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Comment by pietrovismara | Hacker News Reader

Because both inequality and poverty matter. Solving poverty is a matter of decency for all humanity and it would greatly improve our society. Solving inequality is as important, why? Because in a society where greed and profit motive trump any other ethic, we can't have individuals as powerful as states, thanks to the wealth they accumulated, partly, stealing from states. Earning billions and finding ways to not pay any taxes is equivalent to stealing for me.

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If you are taxed involuntary - isn't that stealing? Well technically by law it is legal and enforced for everyone, but it still is stealing. For example: if everybody is under the immoral law and some people are better than others at avoiding the immoral law - is it morally okay for those people to avoid that law?

Edit: by involuntary I mean if person can't choose. Not talking about businesses

No it is not, for a very obvious reason: you get all the advantages of living in a society. Even just for infrastructure alone. Roads, sewages, electricity, internet. Last but not least, safety and order. Any income you might have developed is built upon this foundations. It is the very minimum that you pay back for it, especially if you have more than most others. The only thing I don't like is that we don't have a choice about it. We are born in nations and we're subjected to their laws, like it or not. But you can still give up everything and not pay taxes...

I think your point about a choice of taxes is very close to my argument of involuntary taxes. While I agree there are some things that you must contribute to have law and order - there are other things I don't want to subsidize. If my town lacks sidewalks, cars drive too fast and etc. - why should you pay for other towns problems first? Because somebody needs more votes from that other town they get to take my money against my will?

Also, for example, I don't like some study programs and I really like some of them. Problem is - I can't choose which ones to subsidize for students. If that's the case - I wouldn't subsidize any of them, but I am forced to do so. Even if I think its harmful.

I think this problem arise/will arise in many different places: North vs South Italy, Catalonia vs Spain, young people to carry aging population and etc.

You say that individuals with power may do bad things and states with power do good things. Yes, that can happen. But also there may be individuals with power that do very good things and states with power that do very bad things.

True, but states have rules, and in a democracy we as people determine the rules (in theory). Individuals as powerful as a state on the other hand have no rule. I want to have a say on what our resources are used for, not leave the decision to an individual who by the way has very probably got rich through morally questionable business practices.

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