Re: What is the difference betwwen these two scenarios?
 

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Geez, if you're going to come up with a fantasyland edge case...

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So if 51% of the people want to kill the other 49%, it's just part of democracy, right?

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It's okay if you do it, though, right? And I don't think it's all that 'fantasyland' imagining a society where one person, or a small group of people, are able to get enough wealth to corrupt them and want power. It happens all the time, with states and before there were states. I'm not all that big a fan of the concept of the state, but if it's a choice between A-C and a western state, I'll choose the state.

Re: What is the difference betwwen these two scenarios?
 

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Scenario 2 is simply what will happen if you don't pay your taxes in scenario 1.

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No, what will happen if I don't pay my taxes is that a gang of government-sponsored thugs will either extract the money under threat of violence or kidnap me.

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Right on. Isn't that still pretty much the same thing as some clown breaking into your house and stealing from you?

Re: What is the difference betwwen these two scenarios?
 

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Geez, if you're going to come up with a fantasyland edge case...

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So if 51% of the people want to kill the other 49%, it's just part of democracy, right?

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It's okay if you do it, though, right?

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You left out the important part when you quoted me. My edge case doesn't blow up in the system I'm advocating.

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And I don't think it's all that 'fantasyland' imagining a society where one person, or a small group of people, are able to get enough wealth to corrupt them and want power.

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"Enough wealth to corrupt them" is not what you said. You said "the vast majority of wealth."

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It happens all the time, with states and before there were states.

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So why is a state preferable, then? A state just gives these corrupt individuals a vehicle to wield their corrupt power with a varnish of "legitimacy" slapped on. You're making yet another argument using a case where the system you advocate fails more spectacularly than the system you're arguing against.

Re: What is the difference betwwen these two scenarios?
 

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Lots of tyrants like tyrannical systems

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Over-use of hyperbole, which you are prone to do, weakens your arguments considerably.

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OK. Oppressors often like oppressive systems (as long as they get to be the oppressors). Better?