Income tax unconstitutional?

[Erwin]

 

13 hours ago, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

It chooses a material (gold, silver, tally sticks, notes, digital numbers, whatever) to demand as taxes, and legally defines the nature of that material to demand. This is what turns it into money. Gold wasn't money before the state came around. The state came around, demanded gold, and thereby turned it into money.

According to onlygold, a gold / silver coin alloy was first coined by Lydian merchants. Gold was actively mined way before that (indicating that there was some use for it prior).

Also according to wikipedia, earliest money I could find there was obsidian, in 15000BC in the hunter-gatherer (upper paleolithic) / pre-government era. Obsidian was used for hunting to make knives and spears. Again, prior use.

I also remember from econ, that every society that grew rice or wheat couldn't avoid using it as money. Everyone intrinsically needs them, everyone can afford to have it in excess because it takes long for them to go bad, and everyone tended to slightly overproduce them just in case of a bad season.

Tobacco, hemp, and cotton had been used way before their use as money as well.

The last example of money I can think of is time dollars. Time has always been used for specific purposes, yet time banks, time markets, and time exchanges only sprung up in the last 300 years.

4 hours ago, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

If the US govt has the right and obligation to create money via the constitution, how is any money they create counterfeit?

8th amendment permits congress to mint coin, the legal definition of which is that it must be metal (which at best, can only be de-based and not for long). It was legislated to paper from the bench in McCulloch vs Maryland (1819), and then to "credit" by the ((( Jews ))) in the ((( Federal Reserve Act ))).

[Tyler H]

On 5/15/2017 at 10:22 AM, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

The best answer I ever get out of anyone was that it was used for jewelry or that it was shiny.

Could you clarify what is wrong with this answer? The way I see it any widely perceived value of a stable, fungible medium prior to coercive imposition shows its possible application as a form of money.  Whether or not this application materialized under the purview of the state I think is irrelevant to its source of value and efficacy as a medium of exchange. 

To dismiss it as a source of legitimate value because it was only employed for vanity would be to argue against the subjective theory of value, which I assume you agree with. To say the utilitarian uses for gold were not achievable at that point in time, therefore it has no intrinsic value, I think, is a mistake. We know that value is more than just utility, it represents human desire. People may desire something merely because it is difficult to attain, so they can count themselves among the few that own it or so they can have a trophy of their accomplishments. Add to that the durability and aesthetically pleasing appearance and I think there is a reasonable case to be made for gold's intrinsic value absent violence. Oh!-Almost forgot to mention probably the most important aspect of "shiny things" - they get you laid.  It would be seen as a status symbol for resource gathering that would attract fertile women and allow your genes to continue.  

Perhaps there is an error in my thinking, and if so then I am curious why gold was chosen as the medium of exchange to be given artificial value through violence and not some other medium with aspects more conducive to ruler/state control.

 

 

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, Tyler H said:

To dismiss it as a source of legitimate value because it was only employed for vanity would be to argue against the subjective theory of value, which I assume you agree with.

Subjective theory of value: "value is determined by the importance an acting individual places on a good for the achievement of his desired ends."

He can't possibly agree with it because he doesn't define value in the same way that economics defines it. His definition: 

Value: the usefulness of something.

STV completely explains why diamonds are more valuable than water. His definition of value, completely fails on that end. Also, his theory value - that taxing something gives it "value" (usefulness) further fails because taxing water would not make it more useful.

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

On 5/17/2017 at 3:21 PM, Tyler H said:

Could you clarify what is wrong with this answer?

It's not that there's something wrong with it, I find it insufficient. Yes there is a value to me liking something. If something is shiny and it makes me feel good to have it around or to wear it as jewelry, that's great. However, when it comes to the majority of human history, where humans have struggled to get themselves above subsistence level and a bad farming or hunting year could literally wipe a community out, why the absolute obsession with gold? Did the Spanish conquistadors slaughter and enslave the natives in the Americas for the purpose of mining gold and silver out of the earth, something incredibly costly and dangerous, just because of the subjective value that it was shiny and nice for jewelry?

