Steve, extremism isn’t inherently bad.
Would you say Satanism in moderation was good?
Would you say an extremely healthy lifestyle was bad?
If someone brands you an “extremist” this is lazy and generally meaningless.
It’s a typical BS political term used on a society of people who never learnt to evaluate concepts properly.

I’m with David at 16:
Police, courts and military. That’s what a force wielding monopoly organisation (government) is for – and nothing more. My ideal political party.

Mario at # 8, 50 million or so people of Soviet Russia paid with their lives. Assuming payment means results is ridiculous.
Obviously your buck goes a lot further the more capitalist a country is.
Roads, education, health services should properly be privatised like any other product/service.
The most essential product of all – food – is largely privatised (although still regulated far too much). But notice how we don’t have food shortages, food waiting lists or other rationing, falling standards, etc.

Yes removing the first three (or four) rows would work for me also. A reform that makes the system more progressive but which also means people pay less tax would still be a great reform. In fact increasing the tax free threshold is probably the most politically practical place to start.

If we know any supportive MPs perhaps we should ask them to submit a modest private members bill which calls for the tax free income threshold to be raised by 10% in each year that growth in total government revenue is positive. It would seem modest enough in the short term so it just might get turned into law, however in the long term it could all but elliminate income tax.

Try and convince people that they should pay full market price for these things, but that they would ultimately be better off in the hip pocket anyway, because taxes would be much lower. The numbers might stack up but numerical arguments don’t sut it with many people.

The other trouble is that you don’t ever ‘see’ your taxes being taken if you are a PAYE employee. Imagine if, instead of it being automatically taken out of your paycheque, every fortnight you had to front up to the ATO and hand over the same amount in cash. Yes I know it would be massively inefficient and impractical, but it would make people question where all their hard-earned goes.

Steve – that one further is getting close to the dividing line between libertarianism and anarchy. (well anarcho-capitalism at least) I would have the national defence, the police and the courts – both criminal and civil, insofar as its role is to enforce contracts that were voluntarily entered into.

Mario, this is a libertarian site. That means we don’t accept these things need to be provided by the government.

Many roads can be built by the private sector and funded on a user-pays basis. Broadband is already private and should remain that way, costing taxpayers nothing. Parks might be publicly funded but the cost need not be high. They could also be privately owned and funded on a user pays basis.

In my opinion the only truly essential things that should be funded through taxes are national defence and the criminal justice system (ie police, courts, etc).

You do get what you pay for, but with taxes you pay for a lot that you don’t get and get a lot of what you don’t want.

Mario, you are completely correct – we have to pay for what we want. What libertarians/capitalists/freemarketeers are saying is that it’s better for individuals to pay for the goods and services they want in a marketplace than pay for these things through government. Markets are efficient – they are run, for the most part, by hardworking people trying to make a living. Government bureaucracies are inefficient – they are run by politicians who are spending other people’s money. So if you want a flashy pool in your house, it’s going to be cheaper to buy it yourself because if the government gets into the pool business, pools are going to cost more. Same thing with broadband – it will be cheaper (and better) if it is supplied by private companies rather than the government.