@warren I’m pretty sure your ‘solution’ meets the practical bar for tyrrany pretty easily.
This would not be tyrannical how?
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I believe the top 25% of earners pay around 75% of the tax income - which is separate from the issue of Corporations avoiding tax I think. I wouldn’t class the top 25% as the Average Joe really. I get your point about other more “hidden” taxes so to speak, but it would still come nowhere near 50% really.
I would say an “Average Joe” is an average earner - in the UK, this is roughly said to be £26,000.(which makes me about half an Average Joe btw). As the 1st £10,500 is tax free, the tax paid would be roughly £4000, or say 15% of their total wage. Now unless the “Average Joe” pays around £9000 a year in VAT etc - then you are way off.
Why not enlighten me then and relieve me of my blissful ignorance? 
I estimated the average EU tax burden.
For example let’s take Austria, not the top country like Lichtenstein, but not a deadbeat country either:
http://www.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/fileadmin/sopo/pdf/Wagener_papers/austria_tax.pdf, at the bottom of page 22 you can see that in Austria labor tax for middle class is around 40 percent.
Like I said it’s enough to look at public spending as percentage of GDP (http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/gov_glance-2011-en/03/04/index.html?itemId=/content/chapter/gov_glance-2011-10-en) and it is in around 40 percent (OECD).
If (recorded, on balance sheet) public debt is added, it gets worse (3-4 percent in many countries), and so on. Fuel and electricity are grotesquely overpriced because of the government, pensions are taxed (so, that is income that’s taxed twice!), there’s inheritance tax, etc.
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Ah…I see…you were referring to the Austrian middle class as the Average Joe for some reason. I was referring to the average worker in the country we both live in - that explains our different perspectives. If you’d have said the “Average Johannes”, it may have been clearer to me 
Happily, n the UK, we do get something back, apart from all the necessary infra-structure, another 25% ish of tax revenue provides the safety net of the “Welfare State”…so glad we’re not one of those more Totalitarian countries.
Poor get free stuff. Rich get free stuff. Those stuck in the middle get to pay for it all.
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Yes…I can see the problem,should be:
Poor get free stuff. I know and those poor souls unfortunate enough to be able to earn sufficient to qualify to pay tax, contribute to support the poor, weak and vulnerable…it’s a bastard isn’t it?
“Rich get free stuff” is the only issue I see.
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As it relates to the topic, noone on MaidSafe will get anything they don’t earn, except maybe some token giveaways to get people on board.
If it bothers you that the poor don’t get free stuff, work harder, run a farm, check/fix grammar and spelling of MaidSafe System Docs and put your bitcoin address in your Github profile.
That way you will have a chance to do something about it.
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Please, please stop referring to “free” stuff. There is in reality no such thing. All this “free” stuff comes at a cost to those paying the tab.
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Lol…there’s a common Capitalist refrain.
It never crossed my mind that this would be something I could do, but I really don’t mind.My worry would be that as I’m not a coder I may be correcting real technical words that exist but I don’t know about. There was a recent thread actually with a chat between Nick and …I can’t remember, about somebody asking for technical sentences to be re-phrased - however even after Nick re-phrased them,it was still all gobbledegook to me. I really don’t mind helping wherever I can actually, I just feel a bit un-skilled at anything useful. I did ask if I could help the Foundation in any small way, but it was too early days.
Thanks for the idea though…I do appreciate it.
My what?..
Edit: Seriously, if anybody would like me to help with anything, then please just ask. I do actually feel like a bit of a spare part……any arguing the toss or anything – I’m your man……
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I meant vacate the former market and IP in that former market. Also governments aren’t businesses, allowing businesses especially so called multinationals try to push them into competing by screwing
by screwing over their populations is the height of idiocy. What is worse than a state is this kind of business.
Some corporation, a Haliburton for instances, sucks down a huge percentage of a societies resources and even uses up a ton of tax supported public goods and infrastructure and then wants to run off with it to the glorify some special people within its ranks. Sorry that is bullshit and its not tyranny to stop that.
This isn’t envy based. If someone need wealth to be happy I want them to have as much of it as they need. But the power consideration is another matter. And it matters how they came by that money and what they intend to do with it.
Where the confusion arises is in our current indoctrinated tendency to think about wealth in a backwards way. We lose the crucial political economy perspective. Money is a coercive force, that is part of its usefulness. But we have people constantly wanting to convert money to raw power. That is what so much of this running around with money is about. There is also the profit efficiency angle. Those with the cavalier attitude about money are free to go to their own planet and do what they like but everything here has an impact on other people. There is no vacuum or even market as fair arbitrator. So much of tax is about limiting the power of money. We have to get rid of the idea that life is a contest that the rich won, just like we have to get rid of these horrid vestigial monarchies.
