- Taxes are not theft

[alimentarius]

• Living in your country is voluntary, therefore taxes are not theft. As long as you’re living on the property of the state, you’ll have to abide by its rules and follow the contract if you want make uses of the welfare state. Otherwise you’re a parasite. If you prefer not to pay taxes, you’re free to find another society.

How would you answer this argument?

[Prashanth_Perumal]

@alimentarius

• Living in your country is voluntary, therefore taxes are not theft. As long as you’re living on the property of the state, you’ll have to abide by its rules and follow the contract if you want make uses of the welfare state. Otherwise you’re a parasite. If you prefer not to pay taxes, you’re free to find another society.

How would you answer this argument?

I’m reminded of someone’s one-liner in this very forum: There is no Social contract.

Yes, we are citizens of the State default, by virtue of our birth. But, we never really made a voluntary agreement to support the State.

And, yes, it would be nice to live outside the State in our own land of paradise unless some State comes in and thrashes us out claiming the area to be it’s own. All in the name of the ‘social contract’.

[Kakugo]

Living on property of the State? I must dig out the receipts but I seem to recall that we had to pay for this house out of our own pockets and the State didn’t chip in… not only that but we had to give the State a good fee for doing absolutely nothing. As far as I am concerned my house is my property, not the States.If the State wants to share my everyday expenses while running the house I would gladly consider it a co-owner but up to now I’ve only paid taxes on top of everything… isn’t this called a protection racket?

[Spideynw]

@alimentarius

• Living in your country is voluntary, therefore taxes are not theft. As long as you’re living on the property of the state, you’ll have to abide by its rules and follow the contract if you want make uses of the welfare state. Otherwise you’re a parasite. If you prefer not to pay taxes, you’re free to find another society.

How would you answer this argument?

And slaves did not have to keep living, they had the choice to kill themselves. Therefore, choosing to live was voluntary. As long as they chose to live, they needed to abide by their master’s rules and follow the contract to enjoy whatever freedoms they had. Otherwise they were a parasite. If they preferred to not be slaves, they were free to kill themselves.

[fsk]

I wrote a detailed response for this and a whole other bunch of fake arguments for “Taxation is not theft!”

[AuberonHerbert]

The argument amounts to might is right. Just because the state has a monoply of violence does not mean it is right. If I lived in a street where there was alot of crime and moved to a street where there was little crime, the street with the great amount of crime would still be a street full of crime and so unjustified. Just because we leave does not make the crime right.

[alimentarius]

Isn’t taxes needed to financiate the property right?

[alimentarius]

Excellent job!

[Spideynw]

And yes, taxation is not theft. It is extortion.

[nirgrahamUK]

@alimentarius

Living in your country is voluntary, therefore taxes are not theft. As long as you’re living on the property of the state, you’ll have to abide by its rules and follow the contract if you want make uses of the welfare state. Otherwise you’re a parasite. If you prefer not to pay taxes, you’re free to find another society.

argue by analogy.

i tell you i will punch you if you are stoodup in 5minutes or else if you are sitting or laying down i will kick you. since you choose to stand or sit or lay down in 5 minutes in full knowledge of what I will do to you, it is voluntary and i have every right to do it and you have no cause for complaint.

of course, enquiring into what legitiimacy i have to dictate terms evaporates the connundrum, so too does questioning the legitimate authority of states that think they own your property and you.

[Saan]

@alimentarius

• Living in your country is voluntary, therefore taxes are not theft. As long as you’re living on the property of the state, you’ll have to abide by its rules and follow the contract if you want make uses of the welfare state. Otherwise you’re a parasite. If you prefer not to pay taxes, you’re free to find another society.

How would you answer this argument?

Ha ha ha and might I add ho ho ho

[nandnor]

The point is, since state is a criminal organisation, it is not the legitimate owner of the property and service system that it asks you to pay for, since it didnt get its capital through homesteading or voluntary transactions. So it cant legitimately ask you to pay for it.

Rothbard:

Thus, the State is a coercive criminal organization that subsists by a regularized large-scale system of taxation-theft, and which gets away with it by engineering the support of the majority (not, again, of everyone) through securing an alliance with a group of opinion-moulding intellectuals whom it rewards with a share in its power and pelf. But there is another vital aspect of the State that needs to be considered. There is one critical argument for the State that now comes into view: namely, the implicit argument that the State apparatus really and properly owns the territorial area over which it claims jurisdiction. The State, in short, arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area—larger or smaller depending on historical conditions, and on how much it has been able to wrest from other States. If the State may be said to properly own its territory, then it is proper for it to make rules for anyone who presumes to live in that area. It can legitimately seize or control private property because there is no private property in its area, because it really owns the entire land surface. So long as the State permits its subjects to leave its territory, then, it can be said to act as does any other owner who sets down rules for people living on his property. (This seems to be the only justification for the crude slogan, “America, love it or leave it!,” as well as the enormous emphasis generally placed on an individual’s right to emigrate from a country.) In short, this theory makes the State, as well as the King in the Middle Ages, a feudal overlord, who at least theoretically owned all the land in his domain. The fact that new and unowned resources—whether virgin land or lakes—are invariably claimed as owned by the State (its “public domain”) is an expression of this implicit theory.

But our homesteading theory, outlined above, suffices to demolish any such pretensions by the State apparatus. For by what earthly right do the criminals of the State lay claim to the ownership of its land area? It is bad enough that they have seized control of ultimate decision-making for that area; what criterion can possibly give them the rightful ownership of the entire territory?

[Cork]

In the words of David Friedman:

The Mafia don replies that of course he owns the territory–if you don’t believe him, go ask the current capo di capi. If you don’t like it, you are free to move to the territory of a different don; if you remain, you are implicitly agreeing to accept his “taxes.” Why is his claim any less justifiable than the government’s? He provides you with protection against other dons, just as the government provides protection against other governments.

[1billion]

@alimentarius

• Living in your country is voluntary, therefore taxes are not theft. As long as you’re living on the property of the state, you’ll have to abide by its rules and follow the contract if you want make uses of the welfare state. Otherwise you’re a parasite. If you prefer not to pay taxes, you’re free to find another society.

How would you answer this argument?

read “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner

[1billion]

double post

[david_z]

@alimentarius

How would you answer this argument?

You might like my response to the old “non-libertarian FAQ”, in particular the sections “Yes, taxation really is theft” and “Is the social contract valid?”

All justifications for taxation ultimately rest on the social contract.

[alimentarius]

I’m still unable to see why property rights are real, and not simply social constructs like any other law…

[wilderness]

it’s understanding what’s “mine and thine”

[alimentarius]

That’s instinct. But how can I prove it?

[nirgrahamUK]

@alimentarius

I’m still unable to see why property rights are real, and not simply social constructs like any other law…

curious. are you able to see that you are real and not simply a social construct?