Hello all, I have a question for all the Anarcho-Capitalists here about taxes.
Now, I've heard AnCaps say that taxation is theft, the taking of a person's property by force. According to people like Murray Rothbard, the Government is a gang of thugs who extort money from people under the banner of "helping them".
Well, it's true. Taxation is theft. Taxation is robbery. Taxation is the taking of another person's property without their consent. But is that ALWAYS wrong? Consider welfare. Consider food stamps. Consider medicare and medicaid. Many people currently LIVE off these programs because they cannot support themselves. Is it really that wrong to highly tax people who are making 6-7 figures a year because it's "theft"? Those rich people are not starving, THEY'RE not struggling to survive, yet somehow this redistribution of wealth is considered such an absolute evil by AnCaps and Libertarians.
Why is theft ALWAYS wrong?
Anyways, just wanted to pose the question to all the Misesians out there, it was brought up to me by a Keynesian I met over the internet.
Well, seeing as theft is the unjustified taking of someone else's property, I would think by definition theft is wrong.
What do you mean by "wrong"?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
What is "unjustified"? I could certainly say that helping the poor and elderly justifies taxes.
Is that what taxes do? Help the poor and elderly?
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
This question is posed to Anarcho-Capitalists who say that taxes are "wrong". I'd like to keep it on that track.
In this system somewhat.
In this system, somewhat.
(Sorry for my sloppy handling of the forum box.)
Taxation is inefficient, and involuntary -- it has bad consequences and violates what many libertarians believe to be natural rights. By any libertarian ethical standard, its "wrong." I don't know what more you want. It seems like you're saying "sure, but whats wrong with bad consequences and rights violations?"
Are you familiar with the phrases "in the right" and "in the wrong"? Perhaps you have heard of "right of way"? If I am traveling and have right of way, and we get into an accident, I am in the right. You would be in the wrong. If I have a right to my watch, and you take it from me without consent, then you are in the wrong.
This is what justice is all about - who is in the right. If, in the course of robbing me, I hit the robber, then I would be in the right (of course, I am only allowed to use so much violence before I would be in the wrong). My actions would be justified - I was in the right. If I were to kill the robber, and it turned out I used excessive force, then my actions would be unjustified - I was in the wrong.
You could certainly say that stealing an apple from a fruit stand in order to give it to some starving child is morally good. I would not nessarily agree with that statement. But to say that it is justified is to misunderstand what justice is. By stealing the apple, you have taken something to which you had no legitimate claim - you were in the wrong. The fruit vendor has the legitimate claim. Stealing the apple would be an unjustified action, even if your end goal is meant to be honorable. But here's the thing, the fruit vendor has a tort against you now. You stole from him, and now he has a dispute with you.
If you want to say that so long as your goal is honorable, then your actions are justified, we have a phrase for that: "The ends justify the means". I don't believe that this is a just philosophy to hold.
I suggest that you read these two posts by forum member Clayton:
What Law Is
A Praxeological Account of Law
While those two posts do not directly address your question, they will provide you with a framework for law and dispute resolution, which is very relevant to theft.
Yes, lets break this down: Bob is desperately poor. His family is freezing in an apartment he can't afford to heat, let alone keep up with the rent. They face hunger every day, and have no money for even basic medical needs. Bob needs money to pay the bills, and food to keep his family fed, or they are in grave danger of dying from any number of situations. Mary is a rich owner of a furniture manufacturing business. She has ample money to meet most desires of her family, and lives in a huge house on several acres of land. Let us assume for reasons of moral simplicity that Mary has earned her money more or less justly, and doesn't exploit her workers. Bob, seeing Mary's abundant resources, approaches Mary and asks for money to pay for his aforementioned problems. Mary, for reasons of her own, declines to help Bob. Maybe she's already given what she thinkis is "enough" to local charities, maybe she's just an stingy miser, maybe she's afraid if she helps Bob directly then many other poor and destitute would come to her door. Her reasons shouldn't nessecarily factor into whether what occurs next is theft or not. Bob, distressed that Mary turned him down, and ever more desperate to save himself and his family, sends Mary a letter stating that if she doesn't provide him with the requested funds, then he'll have to take "drastic measures". Mary, shrugging it off, ignores the letter. Finally, Bob is at the end of his rope. Despite his better judgement, Bob gets a bat and a few of his friends together and break into Mary's home during the evening. They approach her, and demand the cash. If she refuses, they'll kidnap her. They don't intend to harm her, but if she resists they can't promise anything. Mary, under threat of her freedom and life, goes to her home safe and gives Bob $10,000 in cash. This will help him just cover his bills for the next year. They depart peacefully. The next year Mary recieves a letter from Bob. He's been trying to get back on his feet, but times are tough and despite his best, honest efforts, the money from last year is gone and his family is on the edge of starvation again. He requests another $10,000, and says that if it will not received, then he'll have to return with his friends again. He suggests that it would be easier this year if Mary just pays the money up front. Is this theft? Yes, pretty clearly. Is it wrong? Well, not as wrong as some guy making a living stealing cars. But in the grand scheme of things, yes, this is still a sort of injustice. In fact, it might be LESS wrong if Bob simply broke into Mary's house and stole the money. Instead, he now threatens her with imprisonment, and has in essence taken control of a portion of her life.
