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You want to start a
business. Fine. I offer you a place to start your business. It’s got
plumbing and electricity. There’s a security system and a guard on call.
If you have any questions about the regulations in this place, we’ve
got someone with the answers you can call. This is a great place to get
your business off the ground. We really hope you make a success of it.
But,
you do know that all that infrastructure comes with costs, right? And
the security isn’t free. And someone is paying for the staff to give you
the information you need. Even the money you earn has value only
because of a system that you didn’t establish, but benefit from. So what
share of the money you earn belongs to the people who built and ran the
place, guaranteed the security, and set up the systems? It’s got to be
more than nothing, right?
Now, the roads, the
water, the electricity, the laws, the courts, the government, the
schools that train up the kids to make them worthwhile employees for
you, the hospitals that patch them up when a work-related accident
happens so they can go back to work…what’s your share of that? Because
you’re sure not paying the full cost.
And if
your business fails, but you don’t starve, not because of the kindness
of this neighbour or that one, but because there’s a whole system we’ve
collectively voted for and collectively pay for to make sure you and
your family don’t starve, should you pay into that while you can? Or is
it something you’ll turn up your nose at because the system is, at the
moment, keeping someone else from starving?
A
lot of what each person earns is owed to this “public thing” that allows
us to earn. And the Latin for “public thing” is “res publica.” We often
shorten it to “republic.”
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