Reply To: Public works, art, and classical liberal Austrian economists

#16652
dannomhayes
Participant

Mike is right that this is how libertarians would approach the subject of tax-funded anything today. However, I still think its possible to assess the way tax money has been spent historically, beyond the observation that taxation is theft. For instance, such money spent on beautiful art is better than that spent on annexing your peaceful neighbour. That being said, as outlined in Hoppe’s “Democracy: The God that Failed”, pre-modern government was essentially private. Ruler’s might patronise art and architecture from the revenues of their personal estates (or fisc), at a time when there was no market to sustain such activities independently. This doesn’t make their behaviour a model to follow to a T, but clearly there is more nuance to history than rejecting all money spent by governments or rulers.