The explanation is that it's the government (or rather the people) that's subsidizing the charitable work of the billionaires via tax breaks, but giving up any say in how the money is used.
But if the money ever belonged to the individual, then the public cannot "subsidize" the individual keeping what he/she earned.
Put another way: if I walk up to someone on the street and forcibly take their money - and if that wasn't mine to begin with - most people would call that 'stealing' (or at least 'coercion' of some sort). If I chose to not forcibly take their money, and they then give that money to the homeless person on the corner, I'm not "subsidizing" the person whose money I didn't forcibly take.
It was theirs to begin with - not mine.
Without the infrastructure provided by society as a whole, no large business would be possible.
I believe that the state (which isn't "society", it is the governing body of a region of land), has no right to a share of anything that is not voluntarily granted or contractually agreed upon. Believing in a higher entity with more rights than any individual is verging on something akin to feudalism.
"Feudalism is bad, so anything that can be vaguely compared to it must also be bad."
The state has a right to a fixed share of its subjects' income due to the contractually agreed-upon system of taxation. This is what that whole "no taxation without representation" slogan was about.
Your connection of representative government to feudalism is puzzling. Are you a libertarian?
Yes, because organizations are just collections of individuals. So of course an organization can't do anything without the action of individuals. Is anyone arguing otherwise?
> Believing in a higher entity with more rights than any individual is verging on something akin to feudalism.
There are many examples where groups of individuals have rights that are greater than the rights of individuals without bringing up feudalism.
No individual has the right to imprison another (for long periods at least). No individual has the right to use violence to enforce a contract. Do you imagine a society where individuals have those rights, or one where the state does not?
>which isn't "society", it is the governing body of a region of land)
No the state isn't society. In a democratically controlled system, the state is the proxy designated to act on behalf of society (the extent to which states actually fulfill this duty is highly variable).
No. When money is earned, that money is taxed. Society has gotten its share. Zuckerberg is talking about donating assets that represent money in lieu of keeping it himself, which are above and beyond whatever income taxes he's already paid.
If the argument is that he isn't paying taxes on the money he never had, that seems a little odd to me, but even if we accept that he should owe those taxes to society, then we have to reconcile that notion with the idea that society has chosen those charities to be considered tax exempt, and has effectively rubber stamped charitable donations as a societal good.
In either scenario, I don't see any way in which Zuckerberg's charitable donations has avoided his obligation to the society which has chosen to prefer charitable giving to taxation.
So income tax is the only just form of taxation? What about consumption tax? Property tax?
> Zuckerberg is talking about donating assets that represent money in lieu of keeping it himself, which are above and beyond whatever income taxes he's already paid.
Are you saying he's donating after tax income? Or are you saying that it's like he never had income in the first place because he donated it before it became income?
>even if we accept that he should owe those taxes to society, then we have to reconcile that notion with the idea that society has chosen those charities to be considered tax exempt, and has effectively rubber stamped charitable donations as a societal good.
That's true and I'm OK with that. I was arguing against the OP's example of taxation as theft, not against the possibility of charitable giving tax deductions.
I didn't specify income tax, but 'earned'. This would include a variety of taxes, including capital gains, income, etc. To be fair to the situation, this type of donation would likely trigger capital gains, but if the foundation set up is a 501c3, then they would be (possibly?) exempt -- as it seems to be an LLC, there doesn't seem to be a tax dodge here at all.
FWIW, I wasn't disputing whether any taxes were just or not; rather, disputing the notion that society is being robbed as a result of non-taxed earnings being withheld. As society has determined that is kosher, then there is no theft.
Personally, I consider income tax to be one of the least just forms of taxes, but that did not bear on my argument at all.
> Are you saying he's donating after tax income? Or are you saying that it's like he never had income in the first place because he donated it before it became income?
To be honest, it's still a bit ambiguous. If he's holding shares for now, he's paying capital gains on the shares that he holds -- to my knowledge, there's no way to earmark that money for charitable tax exemption without actually donating it, and in the short term, Zuck has stated that he won't be giving it all away immediately. Either way, if we accept the premises that society has chosen tax exemption for charitable contributions is something that society wants, and that he's paying taxes on his current earnings until he gives those shares/moneys away, he isn't robbing anyone of anything.
> I was arguing against the OP's example of taxation as theft, not against the possibility of charitable giving tax deductions.
I won't go as far as to say that taxation is theft, but as I alluded to earlier, I lean that way on income tax. Regardless, I don't think that's really the point of the argument here. Regardless of whether or not tax is theft, Zuck is still paying his taxes. Any portion of income or potential income he gives away to charity is not theft from society because society has stated it hasn't via tax code.
In the counter-hypothetical that guntar made though, wherein Zuckerberg pays the full taxes owed on his earnings and incomes, and yet is still not entitled to do what he wants with his post-tax money, hence the state must be entitled to it? That would definitely be theft, in my opinion.