--------
Now consider that it's not just Bob doing it. but the local chief of police. He's still giving the bulk of the money to Bob, but he's keeping a little for himself. And Mary's getting pretty pissed. She's talking about hiring a body guard. To placate her, the chief tells her that he'll go over to the shop of Bob's friend Steve, and give him a hard time. Steve has a small chair-making shop. His chairs, although the same price as the one's from Mary's factory, are of much higher quality because they are hand-crafted. He's been cutting into her business for a long time, but she was trying to play the game fair and square. Now she's getting ticked by Bob's annual fees, and decides that she needs to make it back somewhere. So she agrees to play nice with the chief of police, if the chief agrees to go fine Steve for health & safety violations. The chief then keeps the fines, and Steve is forced to raise his prices, to the benefit of Mary's business. Now we have a society where, instead of mutual, voluntary co-operation, everyone is trying to get ahead by sticking their hand into the other guy's pocket. Some say this is "nessecary" for modern society to exist. And to an extent, that may or may not be true. But the problem comes from when it ceases to be seen as an evil, and is isntead twisted into a virtue or "right". Bob stealing bread to feed his family may be wrong, but it can be forgiven. But if Bob ceases to see that what he is doing is wrong, and instead sees that bread as his right, then you're set up for tragedy.
Actually, I sort of am. Where do you derive these "rights"? How did you reach the conclusion that people have these "rights"? What if I'm not a libertarian, why should I believe in these "rights"?
Now we have a society where, instead of mutual, voluntary co-operation, everyone is trying to get ahead by sticking their hand into the other guy's pocket.
True. If we have a society wherein everyone is held to the exact same standards as the Government complete chaos would transpire (which is why this idea of rights must be instilled in the masses).
What if I prevent that starving child from dying with that fruit? All I've took is ONE fruit from a stand of dozens and dozens of fruit, and I've saved a life.
Buzz Killington: This question is posed to Anarcho-Capitalists who say that taxes are "wrong". I'd like to keep it on that track.
Is there any particular reason why you have ignored the rest of my post? Buy the fruit yourself and give it to the child. Is there any particular reason why these situations need to be resolved with theft?
Daniel Muffinburg:Could you provide a direct quote of an AnCap using "wrong" in this context?
http://mises.org/daily/1103
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWNVImJJU14
If it is good my must it be coerced?
You can't "buy" a millionare's money.
Perhaps because the possessor of that money is too greedy to give it away?
Sure you can. It's called exchange. And when are you going to respond to the rest of my earlier post?
What do you think wages are? What do you think a sale of a good to the millionare is? Heck, even charity is exchanging cash for knowledge that the poor are a little less needy. There are numerous ways you can "buy" money.
Great thread, I like the way you posed this question. These forums can sometimes tend to be a bit of an echo-chamber...
Those rich people are not starving, THEY'RE not struggling to survive
I want to talk about this aspect of the pro-tax argument. I've always found this assumption that a certain number of figures of income is some kind of "inviolate proof" that someone is rich and that they're not struggling.
As Thomas Sowell points out in Basic Economics, people are actually mobile between income classes and there is a strong pattern to this mobility. Usually, they are on a lower rung when they are young and inexperienced and on a higher rung when they are older and more experienced. But this mobility goes both ways - not all lines of employement are equally secure. A person may have been counting on an income generated during one year to last them several years into the future. Once amortized, their income isn't so high after all.
Some people spend years working on a project (e.g. something like a movie or maybe flipping a large house) that culminates in one, big payoff. In the year when they get their payoff, they're "rich". But when you amortize their income over the fallow years leading up to the payout, they aren't so rich after all.
