Quote from: jbrnt on March 25, 2014, 02:09:29 AM

Quote from: westkybitcoins on March 24, 2014, 11:55:45 PM

Maybe I should have started with just asking who believes the primary purpose of taxation is outright wealth redistribution. That's for another thread now, I suppose....

What do you believe is the primary purpose of taxation?
I am just thinking about paying for law enforcement, fireman, building roads and so forth.

Well, I don't believe taxes are an appropriate way of paying for societal needs, but I used to, and when I did the primary justification was (1) for centralized defensive expenditures that might be difficult to arrange privately (an army, police, etc.) and (2) for common-use goods/services that everyone needs yet would have questionable benefit from competition (primarily roads and courts.)

Of course, I would still rate those as the strongest arguments as far as what the purpose of taxes should be. Anything not for group-use (and this includes handing out charity) can be done by individual people and/or organizations, so why bother with bureaucratic centralization, expensive middlemen and politicizing the task? (The "free rider" problem can be addressed in a variety of ways beyond forcing everyone to pay for everything.)