Why is it that austrians believe that taxation is inherently immoral? If the state has to coerce bill gates into handing over $10 to feed a starving child is this still immoral?
in this case, is having a morally absolutist rather than relativist view a prerequisite for being an austrian?
The first problem with your statement is assuming that State welfare helps poverty or people’s needs…
Second, if I hold your statement as valid, then I could kick you out of your house, to help a family attain shelter, because you are able to afford another one…
austrians don’t.
austrian economics is a school of thought that seeks to positively explain human behavior. In this sense it is no different than the neo-classical school of thought. the difference is in how they approach the subject matter.
so really this is not an economics question at all and it is on the wrong part of the forum.
but, in direct response to your philosophical question, u r right that a lot of people on this board do think taxation is immoral. I would guess it is because many of them are operating along the lines of “self-ownership” run loose.
those arguments are not my cup of tea (when you step on “natural rights”, do they say ouch?). i find arguments that government provision of public goods is unneccessary are more compelling. Of course, not so convincing I would call my self an anarchist or oppose taxation in all of its forms. Just throwing it out there to point out there are other ways to approach the subject (specifically, you can argue that taxes are not needed as opposed to being strictly immoral).
In isolation, a situation like that could seem justified. On a macro, societal-structure level, it probably would do more harm than good if we didn’t respect property rights virtually unconditionally. This is also assuming, like Izzy said, that it assumes the State is helping out poor people in the first place. The whole basis of the an-cap argument is that unfettered free markets would lead to the most well-being in society, so poverty would be dealt a body blow.
What you’re going to be arguing over anyway is economics. Of course people are interested in feeding hungry children, but the Statist proposes one way to go about that whereas a libertarian has another vision. Somebody is right and somebody is wrong.
And third, stealing, whether one uses the stolen goods for good or bad, is still stealing
Quit your job and start robbing people that never hurt you. You will be justified because if you didn’t rob people you haz the starvation.
If you are really lucky somebody who enjoys robbery and charity, will collect on your behalf you so you can stay at home drinking the tea you took from Student. (thirst is bad too)
I think we’re conflating terms, here. While taxation does belong to economics, the morality of it does not. It belongs to political philosophy, or just in general, philosophy of ethics.
So being an Austrian is besides the point. In fact, I remember Walter Block once mentioning that anyone could be an Austrian, regardless of ethics, to emphasize that Austrianism is value-free. He gave the example of several Neo-Nazi’s (I believe) planning to use Austrian economics to negatively impact minority groups through hyper-inflation, and other concepts exclusive to the Austrian School.
We should rephrase the question: “Why is it that some libertarians believe that taxation is inherently immoral?”
Well, I suppose at first there are a few ways of going about this. First, there is Hans Hermann Hoppe’s argumentation ethics to argue for self-ownership, and there is Rothbard’s argument for a strict self-ownership, but whereas the former is meant to be based solely on logic, the latter is based in natural law. Hence, on Rothbard’s view, we would simply find it morally and naturally repugnant that we be forced into slave labor for the purposes of others, e.g., taxation.
So while Hans Hermann Hoppe and Rothbard more or less reach the same conclusion, they both do so in radically different ways. Other libertarians might prefer to use a deontologist perspective, which states that the ends do not justify the means. In the scenario you posited, the ends (feeding starving children) may be good and decent, but the means by which they are achieved are not (coercion).
There are quite a few other approaches, but I myself am skeptical of the examples I’ve given. I can’t say that I’d follow any of them.
What is moral about it? Is it moral for the child to steal the $10 from Bill Gates if he or she is hungry? If not then why is moral for a third party to do it all the while taking a cut? The best question is that what is the difference between Bill Gates defending his property from theft by the hungry child and the not so hungry bureaucrats?
Why not steal your money and give it to the starving child? How about you give all of your money to the starving child and the go work for more. Then by your example, Bill Gates will give a lot more money? Or better yet… Why not ask Bill Gates for some money? Or even better yet… Why not have the bureaucrats collecting and distributing money just get real jobs where they accumulate wealth through mutually beneficial exchanges and then they can give the $10 to the starving child.
The ends do not justify the means. Stealing is a crime in a moral society. Theft through taxation by majority vote is still theft and is a criminal act. The advantage to a moral society where property rights are respect is that it is extremely productive mainly because the productive do not have to support the armies of bureaucrats and their salaries plus the enforcement agencies required to sustain a anti-“Social” un-"Safe"ty Net. The productive can then easily take care of the less fortunate.
austrian economics is a school of thought that seeks to positively explain human behavior. In this sense it is no different than the neo-classical school of thought. the difference is in how they approach the subject matter.
This, whether it is correct or incorrect it is an approach to the social sciences not moral philosophy. Though I think it technically falls under neoclassical economics doesn’t it?
Though I think it technically falls under neoclassical economics doesn’t it?
I think it does too, but I know not everyone agrees.
It is not compatible with praxeolgoy to make value judgemnets. Distinguish between economic statements and personal value statemetents being made. Having said that, it is perfectly compatible with paraxeology to claim that taxation is “theft” or “confiscation”. It is the economists’ right and duty to point this out if he is to remain logically consistent in his theory of human action. The economist can point this out and remian value free. It is not the economists’ fault that such actions are preceived by the vast majority as immoral.
Whose rights do I violate by not paying taxes?
Does Bill Gates eat five tons of food a day? How does taking his money away create more food for poor people? It is important to know that money is just an intermediary. Commodities don’t magically become available because we come up with the funding to pay for them. If there is enough food to feed the poor, then they will have enough food. But if there isn’t enough, expropriating Bill Gates won’t create more. Well what creates more food for the poor? Capitalists building factories that produce it! So taxes actually reduce the standard of living of the poor because taxed money can’t be invested in productive enterprises.
AE suggest that taxation results in a misallocation of capital. NAP suggests that taxation in stealing.
If the state has to coerce bill gates into handing over $10 to feed a starving child is this still immoral?
Yes, it is immoral. It is also illegal (do not confuse state fiat with law proper). Also this is a ridiculous example. This is never what the State does. It steals billions of dollars to bomb starving children.
There would be far less starving children without the State, and they would not be getting bombed and poisoned by government armies or have their fathers taken away by government thugs or prevented from working in ‘sweatshops’ by ignorant liberals.
This is also pure emotional appeal. Children are not ‘special’, they are not more morally or legally important than adults; they do not ‘trump’ other individuals. This reminds me of politicians with their inane repetition of ‘for the children’.
If i knew a child was starving to death. i would steal $10 from someone to buy them food. I would also have to do the time if caught stealing. In that regard, stealing is moral, but you have to pay the conswquences. Maybe Bill gates would let it slide since it is for a good cause.
You are essentially saying “I don’t want to feed the starving child, but YOU must be forced to do it”.
Look at it this way: suppose someone is dying and needs to be cured. You are free to cure the sick; but you have no right to force someone else to cure him. I assume you agree with that, because that would be slavery, and I assume you don’t believe in slavery. Or suppose a child is starving. You are free to go work in the fields and grow food necessary to feed him; but you have no right to force someone else to work in the fields and grow the food necessary to feed him, as that would be slavery.
So far so good. Now the next step. The next step comes when you realize that forcing someone to pay for the cures is morally equivalent to forcing him to cure the sick himself. If the first act is immoral, the second act must be immoral as well.
To go back to the food analogy: forcing someone to pay for feeding the starving child is morally equivalent to: taking a gun, pointing the gun at his head; telling him “now take this shovel and go plant these seeds, or else I shoot you in the head and kill you”. As you see, once you make explicit what you are saying, the immorality and the horror of what you are saying becomes evident.
PS: you are confusing austrians with libertarians, as others have pointed out.
Well, there are a lot of children starving. Why don’t you break into your neighbor’s home and take $10 and send it to Ethiopia? It may be illegal, but according to you it would be the moral thing to do.
Gates could turn the $10 into $100 by investing or expanding his business, thereby creating more wealth for himself and his employees and feed more children than coerced/artificial wealth distrubtion. If the state was smart (it isn’t) or ethical (it isn’t), it would let Gates keep the $10 and stay far away.
If you want to argue on the ethics of the whole thing: I would ask why you’d want to let nine children starve to feed just one?
stealing is never moral. Under no circumstances. Even though I would probably do the same as you in an extreme case (I mean, I see your point), that doesn’t justify the crime of stealing at all. It just show, that humans are after all, humans, with compassion and love for the people who suffer. And that humans are capable to forgive other humans such crimes and even much more extreme things I will not mention here. But anyway, I’m moral objectivist.