Is there a quick shorthand way of referring to the notion that tax is theft?
Nothing belongs to (as distinct from being immediately, physically controlled by) anyone except in the sense that social convention grants them some, usually limited, exclusive control over it.
The typical avenue through which that social convention for both the right to control and its limitations is expressed in the modern world is the institution of the State via law (most obviously, property law, but the whole body of law, including tax and other civil and criminal law, addresses either the rights to control or its limitations.)
To paraphrase the argument goes something like: "Society giveth and society taketh away"
Implied in the argument is that the state is synonymous with society. Even in a democratic society you have the issue that a) a limited percentage of the population actually vote and b) of those who vote a minority did not get what they wanted.
Regardless of what extent the government does reflect the will of society, you still have the issue that we currently do have a system of personal property rights. If you believe those rights exist only because society willed them be for whatever reason, then arguing that no one really owns anything is quite the circular argument.
We have a system of personal property rights in which personal property is subject to taxation, both ad valorem taxation of wealth (usually, in practice, certain classes of assets are targeted for this, but there is no systemic prohibition in our system of it being applied anywhere) and taxes on particular uses or exchanges of property.
So using the existence of those property rights to argue against taxation to support public priorities is quite the self-contradictory argument.
If that is the case, what would function as a better proxy through which society can collect its debt?
Roads, and other infrastructure that facilitates trade and communication.
Courts that enforce contracts.
Water rights management to that facilitates the creation of cities (note I'm talking large scale here, not municipal water companies--think the federal government prevents people in State A from draining all the water from a river before it gets to State B)
Public health infrastructure (large scale, like fighting epidemics)
That kind of thing, plus many smaller scale and more intangible benefits that come from living in a civilized society.
Regarding your earlier comment about "a debt to society", no one is in debt to society for those things, because no one contractually agreed to be in debt. Yes those services exist, and yes they provide real benefits, but the problem is they are not voluntary. Being in debt involuntarily is akin to slavery.
Now, that is the philosophical justification for one who believes in the non-agression principle. Obviously such a belief is more of a hope for a utopia which will never be realized in the foreseeable future.
The concept that involuntary debt is automatically bad is an axiom that most people who believed like I did start with. But it's not the self-evident axiom that I once thought.
There are many cultures that consider children to have certain filial obligations (and some states in the US still have such laws), you might consider that wrong, but it's not self-evident that it is.
There are also situations where the law considers continued enjoyment of some good or service to create an obligation to pay for that good or service regardless of whether the person enjoying it requested it in the first place. I don't think this is self-evidently wrong either.
To explain why I'm not longer an anarcho-capitalist: As I got older, I started to realize that almost everything I'd accomplished was primarily a result of the situation I was born into. Intelligence and success are primarily a product of upbringing and genetics, not something I accomplished on my own that I should feel proud of.
I haven't moved over to pure socialism, but I no longer feel that allocating wealth based purely on the circumstances of birth (because let's face it, an individual's ability to make money is based almost entirely on the circumstances of their birth.) is the best system.
There are times when capitalism is the best, most efficient system for everyone involved (even if it's not the most egalitarian). But I've increasingly realized there are also time when capitalism reaches a local optimum. And I don't think we should let ideology blind us to that.
>There are also situations where the law considers continued enjoyment of some good or service to create an obligation to pay for that good or service regardless of whether the person enjoying it requested it in the first place. I don't think this is self-evidently wrong either.
As I said previously, at least for me, believing that the non-aggression principle should be the governing principle of society is a utopian view. That is, to say, it is a hope of what society could be, not a pragmatic solution that could be implemented today or tomorrow. Similarly, anyone who holds any concept of a utopian society likely recognizes they will never see it come to fruition but they hope to move things in that direction.
>but I no longer feel that allocating wealth based purely on the circumstances of birth (because let's face it, an individual's ability to make money is based almost entirely on the circumstances of their birth.) is the best system.
But this is a mis-characterization of what capitalism is. Some of the most poor people of the world today face the exact lifestyle that nearly everyone faced a few hundred years ago. It was only through capitalism, existing sometimes in a very limited fashion, which fueled the industrial revolution and enabled those of us who are so rich to enjoy our lifestyles today (and let's face it even the poorest of any first world country, are vastly rich compared to living conditions a few hundred years ago).
>But I've increasingly realized there are also time when capitalism reaches a local optimum. And I don't think we should let ideology blind us to that.
I would be curious to hear what situation you would describe as capitalism reaching a "local optimum". In my experience, every situation categorized as a "market failure", when investigated, is anything but. That goes for the idea of "natural monopolies", recent market crashes, skyrocketing tuition, skyrocketing medical costs, pollution, etc. I would be happy to point you to material to research any one of these issues.
The state is simply the name given to whatever aspect of a bounded society the society itself recognizes as governing it.