Those with higher incomes may carry much higher legal obligations in terms of alimony, child support, liens, past bankruptcy settlements, etc. Also, the precondition for higher income is almost always a higher cost-of-living. People in New York generally have higher incomes than people in Mobile, AL. But, then, they also have a much, much higher cost-of-living. This cost-of-living is not counted in the one-size-fits-all "personal deduction"; and most costs that a person has that comprise the higher cost-of-living (such as gas, electric bill, food bill, etc.) don't get counted in itemization.
Also, consider that income is whatever can be counted. Those who sell their labor generally must be physically present to do so - this puts the monied class at a significant advantage because they can move their assets around to avoid scrutiny by the IRS. You can't avoid scrutiny by the IRS when you have to punch into the office every day at 9am.
I find the use of the term "6-figure" to be extremely odious. The Fed has inflated the dollar to a tenth of its value since just the 1970's! A six-figure income in 1970 is more similar to a seven-figure income today. A senior Wal-Mart floor manager could conceivably earn $25/hr. That's $50,000 a year. If he's married to another senior Wal-Mart floor manager, that's another $50,000 a year. Oh my god, they're rich! They have a six-figure income!
Another thing that pisses me off about these discussions is that they ignore the already "progressive" tax scale - that is, they talk about gross income numbers rather than after-tax income numbers. For the above-mentioned "rich" senior Wal-Mart floor managers, they're going to be paying damn close to 50% of their income in taxes, all told (payroll, Federal, State, local, etc.) Not to mention property taxes if they own a home, and so on. But their pre-tax income is just thrown out there as if that's how much money they have when it is not at all how much money they have. Sure, pre-tax, they're a "6-figure income household" but when you look at their take-home, it's not going to be more than $60,000 unless they qualify for a lot of special deductions and credits.
Taxation in the US has become grotesque beyond words. In terms of property rights, we're somewhere in the Dark Ages. We have 1,200 years of catching up just to get to the present state of property rights law and philosophy.
Clayton -
"Sure you can. It's called exchange. And when are you going to respond to the rest of my earlier post?"
I don't know. But who can "buy" 500,000 dollars from a man who makes 2 million dollars a year? It's not possible. Taxation can do that.
Buzz Killington:I don't know. But who can "buy" 500,000 dollars from a man who makes 2 million dollars a year? It's not possible. Taxation can do that.
Anyone who produces 500,000 worth of stuff the man desires.
Taxation doesn't do that, by the way. It buys nothing. It produces nothing.
Buzz Killington: I don't know. But who can "buy" 500,000 dollars from a man who makes 2 million dollars a year? It's not possible. Taxation can do that.
As cporter already said, anybody who produces $500,000 worth of stuff that the man desires. Anyway, I'd appreciate a response to my earlier post because it addresses some of your earlier questions. Also, as I pointed out, what your philosophy amounts to is "the ends justify the means". Well, to libertarians, this is wrong. The means are very important. If, in the course of stealing the apple, the thief kills the fruit vendor, is this okay in your opinion? After all, the thief is doing it for the children! What if the thief kills the vendors wife and son as well? Or instead, maybe he "only" puts the vendor in a coma? Is this all okay by you?
This threat of death is what the government uses at all times. If you disagree with what the government tells you to do, it will use the threat of death. So, you can either submit or die. Is this really the kind of world you want to live in? "Give the kid an apple or die!"
Also, here is an example of Welfare before the Welfare State. Also, as Clayton pointed out, a family earning $100,000 would be lucky to keep $60,000. Expenses add up. The cost of living can be quite expensive. It can cost easily between $20,000 and $30,000 to pay for living expenses, as in, just paying for an apartment or mortage. Then there are car expenses and food and heating, electricity, water, etc. This is all before paying for entertainment. This stuff adds up fast. There's not much left over for people to give to charity nowadays, but people still do. What does the government do with it? Waste it. All over.
One other thing - you keep talking about these scenarios as if the only thing left to keep these people alive is if you steal from someone else. What does that say about the kind of society these people are living in? If absolutely nobody would help this kid except for you, the one voice of reason, who must now threaten someone else's life in order to steal to keep this kid alive, what do you think that society would do to you after you have threatened a life and then stolen? Praise you? Ha! More likely they would punish you. Your belief that taxation is the only thing that would keep the destitute alive is false. If we really lived in such a world, anyone who tried to help these people by stealing would be in prison. Instead, they get paid (through taxation no less) in order to confiscate and redistribute (mostly to things that have nothing to do with the poor).
