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Posted by Uwe Burkheiser (81.210.153.20) on 03:32:24 03/28/04
In Reply to: Re: National Review Online - Questions posted by Warren Mosler
Say it isn t so .
Warren, thanks for directing me to Soft Currency Economics . Having read many chartalist papers I have to apologize that Soft Currency escaped me for so long. Sorry.
I basically subscribe to the chartalist reasoning, so there is no dispute about the basics.
But your position: - The government cannot actually collect the tax it has levied, nor borrow any of its fiat currency, until it first spends, or otherwise provides, the funds, is so extreme ( and fogged by the fiat money concept) that I am tempted to rattle a little on this basic credo.
In your last reply you post the rhetoric question: 'What if nyc issued subway tokens without first collecting them?' to establish the value of the tokens.
In Soft Currency (p. 4) you elaborate on the example of a parent and several children to establish the value of the business cards.
Leaving aside the illogical fairy tales about a Social Contract between a state and its people, are these examples really representative for the relationship between a taxpayer and his state?
To me both examples are incomplete in one essential aspect: The pre-financing requirement of getting into a position of either providing the benefit of transportation or being in a position to feed the children against the collection of tokens or business cards.
Looking at the state in general: Why do most people pay taxes? How does the state get into a position to demand taxes? By mutual consent?
Should your answer to the last question be Yes I would like to ask you to provide me with plausible historic examples until then I will not follow this path of reasoning.
So, my questions to you are:
How does the state get into a position to tax? Who pays what and why?
How does he obtain the real means to enforce his demand for a tax prior to the first token issued and collected? (Soldiers, police, basic legal system at least).
Warren, at least to me, the stringent validity of any chartalist concept of money depends upon the outcome of these questions related to the pre-financing requirement of the state. As long as these questions are not answered in a plausible manner - there s a whole in the bucket.
Sunday greetings
Uwe
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