Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Logic of Collective Action

 The reason the state cannot survive on voluntary dues or paymens, but must rely on taxation, is that the most fundamental services a nation-state provides are, in one important respect, like the higher price in a competitive market: they must be available to everyone if they are available to anyone. The basic and most elementary goods or services provided by government, like defense and police protection, and the system of law and order generally, are such that they go to everyone or practically everyone in the nation. It would obviously not be feasible, if indeed it were possible, to deny the protection provided by the military services, the police, and the courts to those who did not voluntarily pay their share of the costs of government, and taxation in accordingly necessary. The common or collective benefits provided by governments are usually called "public goods" by economists, and the concept of public goods is one of the oldest and most important ideas in the study of public finance. A common, collective, or public good is here defined as any good such that, if any person xi, in a group X11,...,xi,...xn consumes it, it cannot feasibly be withheld from the others in that group. In other words, those who do not purchase or pay for any of the public or collective good cannot be excluded or kept from sharing in the consumption of the good, as they can where non collective goods are concerned.
 If the state left dues voluntarily there would be no concrete income because there might be little or none at all. The reason why the state relies on government is for many of their services such as protection, goods and law. If it was left a choice to contribute, things that taxes contribute to, for example law, would not be available to everyone. It would not be readily and easy to obtain services like these. These collective benefits provided by the government are called "public goods". Any good that is used by a group cannot be easily withheld within that group, therefore everyone must participate.
  I chose this passage because I think that this is a reasonable due. Although, I agree and disagree with the exact amounts for the due, I think it is important in day to day basis. It helps with the services required for a functional government. Without many of these services I think we would not rely on protection, justice and order. People will do as they please and I think at that point costs would even be much higher then at present, we would be a disfuctional society. I do think we can do better but costs are not our decision but government.

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