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Comment by djrobstep | Hacker News Reader

Saying that somebody's pre tax income is "their earnings" in the first place is precisely the problem.

The tax you pay doesn't belong to you and you didn't earn it - the law is very clear on this.

Why is it not their earnings? That pre tax income gets payed out and taxed, because someone worked for it. If someone did not work for it the company they work for would not pay the tax amount to the government. It exists because of someones work.

Once taxed it then belongs to the government, in a very real sense, the tax-payer no longer have access to it. While it no longer belongs to the tax-payer, it does not therefore follow that they did not earn it.

Why does the cheque sent to the government because of my labour count towards what I morally earned, but not the cheque sent to shareholders?

Why do some institutions (property law, contract law) count towards what I truly morally earned but not others (taxation law)?

It doesn't even say that much. It simply ridicules proponents of wealth redistribution for sometimes calling those opposed "greedy", while they themselves are being "greedy" in going after other people's money. Whether taxes are okay isn't discussed.

It's not "other people's money" in the first place, that's the point. Packed into that notion is the idea it rightfully or originally belongs to the rich.

It doesn't. It rightfully belongs to the poor who need food and healthcare.

Again, there is no reference to "rich" vs "poor" in his argument. The argument is just a basic restatement of property rights - people own that which they've purchased through trading goods, services, or money. This applies just as much to any human being, except the truly indigent with no property whatsoever.

Why is it greed for someone to keep what income/wealth/property they've earned while also is not greed to claim that someone else's income/wealth/property is actually owed to another group?

> The argument is just a basic restatement of property rights - people own that which they've purchased through trading goods, services, or money.

Your contention is that some institutions count as property rights (contract law etc), but taxation law doesn't. I'm telling you the line between them that you draw is drawn purely with ideology.

Taxation law isn't some adjustment that takes place after property law, it is part of property law. $X of tax paid by party A that ends up funding $X of social security payments to party B, literally belongs to party B. It is the property of party B. Not party A. It is not "someone else's" in any way.

Well, if you believe that all money one might have control over belongs to the poor (or somebody else) then I guess that's fair. But that's a pretty uncommon belief.

In that way there's nothing special about the quote because most people generally recognize private ownership in everyday speech.

But that's not saying only the rich earn their wages which is what you claimed he said. He's saying everyone earns the wages they work for.

Claiming that something is true simply because of law is fairly short sighted. There have been and continue to be unjust laws worldwide.

Claiming that something is right because it exists as it is under the current system without further justification is equally, if not more short sighted. It's where "plainspeaking" and begging the question combine into a kind of catnip for people that want reinforcement for their impulse towards the status quo. I'm not familiar with this particular quote, but I've read one of his recent books and it was full of this sort of thing.

I am not, and nor do I see the quote in question claiming that because something exists it must be right. In fact, I'm arguing against that since it is the same as saying that something being a law does not make it just.

> the law is very clear on this

"That's what the law says" is a lousy moral justification for something. There are plenty of unjust laws or just things that are not laws.

Indeed. You make a powerful critique of those who say that pre tax property law defines what somebody has morally earned.

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