Government’s taxation of individuals is backed up by the threat of imprisonment. That is the only reason it is successful. My question is: What makes this transaction different from extortion? (if you even make that distinction, i do not)
Typical response number one: “Government taxes our labor in order to provide us with services.” This is what could be called the “benevolent slavemaster” argument. In this view, a slaveowner’s theft of his slave’s labor was justified on the grounds that he provided the slave with food and shelter (services). For the proponents of this argument, the slaveowner’s theft was not wrong. I have an issue with that.
**Typical response number two: “Government is democratically elected. Taxation is the will of the people.” **Suppose there are three individuals on an island, A,B, and C. Is it ok for A and B to “vote” to take C’s food? Two poor kids with knives run up on an affluent businessman in an alleyway. They “vote” to steal his wallet. Will of the people? What makes this exact transaction different when it is scaled up?
Typical response number three: “Taxes are the price paid for living in society.” Who’s society? Society is nothing but the name given to the sum of voluntary transactions between individuals. Your access to society is determined by the willingness of individual members of that society to engage with you. Government is not the gatekeeper to society. There should be no single gatekeeper. If i want to do business with a member of a particular society, let him make that decision. If he won’t do business with me because i don’t pay taxes thats his business. If members of a society all agree that paying taxes is a prerequisite for business, I may decide to voluntarily pay taxes (or fees, whatever they would be called in that scenario).
“5 dollars is the price paid for eating a hamburger” No shit, here’s 5 dollars. I pay for the hamburger, why wouldn’t i pay for the benefits of society. What if I live in an area where i want no parts of that particular society and would rather take up a hermitage? This argument ignores the fact that hermits are taxed.
Typical response number four. “Everyone benefits from government expenditure” Everyone benefits from Kleenex too, but I don’t see them jacking money from my check every week so individuals can dispose of their boogies.
How do you propose enforcing agreements concerning transactions between individuals? Do it yourself? How about property rights enforcement? DIY? Traffic laws? And if you don’t believe in enforcing these things individually, how do you propose that we pay for enforcement?
Of all the tyrannical acts of governments in history, this one doesn’t even register on the tyrrany-meter. It’s not an ideal system, but I don’t know of any better one.
Suppose there are 311 million people on an island, and they set up a constitutional democratic republic with three branches of government that operate in a checks and balances system…
Ties to society ie family, friends, job. Contrary to what brow-beaters who subscribe to typical response 3 believe, society is not formed from taxes, but voluntarily.
I’ll answer your question with a question. Why does government need a monopoy over these functions?
Extortion generally only buys protection from the extorter. Taxation pays for most of what you see around you. Society would collapse without it and we would not be as advanced if we never had it. An America without taxation would be very grim. I’m happy to pay for all the benefits I get and the benefits that everyone takes advantage of. I don’t have kids but I’m happy to pay for public schools and libraries.
Well, that’s a response, I guess, but not an answer. Ignoring the fact that no single government within the US has a monopoly over these functions, since there are state and local entities involved, I’m trying to envision what non-government enforcement of contracts and property rights would look like. Can you help me?
This whole debating thing tends to work better when you answer a question with an answer though. You post a thesis, someone questions it, and then you just refuse to answer the questions raised and try to turn it around? You are proposing not only that we should have no taxes, but that they are morally wrong, and also that society would continue on just fine with zero government (can’t have government without taxes). It is up to you to demonstrate how this would work. If you can’t even answer the first set of questions raised by your OP, then where is this ‘debate’ even going?
And followed with a preemptive strike that virtually eliminated any and all reasoned debate. You’ve yelled your view and now you’ve stuck your fingers in your ears, so I see no need to continue this discussion.
If you need there to be a distinction, extortion by individuals is illegal, taxation by representatives is legal. That’s the distinction. Here’s another, taxes are a “necessary evil.” You can debate the rates, the purposes, and the mechanisms (sales tax vs. Property tax vs. income tax), but you can’t seriously or honestly debate the need for revenue for government functions. Private extortion is not necessary and is simply theft by threat of force, i.e., a crime.
Say you prefer to call it extortion instead of taxation. Does it make some sort of practical difference to anybody, or just express how you feel about the subject?
Your strawman of “A and B ‘vote’ to rob C” is an insufficient description of how our government operates, and illustrates quite clearly how your argument is not only poorly defined, but fundamentally illogical.
State governments and the federal government have a monopoly over certain jurisdictions. That is different from competition on a free market.
I can help you by pointing you in the direction of the market anarchists, but that is beyond the scope of this limited thread. I am not asking if the extortion is necessary to prevent the “demise of society” i am asking if taxation is extortion. Whenever i refer to taxation as extortion i am labelled an extremist without further explanation. I am requesting further explanation.
If that’s the only “refutations” you have, your position has already been compromised by the OP.
I am proposing the bolded portion only for the purposes of this thread. The rest is a common hijack.