"would there still be taxes in eutopia?" I've been pondering this question sometimes, in light of the famous quote: "’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes" My hunch is "yes in some sense but they'd look very different."
10 tweets · March 2021 · 46 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
"would there still be taxes in eutopia?" I've been pondering this question sometimes, in light of the famous quote: "’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes" My hunch is "yes in some sense but they'd look very different."
That quote about death & taxes seems to express a deeper systems truth: • all things must end • all things, while they maintain, must maintain an environment And these would continue to be true in eutopia.
Parts must maintain the order within the wholes they are part of, for the parts to continue to survive & thrive. Taxes are a super crude way to do that, especially when the systems that are in charge of figuring out how to use the resources are bad at sensemaking & dialogue.
But insofar as for various reasons whole-managers are needed (which, beyond coordination problems, are often for interfacing with that-which-is-outside-a-given-whole—this is why we have a self, and why burning man needs an org) they need support of various kinds.
Interestingly, companies work kind of the opposite of this: the employees need to do work to support the whole (which is the taxes) but then money flows from the whole to the parts. Likewise with eating food & breathing air, and it getting distributed to every organ & cell.
Then we get into ~game theory~ because ofc there's such a thing as a person who drives on roads but pays no taxes, or an employee who collects a salary but does no work (or sabotages). freeloading is a thing. but it's only a good deal in meh circumstances
(found the above quoted tweet while searching for the one quoted below! 🙃) What I'm trying to say that freeloading is a way to exploit a system you can't find a win-win with. But WAY better is possible.
Not sure what else to say rn, but here's a related thread. Will preface with @diviacaroline's flip: “You might have captured some of it, but don’t forget that a lot of wealth you created is out there in the world, benefitting people who aren’t you.”