517
submitted 5 months ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

For perspective, there are two ways we pay taxes currently: direct taxation via tax collection and indirect taxation via the inflation of the currency supply (govt prints money and uses it, your money becomes worth less about 2-3% year in good years). That second tax is optional, there are ways to not use your national currency and therefore not pay the inflationary tax. That second tax is also insidious because people don't realize it's happening. If you have to raise actual taxes, suddenly you get revolts and removed from power. Which is why most wars are funded with inflationary spending, not tax increases. People will gladly pay extra tax for popular wars, but not unpopular ones.

Imagine how the world might look different if inflationary spending wasn't a particularly powerful taxation tool because not much value was wrapped up in national currencies. Imagine if going to war meant raising actual taxes. Might we have a world where there is less war because war is now harder to fund?

this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
517 points (89.7% liked)

memes

10552 readers
2245 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS