This is the opinion of an Austrian that I am getting to know. He is an Austrian inasmuch as he is from Vienna. He isn’t an Austrian in the sense that we mean it. He only recently learned that there are people like us in the world. Here is his response (italicized) to my declaration that taxation is theft done with the implied threat of violence:
Society provides you with the means of obtaining your money (by instituting courts where you can sue your employer, or buyer, or the fellow who crashed into your car etc., and rules by which those courts operate) and preserving it (it will prevent other people by force with the implied threat of violence from taking money from you).
Thus in effect all the money you hold is held by virtue of the society you live in. If said society by its legislature (which you voted for) decides to collect moderate taxes, that means that the money to pay them was never actually yours.
Now this might sound stupid, but it is exactly this sort of person with this (all to common) view that I have the hardest time debating against. I can go toe-to-toe with the average informed, well read non-economist on a whole host of subjects, like fiat money vs. gold standard, roads, etc., but this point of view baffles me. Particulary disturbing to me is the fact that I used to hold a similar view, though I don’t recall actually articulating it.
BAAWA and I used to haunt a forum that was bursting at the seams with statists, and one guy there (supposedly a lawyer) had this exact view, but was so overwhelmingly verbose that I couldn’t engage him. This Austrian guy here is more to the point, and I want to tackle him.
Unfortunately for me, he threw this out in the middle of a debate over socialist medicine – a debate in which I was doing very, very well.
Well, he’s conflating society with the state. But a more important point is that given this logic we should tax the poor more heavily than the rich, after all, they do benefit more from society. I wonder what he will think of that.
Remind him that there’s no choice in whether you consume the good - you have to pay for it anyway, 'coz gov’t says so! and then bitchslap him with the marginal theory of value; just because something has marginal value productivity doesn’t mean ALL value is attributable to it. That is stupid, and has no place in economics. In fact some people might not even value the services, or value them very differently to others also forced to pay for them. So his argument is about as baseless as they come.
If I work for Company A over a certain period of time, thereby earning a certain amount of money, does this mean that I owe everything to Company A and that it can ask whatever it wants of me? Of course not, because, had I not worked for Company A, I could have been engaging in any number of other activities (including and starting with working for Company B for a similar wage).
If you view institutions not as a product of “society”, but rather as the result of a contract between individuals, then I believe the parallel between my example and the (supposed) obligations of the individual to the state is fairly obvious. The only difference between the two is that I can stop working for Company A if I disagree with whatever it asks of me. This isn’t true of the state, where my choice is always subordinated to that of the majority.
Hey, I don’t want “society’s” roads, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, police, courts, military, or anything else. I want to pay for things when I use them. Thanks.
The reason you can’t argue against someone who thinks like this, and not against an educated person, is because educated people understands that they have starting points for their arguments based on some type of reason or logic. Less educated people typically have less logic and more emotion behind arguments. Arguments with them tend to be circular, as the stements you quote are circular because when you pin them down on something they change perspective and reasoning.
Society provides you with the means of obtaining your money… [therefore]…money … was never actually yours. is circular.
Get them to define starting points, it will be difficult, but once you do this you can start getting somewhere.
Good reponses, but before I was able to get back to this guy with some of them, he went off the deep end, saying:
like most thinking people I willingly pay my taxes because I understand that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and living in a modern industrial democracy requires citizens to participate in the upkeep of that society.
I have little patience for freeloaders who think they are entitled to all the benefits of constitutional government but cry about being “opressed” when they’re expected to do their part to help pay for it.
Sorry, you don’t get something for nothing in this life…
Tomorrow, show up at his house with some food that you will give him for his breakfast lunch and dinner, the quality of this food is immaterial. Confiscate any morsel of food that he has, and also stop him, at threat of gunpoint from purchasing any food, thus granting you a monopoly on food(like the government has a monopoly on justice, as per his example).Now, in addition to all of this explain to him how he owes you “taxes” for your “service,” and how you have little patience for freeloaders who think they are entitled to all the benefits of your food service, but cry about being “opressed” when they’re exptected to do their part to help pay for it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch(literally, in this case).
Did he know you were an anarchist up to this point? (Assuming that someone who would argue that taxation=theft believes that theft is unacceptable in society)
Perhaps he’s referring to the overweight DEA agents that were flying first class and drinking martinis or the policemen on segways in the airport on my recent international flight? (true story)
Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty chapter 22 has a splendid rebuttal of precisely this argument. Also see the recent thread “The Sword and the Lie” here on the forum.
Government should exist to protect rights, not impede them. When it takes some from me to give another a right to my money it directly perverts that relationship and the enslaught against liberty begins. I can’t see how the argument can be made any simpler than that. I don’t the arguing is going to matter much in these pragmatic times myself. Watch the idiots prove themselves wrong, I don’t think they need any help.
Is there any situation where you should have to pay taxes? Do you really believe that if we get rid of the state someone wont gang up with their buddies to take your property for their own pursuits?
Ive signed my name with an anarchy sign since I was 11 and even I know there has to be SOME system of governance.
Well, you ask two different questions. (Although technically if I read the first one literallly, it’s three)
Whether the State is inevitable, and whether it is necessary.
On the question of “do we need GOVERNANCE” I doubt anyone here disagrees with you in the sense that there needs to be a legal system of some sort (Note that’s a very broad definition), plus a general respect for property rights and such.
You can be generally assured that it would be very difficult to set up a state, for several reasons.
Given that in a non-state society, a vast majority of the populace would more than likely be armed, and would know how to use said arms, and would be WILLING to use them, the probability of a small number (Because States are always run by a small elite) of individuals, no matter how proficent in weapons use, will probably not be able to conquer their neighbors. There is always the potential for a state to reform, (And if it does, armed takeover is probably one of the least likely methods, at least from an internal standpoint, external takeover is another matter.) but this doesn’t imply that people shouldn’t pursue liberty.
On the second question, NO, not now, not ever. Given there is no legtimate government, there is no legitimate tax. If you and some friends got together and formed a “Government” and paid “Taxes” than fine, do so, but at that point some would hesitate to call what you have a “State”.
On yet ANOTHER NOTE: You’ve been an Anarchist since age 11, wow, it was either late 13 or early 14 for me.
as a child I was very much an anarchist. But Ive grown up since then.I studied history and realized that really, anarchy is usually characterized by intense civil war. What made prosperous civs prosperous was that they stopped the Johns from attacking the Greggs to forcibly take their resource. I seek the way to provide for worldwide protected trade routes, contract enforcement, well-developed infrastructure, and ever advancing technology.
Now Im a freedomist. I fail to see liberty as a lack of regulation. I see liberty as an ability for the general populace, the average joe, to pursue his happiness. But one mans happiness could be to see others in pain. Therefore, there have to be regulations on just what freedoms you are provided for.
Using ethics in Liberty is a responsible choice by well intentioned people.