[Propertarian]

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Next, people can't make a rate of return if nobody is buying anything. If nobody is consuming at all nobody will save either.



Zero consumption is impossible as a reality and therefore meaningless as a theoretical assumption. Hence nothing. Moving on...

[/ QUOTE ] It was an illustration of a point. Notice the context of my comment.

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The taxes collected from the wealth tax go towards programs which greatly improve the quality of life of the citizens




If the quality of life of the individuals of society can be improved by a particular economic good, *greatly* no less, why then can that good not be provided by the market? I know of no such good in existence.


[/ QUOTE ] Notice that I didn't list off tangible goods here and was not talking about that. The market is all right at producing highly tangible goods but very poor at producing and maintaining intangible ones like the things I've been talking about. In fact if these intagible 'goods' are for sale it demeans them or even turns them into 'bads' (e.g. imagine buying love, friendship, and trust). Unfortunately for libertarians, intangible 'goods' are far more important to human happiness than highly tangible ones. Meaningful work, love, and a feeling of belonging and cooperation in non-profitable activities in fact have all individually been shown to be more important to human well-being than things that are for sale, for example.

And this is without going into externalities.