I await your response to both this and my earlier post.
Buzz Killington:You could certainly say that stealing an apple from a fruit stand in order to give it to some starving child is morally good. I would not nessarily agree with that statement. But to say that it is justified is to misunderstand what justice is. By stealing the apple, you have taken something to which you had no legitimate claim - you were in the wrong. The fruit vendor has the legitimate claim. Stealing the apple would be an unjustified action, even if your end goal is meant to be honorable. But here's the thing, the fruit vendor has a tort against you now. You stole from him, and now he has a dispute with you. What if I prevent that starving child from dying with that fruit? All I've took is ONE fruit from a stand of dozens and dozens of fruit, and I've saved a life.
Do you consider something moral if it improves the situation, or if it improves the situation in a way that is superior to the alternatives? I would say it is better to first consider that you could:
(a.) buy the apple yourself and save the child
(b.) if you can't afford the apple, ask someone else to buy the apple and to save the child
(c.) if you are unsuccessful at (b.), ask multiple people to pitch in and buy the apple
(d.) if (c.) fails, perhaps leave some collateral for the fruit vendor in exchange for the apple
It is unlikely that you will find a great deal of resistance to help a starving child out. If you ask 10 people to give up some spare change to save a child's life, and none do, perhaps society isn't so great. So from a utilitarian perspective, if humanity doesn't live up to your moral standards without being coerced, doesn't it deserve to die out anyway? If the world is full of these terrible people that won't save a child, shouldn't you consider mankind to be inherently immoral, and not worth saving in the first place? Why should you save the child if it will grow up to be one of these merciless creatures?
These moral conundrums tend to be shallow and give "snapshot" situations which don't exist in their own universe, but instead are accompanied by a series of events which procede and follow them. If you steal the apple to save the child, will he be able to provide for himself or be provided for in the future? How long does an apple really "save his life"? In other words: how long must the child be dependent on coercion for its own sake before it deserves to die? You must either say "never", draw the line somewhere, or conclude that human life is an inalienable positive right that society is obliged to provide for and agree with the Marxist slogan "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
+1 Rorschach
Taxation is not universalizable and promotes a late-comer ethic; theft itself is argumentatively unjustifiable.
If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH
If I have been a professional car thief for years, then I would literally live off the proceeds of my crimes. Maybe I have a wife or girlfriend and kids, and they live off my ill-gotten proceeds too. People who drive cars aren't typically in desperate poverty, such that they're struggling to survive... Maybe I make a point of stealing nice cars, which are almost certainly insured against theft. Drivers of such cars are not struggling to survive.
What's wrong with being a professional car thief?
Welfare schemes must decrease how much there is to go around in relation to how many there are to consume, which can't help anyone in the long run.
The problem comes in actually choosing who is in poverty and who is rich. After this is defined, people who are on the margin of becoming one of these categories can react to new incentives. A "rich" person can just stop earning as much money, avoiding an upper-bracket and wind up making more after taxes. Something didn't get built or invested in or whatever. This is a slowdown in production.
I have been told I easily qualify to get food stamps in my area, tempting actually (free food! sorta lol) and oh boy if I knock up a girl and don't marry her, holy shit can she get all sorts of benefits. Not everyone falls into this, but there is an overall trend if you pay people to not work and have more babies they will generally quit work (another slowdown in production) and have more babies. Having babies gives more need for production obviously.
Americans give record $295B to charity http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-25-charitable_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-25-charitable_N.htm
U.S. charitable giving estimated to be $307.65 billion in 2008 http://www.givingusa.org/press_releases/gusa/GivingReaches300billion.pdf
http://www.givingusa.org/press_releases/gusa/GivingReaches300billion.pdf
If you total up the direct and non-direct spending categories which are all the programs that are meant to help the poor, you will see that the federal government only spent 191$ billion on "welfare" for the poor. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/20/885549/-How-much-do-we-REALLY-spend-on-Welfare-
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/20/885549/-How-much-do-we-REALLY-spend-on-Welfare-
Let me see if I correctly understand your argument. On top of the 1,600 or so billion Americans pay for income taxes, Americans generously donate approximately $300 billion each year to charity, which exceeds welfare spending to the poor by $100 billion....
so overlooking that you have no supporting evidence to substantiate your assertion...
your argument is that it must be coerced because people are too greedy to give?
I am sorry, I am not buying it.
If the evidence indicates that if people believe it is good they will give... why must it be coerced?
