Now a GIFT economy is completely different. Honoring people for giving stuff away is not only a totally voluntary system but also changes the cultural dynamic from honoring people for having lots of stuff. It changes the focus from accumulation to contribution.

This sounds pretty socialist to me. I’m completely with you when it comes to changing structures in our society to incentive pro-social behavior rather than the selfish behavior as our system does. I don’t think anyone appreciates that being a ruthless competitor to the detriment of ones neighbors is often rewarded in our systems. If such ruthless people pursued their selfish desires in a system which accommodates their nature and rewards them for having a pro-social effect, I think they would be extremely beneficial rather than a danger as they are now.

Both left and right can get behind open source software. Both can support the concept of gifting. Where I see the conflict is when it comes to using compulsion. No the common good does not outweigh individual liberty because what you do to the individual you do to the whole. Sacrificing individual liberty for the greater good is a myth. You can’t have taxation without sacrificing privacy and security of the collective. If you sacrifice freedom of speech for the sake of avoiding public offense then you sacrifice public discourse and the values of democracy. If rewrite history to exclude unpleasant truths then you risk repeating it.

I think most people agree that it’s a good thing to have a community of some kind. In that community it’s a good thing to help one another, or more specifically to trade favors. As a community can provide many services and infrastructure to all members of that community which no individual could provide for themselves on their own, I don’t think it’s out of the question that all able-bodied members of that community contribute to it. The people who receive from the community but don’t contribute to it when they could in my opinion are parasites. I’m not talking about the elderly and disabled who would if they could and deserve their dignity, of course, because that’s all our destiny. If someone takes from their community without giving back to it, I would have a problem with them and probably insist that they get off their ass or leave probably with other people who care about them and would rather they straighten up. I don’t think that kind of compulsion is unfair. When someone is sick or compromised, it is in the community’s interest to help that person back to health and provide them what they need to get better and there’s no need to compel that. This is essentially how humans have always lived until recently in some parts of the world.

No, I don’t think such lazy jerks should be imprisoned and forced to labor. Social pressure is enough. I respect their right to complain about having to work at all because if a society runs cooperatively, when we fix those problems we have less work to do and more time to live life with family and loved ones.

As above, so below, as within, so without. It applies to society, politics and economics as well.

I think my metaphor holds in these aspects as well.

I have no problem with distributing funds that are given freely. I have a problem with all property that is taken using violence. How is taxation different than colonialism? You have big guns, you see something you want and you abscond with it. How is that different than what any empire does? The fact you redistribute it is irrelevant if it’s done involuntarily.

In a lot of cases, taxation is colonialism. I do not appreciate my tax dollars being spent on international murders, and I don’t imagine most people would appreciate it either if they understood the extent of it. In any government using resources for oppression is intolerable. That being the case, not all tax dollars are used for the purposes of oppression. Taxes fund a multitude of necessary resources, services, and infrastructure in a way a profit-driven organization could not. One may not personally care about babies starving to death being prevented by a government program, but in situations that babies starve to death very negative consequences could arise that come around to affect them and others. In cases like these, I think it’s appropriate to extract taxes from stupid, ignorant, or outright psychopathic people for the social good even if they are individually unable to understand it’s not ok to allow babies to starve to death in a healthy society anywhere at any time. There is of course the matter of the effectiveness and cost of these programs which should of course be open to scrutiny and improvement on a democratic basis. (cont2)