the modern monetary theorists point out that taxes is how the demand for national currency as a commodity in and of itself is created. At least in a country with currency sovereignty, a fiat currency, and a debt that is denominated in its own currency (like the US). Basically, imagine if you actually managed to live the “yeoman farmer” dream. Imagine you actually got to own some land (paid off the mortgage) and started subsistence farming on it. Well you now have a huge economic incentive to stop participating in the economy, not have a job, feed yourself, and just fuck off and enjoy the rest of your life until you die. Good for you, bad for the nation. So you get property taxed. Well now you can’t just live off of your subsistence. You have to go get a job and earn dollars and participate in the economy at least enough to pay your property taxes. There’s no actual escape from needing participate in the economy and earn dollars, even if you try to pull off the libertarian meme of getting your own land and growing your own food and paying off your mortgage.

28:27 of this video explains what I’m rambling about

Of course the caveat here is that the real way to get around all this is to just become a capitalist exploiter, so that other people’s work earns you enough money to live off of. But by definition most people can’t become an exploiter, because exploitation is a pyramid scheme that requires more people at the bottom than at the top.

Cancelling the US subscription is really hard, they actually charge you a premium for the cancellation service. I have been working on it for a while, but the customer service is just atrocious.

That’s not true of taxes in general—you only get taxed on income if you make income, for example—but property taxes certainly do feel like a subscription fee, because unlike other taxes, money doesn’t have to change hands in order for you to owe property tax.

Just don’t subscribe. When netflix pissed me off, I unsubscribed. When Adobe moved to a subscription based platform, I forced myself to learn alternative applications (although I still have a copy of Adobe Creative Suite from 2003 which I am still using on old laptop when needed). When Microsoft started charging a subscription to use “office” apps, I switched to LibreOffice. During Covid when I wasn’t using my gym membership I cancelled it and used that $75/month savings to start building a home gym setup (it ain’t great, but its better than nothing!)

If something is a subscription, I either find an alternative program/service, or simply don’t use it.