Furthermore, if it is going to be coerced, why must it be coerced to an ineffecient, wasteful, monopoly with an atrocious redistribution track record?
What OP basically says:
Why is rape always wrong? I mean, geesh, I am unattractive fat neckbeard and I think I DESERVE to get laid. There are so many pretty girls out there, spreading legs for rich guys, and I am very poor and someone must provide me enterteinment, because nature didn't give me nice body or facial features. That's why I think raping some beautiful girl is acceptible in this situation. Rich beautiful guys have it all easier, and I am ugly. That's not fair.
Now prove me wrong, deluded ancaps.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Buzz Killington:Consider welfare. Consider food stamps. Consider medicare and medicaid. Many people currently LIVE off these programs because they cannot support themselves. Is it really that wrong to highly tax people who are making 6-7 figures a year because it's "theft"? Those rich people are not starving, THEY'RE not struggling to survive, yet somehow this redistribution of wealth is considered such an absolute evil by AnCaps and Libertarians.
You are thinking in terms of objective price: goods cost what they cost regardless of supply and demand and if we come up with more money then more goods will appear out of thin air to be purchased at that objective price. But that's not how it works. Money is an allocation mechanism. Price is a function of scarcity. And scarcity is caused by physical reality, not lack of money. Expropriating the upper middle class does not release a lot of resources into the economy, because they wouldn't have spent that money on basic necessities. So there aren't more goods available for the "poor" if we get more money from the rich. All this does is inflating the price of goods which they would have had anyways. The only way to make "the poor" better off is to increase overall wealth, and statism stifles economic productivity and therefore harms the poor.
So there aren't more goods available for the "poor" if we get more money from the rich. All this does is inflating the price of goods which they would have had anyways.
Care to explain? I would expect the poor to bid some goods away from the rich using additional money.
Andris Birkmanis: So there aren't more goods available for the "poor" if we get more money from the rich. All this does is inflating the price of goods which they would have had anyways. Care to explain? I would expect the poor to bid some goods away from the rich using additional money.
Say a rich person would have bought a luxury watch for 1 million. Now half of that million is expropriated by the state to buy food for the poor, how many more potatoes for poor people are available?
Sure, very short term consequence is just higher prices for potatoes, but in a bit longer term increased profits in potatoes industry will lead to more investment in this industry, leading to growing supply of potatoes. While the opposite happens to the luxury watch industry.
EDIT: so, in effect, bidding on the consumption goods changes the whole structure of capital to better acommodate the needs of poor.
Note that I do not say this makes taxation less wrong.
Buzz Killington:[...] theft. [...] robbery. [...] taking of another person's property without their consent. But is that ALWAYS wrong?
Yes
/thread.
Andris Birkmanis:Sure, very short term consequence is just higher prices for potatoes, but in a bit longer term increased profits in potatoes industry will lead to more investment in this industry, leading to growing supply of potatoes. While the opposite happens to the luxury watch industry. EDIT: so, in effect, bidding on the consumption goods changes the whole structure of capital to better acommodate the needs of poor.
Somewhat. But keep in mind that production requires resources. A millions Dollars worth of luxury watches requires a watchmaker and a bit of metal, a million Dollars worth of potatoes requires tons of stuff, tractors and oil and land and whatnot. These resources have alternative uses, like producing bread for the poor. Watches are that expensive because rich people bid them to unreasonable levels, not because they require a lot of resources to produce. So not producing watches doesn't really make additional potato-production available. In other words, equalizing money does not necessarily equalize wealth. A better example would be beach-front property, because the rich spending less on it will not release any resources into the economy which could be used for potato production at all.So redistributionism just lowers the cost of luxuries for the rich, while inflating the price of necessities for the poor. It just means that rich people now have to spend less on their mansions, while poor people are even more dependent on government handouts to buy more expensive necessities. Standards of living remain unchanged. Minus the economic distortion, of course.
If I understood you correctly, your point is that the structure of capital that supports luxury watches is much smaller than that supporting potatoes. Fine.
First, it only affects the degree but not the principle - the increased spending on potatoes in long term increases investment and raises the supply curve (and not only the supply at the current price).
Second, the watchmaker getting less money affects other industries, as well - because the watchmaker now spends less on clothes, transportation, food, etc. And the owners of those business now spend less, too. So profits in the potatoes industry grow a bit, while profits in other industries shrink a bit - and not all of these other industries have such a shallow capital structure as watchmaking (assuming it is in fact shallow), so it is possible to bid tractors, oil, etc. away from them.