If your pay is not yours to keep, then neither is the tax
aeon.co
aeon.co
And there are other solutions:
- Tax property owners to pay for roads near their buildings
- Toll roads
- Private ways (actually very common in housing developments and usually work even better than public ones because the landlord / homeowners association is incentivized to keep them well taken care of to keep people from moving out)
- Local income tax (something most libertarian's aren't against because living in a locale is a choice that is easier to change than, say, what country you are a citizen of)
- etc
An interesting mental trap people fall into is thinking that because currently something is paid for one way that taking away that source of income will mean it won't be paid for. The market has a way of working things out.
It's perfectly valid if I'm having the argument with someone who wants to pay zero taxes, but is fine using the roads currently in place.
Now, if they're saving up to buy land in Montana and live off the grid - fine, they're trying to work their way out of a circumstance they didn't ask to be placed in. But if someone's an armchair libertarian who hypocritically feeds off the teat they claim to loathe, then I find their argument a bit harder to swallow.
I would find it hard to find that person even if I went to a gathering of Libertarians.
Being anti-income tax is different than being anti-tax.
Many Libertarian's are OK with (in one form or another):
- Luxury sales and use tax (not on necessities like food and basic clothing)
- Toll roads
- Property tax
- Local income tax
With property tax being a little less common (although I am personally OK with it) because a lot of people will argue that if you have to pay taxes on it you don't really own it.
Then again... I take that back... I WOULD be able to find that person at a gathering of libertarians but my personal experience is that he would be in the minority.
Edit: to add to the lats sentence, perhaps a very loud vocal minority.
So you pay a tax, that tax supports a system we call "society", which kills or controls the masses who would otherwise murder you and take everything you think you own.
I call it the zombie tax because the best way to imagine the alternative would be the unstoppable hordes of zombies we see in hollywood films.
It's not that different from kids playing pretend in their parent's basement, inventing any rules they want for their game. They can do whatever they want, because there isn't anyone else around to tell them differently.
A lot, I mean a _lot_ of people do not often think about this fact, they sort of assume that these concepts were handed down by some impossible deity (god is not real.) But the truth is they emerged from intelligent self-aware people who for various reasons simply decided that these things should exist.
So with that in mind, if property is make-believe, how can you "own" something? What precisely is ownership? Just more make-believe, using different words.
If it exists at all, it's a social contract, and when it's you versus everyone else, hate to break it to you but it means nothing.
Just because it is that way doesn't mean it should be.
An obvious answer, though not satisfying, is that some states are too poor for that.
Police and medical should be paid for by other taxes (probably also property tax but there are other solutions).[1]
None of them should be paid for by income tax.
I live in a state with no income tax that receives no federal funds (to the best of my knowledge) for fire and police yet I still have service... go figure...
[1] Oddly enough as against taxes as I am, I don't think someone should have to pay a month+ income to get an ambulance ride to the hospital but that is a whole other can of worms unrelated to this article.
Also: it's fairly easy to pay lower taxes with a good accountant. A cry to lower taxes is made by the elite to convince the middle class to vote for corporate-friendly interests.
The only people that 100% literally mean taxation is theft are anarchists.
Then the best thing would be to just stop saying it, and discuss the substantive issues instead. The real issues of what functions need funding, by how much, and how, is a never-ending debate that isn't helped by trite aphorisms, even if, superficially, they seem to cut the Gordian knot.
Because it is an anarchist argument which attempts to equate government to organized crime. Those hyperbolic anarchists are the ones using the term as intended.
They're both about equally correct -- there's a core nugget in the argument that's somewhat logical, but as a bald statement they're a massive over generalization and patently ridiculous.
I think technically this could be done, but it would be interesting to see what the result would be, and if a country could run on this principle.
Obviously there are some places where you will have overlap between the different levels. For example, I don't think the federal government should be completely, 100% out of education, but rather should have a reduced role so the teachers can do their jobs and educate.
Obviously these ideas would be difficult to implement and are also idealistic. For example, some states are poorer than others so their tax revenue may not be enough. But even given that, I think state and local governments having more power would be better for the people. And no, this isn't some states' rights dog whistle or whatever (I doubt any of you would accuse me of that, but people have).
