Taxes and Slavery

Miscellaneous General
1

No enlightened individual today holds that slavery is morally acceptable or should be legally permitted.

By the same token, almost nobody today believes that the act of taxing is immoral, quite the opposite, it is widely regarded as a necessary and beneficial (hence, morally good) activity.

To say that taxation is the same as slavery is hyperbolic and, simply, not true. Nevertheless, there is a direct relationship between taxation and slavery.

For the sake of discussion, I will separate slavery into two components:

  • Redistribution of 100% of the slave’s product to the slaveholder

  • Compulsion of the slave to produce

It should be readily apparent how taxation and slavery are related. In the first component of slavery, taxation is only different from slavery in degree. That is, slavery is the limit case of taxation in terms of the redistribution of the product of the taxee/slave. In the second component of slavery, taxation differs from slavery in that participation in economic activity (the condition for taxation) is in every particular case voluntary*.

It should also be readily apparent that in neither aspect of slavery is taxation morally distinguishable from it. Stealing a penny from someone’s bank account is immoral because it’s not your penny and if you can take one penny, then you can take two (slippery slope). Stealing is taking any of someone’s property without their consent. Leaving some property behind doesn’t make it not stealing. Similarly, forcibly redistributing the product of a human being’s efforts through taxation is enslavement by degree. Leaving some of their productivity behind doesn’t make it not enslavement. Giving them a (grim) choice whether to participate in economic activity or not doesn’t make it not enslavement. Giving a portion of it to the poor or building things that benefit everybody doesn’t make it not enslavement.

The minarchists are completely wrong on this point. The minarchist view is that a certain, very small amount of forcible redistribution through taxation is necessary and beneficial. But, as I pointed out above, this leads to a slippery slope and the history of the United States government is dramatic empirical evidence of this point. Allowing the slaveholder to take just 50% or 10% or even just 0.1% of the slave’s product is not freeing the slave. It’s a concession of the whole principle of the matter. Slavery - even enslavement by degree with a form of “choice” and even where the slaveholder gives to charity and builds things that benefit all the slaves - is repugnant and immoral. Taxation is repugnant and immoral.

Clayton -

*In a wider sense, participation in economic activity is compelled by material need, that is, the need to eat, be clothed and sheltered and so on.

2

Almost everyone supports slavery - they just don’t call it that.

Recently I was talking to one of my friends about an essay she had to write about the assumptions of certain political writers. I offered one: “that they believe government owns other people”. She thought this was amazing and agreed, asking “why doesn’t the lecturer say that?”

Then I asked her what is, in English, the word for owning other people. She couldn’t think of it, so I said it started with an ‘s’. She tried a few but didn’t get it (she did, however, suggest ‘socialism’). My gf was there too so I asked her and she said she couldn’t think of one. I couldn’t believe that they coudn’t think of it so finally I just told them that it was ‘slavery’.

3

Wow, yeah, it’s really discouraging to see how programmed we are. People associate slavery with a very narrow definition, that is, the chains and whips variety of slavery. Aldous Huxley explains it all here:

Clayton -

4

There is one more dimension (possibly more) to the taxation <==> slavery continuum. I am not too sure how best to call it but for now, I will just call that dimension Land. This becomes more apparent in many third world countries.

The government bulldozes over land and builds hydro-electrical dams – just to name a few industries. Land that is either owned by the locals or upon which the locals depend is completely upset. This leaves the locals with no choice but to work at the new industry jobs created by the government. They can no longer enjoy their ancestral lifestyle neither to survive nor to pay the taxes. The choice of jobs are limited and thus, taxation becomes slavery. In the affluent west, all we see is that these poor people SHOULD be grateful that they now have high paying jobs. In common economics classes, professors draw comparative advantage curves on blackboards to show that these poor people are better off with industry – nobody ever examines how these situations arise and whose choices are forcefully limited.

5
6

Yeah, these kinds of glib, know-it-all “analyses” probably do more to undermine people’s understanding of free market capitalism than anything that overt Marxists could ever hope to achieve.

Clayton -

7

@Nielsio: Wow. That was really powerful.

8

It’s a great point, Clayton, and it lead me to realize that arguments against slavery are anarchist arguments and vice versa. The concept that each person is the rightful owner of their body works against slavery and against taxation (some would say, “but you are your body!”, but that’s not what libertarians are referring to. The thing that owns the body is the “I”, whatever that is composed of).

I think anybody arguing against the slavery that occurred in America and around the world up to that point is making the case that these people lack freedom. Well, freedom to do what? To act as they please without physically offending others? Taxation limits that. Freedom from keeping the product of their labor? Taxation limits that. Freedom of movement? States certainly impair that opportunity, which is funded via taxation. Anybody who says slaves were exploited because they didn’t have the means to acquire rightful ownership of the products of their work or were forced to work for somebody they didn’t want to will have a very difficult time fending off anti-state arguments.

9

I. Need. That. Book.