay no tax!' But there would be a lot of people who wouldn't immediately consider what this means for public services - paying for healthcare at point of use, paying for a garbage collection, paying for road maintenance, paying to enter a park because entry fees are needed to pay for the upkeep etc. It's arguable that we're in a partial system like this now...but it would be a big shock if this sort of total change were to happen. (Rather reminiscent of some people's reactions when they found out the impact of their vote in favour of Brexit...)

Absolutely not. It would be hell on earth.
Tax is inherently a good thing.

In saying "you choose what you want to pay for" what that actually boils down to is "you choose what you can afford". Which leads to what we see in the US where low-income people have to choose between getting medical treatment or eating. And where the maternal mortality rate is four times higher than here.

But hey, if you want that kind of hellscape the US is only a few thousand miles away.

We spent millenia devising a system that took humans above the level of animals

No tax at all would be anarchy. Low tax regimes still have public expenditure - defence, infrastructure etc. - but they have e.g. oil reserves to pay for this. People are only thinking about benefits and the NHS when they consider this kind of question, not all the background stuff that there’s no feasible way to provide except for centrally.

And for your own police force, fire brigade. Your own roads.

That's what many people want. They don't want to pay taxes.

Taxation is not necessarily a component of capitalism. While it could be theoretically possible to run a capitalist economy without taxation, this doesn't make it any more or less capitalist than an economy with taxation. There are certain trade-offs within any economy, and one of them is balancing tax funded vs privately funded services.