Taxation as theft
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| Part of the Taxation series |
| Tax resistance |
| Core topics |
| History of tax resistance Tax resisters |
| Media |
| An Act of Conscience Thoreau's Civil Disobedience |
| Organizations |
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Pagal Panthis Peacemakers |
| Campaigns |
| War of the Regulation Gaspée Affair Whiskey Rebellion Hut Tax War of 1898 Vyborg Manifesto Mau movement Salt Satyagraha Beit Sahour |
| Related topics |
| Civil disobedience Conscientious objection Divestment Economic secession Nonviolent resistance “Render unto Caesar...” Tax protesters Taxation as slavery Taxation as theft |
The identification of taxation as theft is a common anarcho-capitalist viewpoint. It suggests that government is transgressing property rights by enforcing compulsory tax collection. This turns the issue into not just an issue of practicality but morality.[1] Individualist anarchists, objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, and some libertarians see taxation as government violation of the non-aggression principle. The classic How many men? thought experiment challenges one to define the size and characteristics of a group that is ethically entitled to tax. Leo Tolstoy wrote:
| “ | "Every thief knows that stealing is wrong… that it is immoral," said Rogozhinsky, with his… slightly contemptuous smile.
"No, he does not know it. They say to him: Don't steal! and he knows that… the Government, with its officials, robs him continually by taxation." "Why, this is Anarchism," Rogozhinsky said. … |
” |
Murray Rothbard argued in The Ethics of Liberty that since taxation is theft, tax resistance is therefore legitimate: "Just as no one is morally required to answer a robber truthfully when he asks if there are any valuables in one’s house, so no one can be morally required to answer truthfully similar questions asked by the State, e.g., when filling out income tax returns."[2]
Under Somali customary law, known as xeer, taxation is expressly forbidden.[3] The Xeer legal system is based on the concept of private property and it views any action that deprives someone of their property as theft. The majority of Somalis view taxation not only as immoral, but also as illegal under their traditional laws.[3]
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[edit] How many men?
How many men? is a thought experiment often used by anarcho-capitalists as a moral argument to show that taxation is theft.[4] There are many variations of it, but one begins, for instance, with the example of a man stealing a car, which most people would regard as unethical. It then proceeds to make slight changes to the story, with the identity of the thief gradually shifting from one man, to a gang of five men, to a gang of ten men who take a vote (allowing the victim to vote as well) on whether to steal the car before stealing it; to a gang of twenty men who not only take votes but have specialization of labor; to one hundred men who take the car and give the victim back a bicycle; to two hundred men who not only give the victim back a bicycle but buy a poor person a bicycle as well. It ultimately challenges the reader to say how big a group needs to be, and what characteristics it needs to have, before the immorality of theft become the alleged morality of taxation.
The argument may be seen as an example of the sorites paradox. In a classic example of the sorites paradox, removing any one hair from a person's head does not make them bald, but by the time the last hair is removed, they have become bald.
[edit] Counter-arguments
A counter-argument[who?] is that taxation is a payment for services rendered, and that one who does not pay his taxes is cheating the government (and the taxpayers who shoulder the burden) by getting something for nothing and therefore deserves to be punished.[5] It is argued[who?] that the claim that taxation is theft presupposes the validity of the anarcho-capitalist argument that all government services including police and military services can and should be replaced by private enterprises. However, this counter-argument is defeated by the fact that the defining characteristic of taxation is that it may be (and is usually) levied whether services are rendered or not, even if the supposed beneficiary disagrees with and wants to refuse the rendition of said services. Furthermore, the anarcho-capitalist position is that it is not necessary for anti-tax advocates to show that all government activities can be replaced with private enterprises. This position is based on the assertion that the vast majority of government activities are either unnecessary or affirmatively counter-productive to a society's economic vitality and success, and the remainder can be provided privately with higher quality and at lower costs.[citation needed]
Another justification[who?] for taxation is to remedy market failures with regard to "externalities". It is also argued[who?] that taxation is the 'ground rent' or compensation that is owed to each human being for the land and natural resources that have been deprived them by others' illicit appropriations. It is argued[who?] that all property derives from these ill-gotten gains, and compensation must be paid accordingly.[6] Thus, people are simply taking back what was rightly theirs by using the political system to tax others. This particular justification, of course, leaves unanswered the charge of the taxation-as-theft argument, and suffers from the additional error that taxation is levied upon people whether they have acquired their gains illicitly or not.
Yet another counter-argument[who?] is that property is theft; i.e., that the use of "finders keepers" as a system for allocating unowned property is arbitrary and wrong.[7] This argument is rebutted[who?] on the grounds that people making this argument typically use their or others' property to make said claim, which is either a self-defeating proposition along the lines of saying "I don't exist." An additional criticism[who?] to this argument is that, since theft presupposes the existence of property, 'property is theft' is a self-refuting and absurd claim, making it even more absurd than claiming that taxation (the forceful appropriation of somebody else's property) is just.
Another counter-argument[who?] is that taxation is part of a social contract. If you are free to emigrate, you are also free to decide if you want to stay and pay taxes or not. Many critics[who?] answer by arguing that the social contract is not really a contract, saying they haven't signed any contract, as well as the fact that there is no location on earth conducive to human life that is not claimed by one or more governments. According to social contract proponents,[who?] not all contracts have to be signed, as for example, ordering food in a restaurant.[8] Other critics[who?] answer that while a signature on paper may be eschewed in some types of contracts (e.g. purchases), a valid contract requires mutual assent consisting of informed consent and explicit acceptance by all parties, or else the purported contract constitutes fraud or is otherwise invalid.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.fff.org/freedom/1197e.asp
- ^ http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentyfour.asp
- ^ a b http://www.mises.org/story/2701
- ^ http://www.impel.com/liblib/NNLFAQ.html#7
- ^ http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-taxestheft.htm
- ^ http://www.philosophyetc.net/2005/06/why-taxation-is-not-theft.html
- ^ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/libertarian/non-lib-faq/
- ^ http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html#contract
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