Why spend valuable labor and time mining and smelting something which is extremely difficult to mine and smelt, when it could have been spent on genuine life-supporting resources? Because the ruler demands it.

[Erwin]

9 hours ago, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

Why spend valuable labor and time mining and smelting something which is extremely difficult to mine and smelt, when it could have been spent on genuine life-supporting resources? Because the ruler demands it.

The ruler's demand cannot be the cause of the mining, if the mining came first.

[Tyler H]

23 hours ago, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

Why spend valuable labor and time mining and smelting something which is extremely difficult to mine and smelt, when it could have been spent on genuine life-supporting resources? Because the ruler demands it.

Hierarchy of needs. Once the basic necessities are taken care of then resources are freed up to satisfy non-survival based desires. They expend the resources in the pursuit of precious metals because they can be reasonably certain they will be able to bring them to market and trade for other goods which would have cost them far more to obtain naturally. 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

4 hours ago, Tyler H said:

They expend the resources in the pursuit of precious metals because they can be reasonably certain they will be able to bring them to market and trade for other goods which would have cost them far more to obtain naturally. 

Definitely, but this doesn't address why the precious metals were valuable in the first place. If I remember my government history classes correctly, the ruler of the Aztecs was utterly confused why the Spaniards were so obsessed with such a useless material such as gold, when they already had materials like glass, which he considered far superior.

4 hours ago, Tyler H said:

Hierarchy of needs. Once the basic necessities are taken care of then resources are freed up to satisfy non-survival based desires.

Pre-agricultural revolution, taking care of basic necessities was a MASSIVE amount of time and energy. I remember reading from Carroll Quigley in Tragedy and Hope that in pre-agricultural revolution England, it took 20 people working at making food to support 21 people (it became 3 working in food to feed 21 after the agricultural revolution, which sent everyone to the cities looking for work to set the stage for the industrial revolution). In post-collapse Rome, it took 50-100 people working in food to support one mounted knight. In medieval Europe communities would regularly starve to death. In a society where food production is so vital and requires so many hands, where are these excess workers to mine and smelt a material that's valuable because it's shiny? In contrast to metals like iron, copper, tin, and lead, which have utility in food production and other basic necessities.

Post-agricultural revolution, it wasn't long before gold and silver actually gained utility for more advanced products (chemistry, electronics, computers, etc.).

[Tyler H]

On 5/23/2017 at 2:07 PM, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

Definitely, but this doesn't address why the precious metals were valuable in the first place.

I thought we already addressed it, scarcity and beauty. 

On 5/23/2017 at 2:07 PM, Dylan Lawrence Moore said:

Pre-agricultural revolution, taking care of basic necessities was a MASSIVE amount of time and energy. I remember reading from Carroll Quigley in Tragedy and Hope that in pre-agricultural revolution England, it took 20 people working at making food to support 21 people

Yes, in England. However in the equatorial societies food is not as arduous to obtain and shelter less vital. It would also seem to me that the difficulty of providing one's basic necessities in the European societies would lend all the more value to something the few with excess wealth neither had the resources to procure for themselves nor the ability to procure it as cheaply as the Aztecs or Egyptians. Which in turn would make it more valuable to the Aztecs and Egyptians since now they know they can sell ol' pale face some shiny rocks. 

To answer your earlier question of why the obsession with gold: gold would signify resources in excess of need. If you could have gold it was like storing food that wouldn't rot. It was a way to prevent any excess you could produce from depreciating to nothing in a short period of time. 

[AraiBob]

Hello,

The 'act' allowing the taxation of income was written and published. However, as an amendment to the constitution, it was NEVER ratified by the states. That means when they 'implemented' this bad idea, all those involved were violating the constitution. SO, how to get rid of it?

I don't know. Lots of people over the years have pointed out this problem, yet they continue to intimidate and imprison those who don't.