From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Thu Oct 04 2001 - 11:07:09 MDT
On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 11:16:35AM -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> Outside of the US, it has been more the rule than the exception that to
> varying degrees, you always get 51% of the people voting to tax 49% of
> the people more than the rest (it even occurs here). Since time
> immemorial, it has always been the rule in democratic systems that this
> was the fatal flaw: that the game was over when the masses figured out
> how to vote themselves bread and circuses.
Untrue.
There's an equillibrium condition that shows up when the tax burden
spreads so widely that a majority of the voters are affected; after a
while they start to vote for tax cuts. As witness the UK during the
1980's and 1990's, or the US more recently.
-- Charlie
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