Why taxation is even worse than theft
The ex-political leader of the Dutch Libertarian Party, Toine Manders, was recently called to a hearing on his involvement in tax evasion. As a jurist, he has helped many of his customers evade taxes to Panama. His practices came to light when the Panama Papers were released.
In this wonderful exposition he clearly explains to the parliamentarian, Renske Lijten from the Dutch Labour Party, why taxation is theft:
Why taxation is a form of theft
The Dutch government, like all other governments, receives its earnings from its citizens through force and threats. Most people believe that:
- Individuals are not allowed to use threats and violence to take money from other individuals;
- Individuals are not allowed to form a gang of bandits and use threats and violence to take money from other individuals. This is what we normally associate with abhorrent maffia practices;
- However, if a bunch of people who claim to be the government uses threats and violence to take people’s money it suddenly becomes fine.
Libertarian anarchists (anarcho-capitalists, voluntaryists, agorists) believe that the above is morally inconsistent. We believe that moral principles should be upheld for all people and all groups of people. We believe that people have the right to choose their own rulers, but don’t have the right to enforce their rulers upon others.
Why taxation is actually worse than theft
Taxation is actually even worse than common thievery. After the government has taken away money from its citizens, it uses this money to continue its oppression.
The abolitionist and legal philosopher, Lysander Spooner, writes in No Treason – The Constitution of no Authority (1870) that:
The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
Unlike in a common robbery, the government claims that its thievery is intended for your own benefit. The highwayman, at least, takes responsibility of the danger and crime of his own act. After he has taken your money, he will leave you alone.
He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful “sovereign,” on account of the “protection” he affords you. He does not keep “protecting” you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
Reference
Lysander Spooner – No Treason: The Constitution of no Authority (1870)
I could not agree more with all of this. It's been like that since the begining of times so we learned to accept it as a reality of life. Unfortunately ...
The qeustion i wounder is, how on earth can we change it?
Secession (seasteading) and technologies/services of decentralization (solar, cryptocurrencies, über etc). We should also give up on convincing the masses through political means.
In the meantime qe should continue educating ourselves and live by philosophical principles of non-aggression. This means no support for Sanders, taxation, war, government money, government education etc.
I think we can never change it. @chhaylin, great post! Not too long and nice to read. I love gaining knowledge this way :-)!
Thanks! That's very sweet of you.
I know I won't be well recieved but :
I come from a country where tax is one of the heaviest in the world and yet I believe tax is not theft and good.
If you don't pay taxes you would pay them but in other forms. you would pay medical bills, school, roads, etc. Look at the US, most of the people can't even afford to get sick. And even though they are the "n°1" of the world they are among the worst among developed countrieshttps://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/#7e11a7b6576f.
taxation is not theft it's for the greater good, taxation is theft if it's used not in the interest of the people who paid for it, basically how manders says "the king gets the money and gives gifts"
If there are no taxation, who would pay for roads ? For public service(health, firemen, police ?) If they are not paid by the state then it becomes a private service. And with that comes more cost because a private company needs profit because their income is not stable.
For instance take firemens, if they have no funding they won't go and help you out they loose money, so you would have to pay them some kind of insurance, same for police , same for health.
And I guarantee you it will be much more than taxes because they will want more and more profits not just enough for them to run.
Finally, we would have no research, sure companies do research, but it's always research to improve xxx device, not research to improve our understanding of science which may not lead to profit.
Do you like using your cellphone thanks to sattellites ? Well if we went without taxes, the father of rocketery wouldn't have been able to research because there would have been no funding. And so today we wouldn't have things to go in space.
tl;dr taxes are vital, but it can be theft if misused.
Thank you for such an elaborate reply. :)
I am also from a country which heavily taxes its people, and I still think it's theft. Taxation is a very poor way to allocate resources as it puts one monopolistic central organization (the state) in power of much of society's spending. In Holland, the government spends approximately 50% of the nation's GDP. Do we really need to spend this much for roads, hospitals, police etc?
The problem with monopolies is that they are not encourage to innovate, and to provide good services. Take for example the North-South metrostation line in Amsterdam. It's taken more than 10 years to build, and still it's not finished. A private company would have been pressured to spend their resources efficiently or else go bankrupt.
If companies want more profits, you are free to stop using their service and in a free market probably be able to make use of the services of a competitor. With government services, there's hardly any choice. You have paid for them in taxes, and then you are not provided much freedom to choose.
I think what you are focusing on are services and goods that you can see after government has built or financed it. What you don't see are the services and goods that would have been provided when consumers would have been allowed to keep and spend all their money according to their personal preferences. Private law, private court, private protection agencies etc would naturally erupt in a stateless society. See for example how social order emerged in the Wild Wild West when people moved west much faster than the government did.
Good point! I think you really have to highlight MISUSED. Misused tax is really a crime. Seeing Macau, a small city in southern china where it's known to be a gambling city of the east, what I see is that the tax paid by the people are being used properly by improving the city and helping its people improve themselves by giving education subsidies, for example. The point is, our taxes should be USED WELL by governments.
I think ALL taxes is theft and misused, but if it's greatly misused it's even worse. Macau seems, compared to other nation states, quite good in handling taxes. There's undoubtedly corruption, but nothing more extreme than what happens anywhere else in the western world.
Good article indeed, thanks for sharing
This is one of the most inteligent way to demonstrate against taxation! Congrats for this article!
Thanks, hebro! :)
Well put from a very nice perspective
Thanks! :)
This is exactly why crypto is such a good opportunity for everyone!
But in all honesty, if you want to see tax reform overnight, make people actually go to the tax office every week and hand over the money they owe in taxes.
I give it a few days before there is massive calls for taxation reform.
Yes, and it's just all a small shift in perception. In your case, people will actually feel that they own money which they have to hand over physically.
Well it's easy to take money from people when they don't actually see it leave their hands, it's just numbers on a screen at the moment.
It's true but it's a two edged sword. If someone offers a more stable form of regulation that will let people still go from point A to point B without fear of being killed or robbed, it'd be pretty cool.
I'm really curious about experts opinion how to maintain stable situation in country without tax heh. Man... politics is hard.
Thanks for sharing :d
As far as I know, it has never been tried out on a grand scale. You may be interested in watching this video of David Friedman, created by @bitbutter:
No wonder why cryptocurrencies are increasingly becoming popular among the masses.
Yes, they provide us a way out of government clutches.