Then there is the raw politics of the current crop of people who want to abuse wealth (power.) They are waiving loaded guns in our families faces. It will be fine with them if money, especially inherited money, determines who our grand kids can marry. Think about how backwards the planet still is, England still has its ugly monarchy- it isn’t any better than a celebration of racism. The US has all these sponsored media shows trying to glorify that horrid stupidity.
Capitalism wasn’t perfect, it served its purposes and it died. We have something much worse trying to replace it right now when we have the means to have something much better.
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Statists like Warren are going to have a very hard time with the fact that nobody needs the state’s permission to do business anywhere with anyone in the world
But the technology is such that it is what it is.
I will soon be able to set up a business in the maidSAFE environment, and nobody will now it is me. Nobody will know where the company is based. Nobody will know how much it makes. Nobody will know who it does business with. etc etc etc.
And if it doesn’t work on SAFE it will work on a different network.
The State’s power is coming to an end. A new order will emerge, but freedom is going to be harder and harder to Squash. And folks like Warren who want to ban all sorts of things are going to be absolutely powerless. Too bad.
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Welfare state is the furthest thing from totalitarianism. Totalitarian would be 2 or 3 families with unlimited power and wealth and the rest of the population on the verge of starvation to keep them in line. Why do we as a people tolerate billionaires and off the books trillionaires when we have poverty. Nothing justifies destabilizing concentrations of private wealth. Why do we have vestigial monarchies? In a monarchy the population is born convicted and criminalized with no rights. The king is somehow everyone’s rich uncle?
Somehow there is this constant marketing of the idea that those with more money should be able to tell everyone else what to do. That has to end how ever we do it.
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This is misrepresenting the position we have gone over many times. Also it just means the more direct taxation of standing tangible assets and obvious income. That is all it means. This new SAFE type world doesn’t mean that people with money get to abuse other people even easier than they do today. That would just be your opinion, if that is what you are saying. We disagree on this but I see more transparency. All this box transfer stuff is just like hauling cash around in a bit more efficient way. Maybe it means one can connect with a hooker in a little more private less risk averse way but that side of it is no real revolution. The transparency is. Its also not fair to refer to me as statist, I do agree there was a time before states and there will be a time after states and the sooner the better. I too want to get to the place were we can live without coercion where everything is on a voluntary basis.
Learn the definitions of the words you use.
Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible
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Seriously learn the definitions. The word you are looking for is oligarchy. I bet you went to a state ran public school.
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people.
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I agree with your posts and sentiments Warren. I would say that the Monarchy in UK is as you say a vestigial remnant of our past, without any real political power tbh. It’s role nowadays is more to do with being a useful Institution to instill the population with a feeling of Patriotism - similar to rallying behind the flag in USA.
The Monarchy is really now just a small part of the traditional triumvirate of power, including the Church and State. It’s a useful tool to manipulate the populace.
It really annoys the shit out of me to be force fed the latest Royal wedding/birth along with blanket coverage of Pope visits etc. Both Church and Monarchy are going to disappear one day though hopefully…the problem seems to be that the power niche vacated is gradually being filled by the Corporations, rather than devolving to the common man. Just my thoughts.
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Best not to suggest smart ass things like “learn the definition of the words you use” when you couldn’t be further off the mark.
In the typical welfare state you have some form of social democracy and democratic ideal and some practical reality of power sharing and rule by the people. Its not rule by money or rule by a dictator. A functioning social welfare state is not a situation where a few people in the state totally exploit everyone else for their own gain or crazed ideology. A social welfare state is still a consensus framework and by its very title is dedicated to the well being of its populace. A totalitarian state inverts, in practice and by definition, inverts this where the populace is a means to the state’s ends.
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Look at the majority of the totalitarian states, the oligarchic structure is implied. "Stop saying “free…” You want to imply that people with a different viewpoint are stupid or ignorant because their use of terms is too loose for your understanding of those terms?
Once again the personal attacks. You don’t know me. And the comment about state schools was kind of dumb ass. I am supposed to respect some sort of implied rank? I am supposed to recognize a monied better? Think before you make personal attacks. . Your tone implies that you are youngish and don’t get basic things about the world because most of your info is indoctrination that has come from sponsored media.
@warren we disagree at a fundamental level. I wish you the best and hope you get everything you say that you want.
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Nearly every one of your posts wants to ban something or another.
You won’t be able to. Network bring freedom, even to the big corporations you hate.
It is what it is. I am nearly certain you are going to hate it, because banning things will be nearly impossible.
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