Side note: I am a US citizen, but I live in the Czech Republic at the moment, so I would be interested to see a system which would be flexible enough to allow any government to utilize.
This actually seems like an interesting enough problem that I may try to code up a website where people can anonymously enter how much tax they pay (in currency amounts) and how they would allocate it (in %). Then try to do some aggregates to see how countries would compare.
Lack of interest (in the US) in local elections is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Local government has a much larger impact on a person's day-to-day life. Spending on education is largely at the county/city level (while the state and federal governments provide funding, localities can increase the amount and has some discretion in allocation). Development, local roads, police & fire, healthcare - all by and large controlled locally.
But, I do agree, at the federal level, it often feels like we have very little control over taxation and spending.
I think a key thing is to view 'democratic' as meaning more than merely the opportunity to choose - the common narrative around what a 'democracy' is. Rather, it is the opportunity to participate in framing of the choices, without pre-existing powerful interests having disproportionate influence.
Noam Chomsky is an easy reach for a reference to some thought on the matter. He's written so much, but here's the first thing that I find: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth...
Instead we ought to view tax as being a tool which acts as a force of contraction in the economy, taking money out of circulation that has been put there as a result of government spending.
Both of these (fiscal) mechanisms - spending and taxing - ideally act as a mechanism to democratise the economy. 'Ideally' in the sense that the mechanisms for choosing and applying such policies are democratic, rather than authoritarian, subject to capture, etc. 'Democratise' in the sense that without this intervention, the 'market' has free reign - with ensuing consequences that influence over it is not in the hands of the many.
Libertarians (especially of the free-market ilk) may see this as a positive, however, I think it is plainly obvious that a market is never free, and has a tendency to concentrate wealth (and thus power). In my opinion, decisions over our collective efforts and available resources ought not to be in the hands of the few, but rather, in the many - via truly democratic mechanisms and institutions.
Some interesting, related vids that discuss boom/bust, QE and the like:
Stated in Paragraph 2. That's false, there's lots of solid arguments to suggest that your income belongs to you. To pretend that those arguments don't exist so that you can write a 3 page essay amounts to dishonesty.
Let us also set aside the questions of taxation. One may likewise have all sorts of opinions on this subject, but again, they are a distraction from the central argument.
And finally let us set aside the questions of the exploitation of workers. Again, this is important, but it is still a distraction.
The central concept behind a wage is this: It is a contractual exchange of X for Y. I am giving you something, and you are giving me something in exchange. The "something" I am giving you is my labor. You consider this a thing of value to yourself or your company. You feel a need for my labor, so you make an agreement with me to give me something of equal value in exchange. "Equal value" in this case is determined by negotiation. If I do not agree that what you are offering me in exchange for my labor is of sufficient value, I can choose to accept the agreement and gain a more limited benefit, or I can reject it.
The thing you give me in this case is money. It could be room and board. It could be many things. But unless the thing you give me in exchange for what I give you becomes "mine," the entire exchange is a fraud that no rational person would agree to.
To say that the benefit I receive for the benefit I provide is not "mine" in any moral sense is completely irrational. And if it is true that my wages are not "mine" then it must also be true that my labor is not "yours," and you have no right to keep the fruits of my labor.
What this article assumes is equivalent to saying that there is no such thing as personal property of any kind, and that includes your own life and energies. If your wages are not yours, then neither is your labor, and thus your labor can be coerced from you just as surely as your money can be stolen. Your life does not belong to you. It belongs "something other." That something other, as near as I can tell from the article, is the collective whole. You are only of value so much as you benefit the collective, and as such you are disposable as soon as you, in the estimation of the ruling authority, cease to benefit the collective.
If you want to make a legitimate argument in favor of taxation (and I believe in just and mutually-beneficial taxation, just to be clear), you cannot do so by denying the fundamental and moral nature of labor and wages. Deny that moral principle, and you are ultimately denying the value and dignity of human life itself.
Oh so you mean like, in the real world?
I'm going to sit at home and wait for my delivery of money from the market for the next few months and contemplate the logic of this article.