Let's take a very simple example. Your life for example produced nothing, from a military point of view, according to you. You were merely a government functionary, producing nothing that people want. No value.
Yep.. I took any wealth you created through trading and spent it defending your ability to continue such trade without having a rival army steal it from you or destroy your business in favor of HIS diesel and petrol fuel merchants.
That's what I meant by government creating and securing a political, social, and economic environment in which you can flourish and create more wealth.
And you pay your taxes to your government, along with other merchants like yourself, in order to enjoy such collective security...
Because you, as a Libertarian, should recognize that life is very much as Hobbes analyzed it, "Life is nasty, brutish and short."
Another one of my favorite Hobbesian quotes is this one:
"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man."
Hawk |
