Tax Protest Day
With Tax Protest Day coming up fast,
I thought it might behoove us to once again examine why libertarians
oppose coercive taxation. The following article was submitted
for publication to the Vancouver Sun's Op-Ed pages and to the
Sun's Weekend Review. They have not yet published it!
The old saw says "nothing is certain
but death and taxes", but the Income Tax was introduced during
World War I as a temporary measure. If it was never intended
to be permanent, why can it not be repealed? In fact, there is
no logical reason why taxes cannot be abolished. We cling to them
out of force of habit, resignation and a widespread belief that
taxes accomplish some good.
Libertarians have long argued the
opposite, that taxes not only do not accomplish any good, but
in fact, are evil and immoral. We argue that taxation is the moral
equivalent of theft. Nay, more than that! We argue that taxation
is theft.
This is not some idle assertion but
soundly based on reason and logic. Logic deduces conclusions from
premises. If the premises are sound, the conclusions are sound.
Here is the libertarian thesis stated in point form:
Premise:
Theft is the taking by force or by fraud of the justly owned property
of an individual or group of individuals by another individual
or group of individuals.
Premise:
Taxation is the forcible taking of the justly owned property of
some individuals (taxpayers) by another group of individuals (politicians
and bureaucrats)
Conclusion:
Taxation is theft. Q.E.D.
Central to this argument is the concept
of "justly owned property". Justly owned property is
property that was acquired in a just manner. This means property
that was acquired by homesteading previously unowned property,
by trading one's labour for the property, by trading some of one's
property for a different kind of property (e.g. money for groceries),
or property that was acquired as a gift from someone who gave
you his or her justly owned property.
Those who support taxation, like
Vancouver Sun "ethics" columnist Douglas Todd,
argue that taxation accomplishes much good. About a year ago Todd
wrote an article entitled "Does the tax revolt revolt you?"
He railed against self-absorption, ingratitude, general public
whininess and a lack of public spiritedness. He argued for a "sense
of community, the sense that we're all responsible for the country".
He listed all the things he's happy to receive as a taxpaying
citizen - libraries, sewers, unemployment insurance, the CBC and
so on.
While appreciating that many
of the things Todd lists are good in themselves, I mean, who can
gainsay the benefits of good hospitals and roads, nevertheless
he misses an important ethical point here. The things Todd lists
are all ends to be aimed at.
The point Todd (and other government
apologists) miss is whether ends are the determining factor
of ethical behavior. For instance, it may be argued that supporting
one's family is a good thing. But there is a vast difference between
supporting one's family by working or by stealing. Both methods
have the same end in mind - supporting the family, but
few of us would hesitate to condemn stealing as immoral. We would
argue that the means by which one supports one's family
determines whether the action is ethical or not.
The basic difference between the
libertarian way of thinking and the state apologist way of thinking
is that libertarians judge all behavior by, I guess you might
call it, a means test. Statists judge behavior by an ends
test. Libertarians don't care how much wealth or lack of it an
individual might achieve. Libertarians are interested in how
it was achieved. If the wealth was achieved by voluntary interactions
between consenting adults, i.e. by trade, or as a gift, then we
applaud it. If the wealth was acquired by force or fraud, we condemn
it.
State apologists, on the other
hand, look at the ends achieved. If someone acquires great wealth
by honest means and someone else is in dire poverty, even through
his own foolishness, the statist sees this as intrinsically wrong
and wants to strip the honest man of some of his wealth and give
it to the wastrel. The ends are what determines the ethics
of the situation for the statist.
This does not mean that libertarians
are opposed to hospitals, the CBC, unemployment insurance or helping
the poor. As long as these worthy objectives are achieved by moral
means, we applaud these things. But the moment these things
are pursued by immoral means, in other words, by force
or by fraud, we condemn them. And to the extent that they are
achieved by coercive laws and taxation, they are pursued
by immoral means!
To the extent the CBC is supported
by voluntary donations and commercial revenue libertarians can
support it. To the extent it is supported by money taken from
unwilling victims at gunpoint we condemn it. (And let's be clear
about this - all taxes are extracted from the citizenry at gunpoint.
If there were not guns backing up the government's taxation efforts,
no one would pay them!)
There might be a rejoinder from
the Todds of the world that governments are different than individuals.
Governments are the people acting collectively and so can do things
individuals can't. Libertarians dispute this. We argue that the
state is nothing more than a collection of individuals. Actions
that are immoral for an individual to do, such as stealing, are
immoral for the state to do. Might does not
make right.
Those who would persuade the state
to support some pet cause with tax money, be it the opera, a football
stadium or a political lobby group are, in fact, demanding that
the state perform acts that they themselves would not do because
they are immoral and they know it.
If the Fraser Institute , for example,
petitioned the government for a grant to further their work, they
would be demanding that government force, at the point
of a gun if necessary, all its citizens, including trade unionists,
Todd and others who might despise the Fraser Institute to financially
support it. They wouldn't dare do it themselves (accost people
and forcibly take their money), but somehow morality gets thrown
out the window when government enters the picture. To the Fraser
Institute's credit, it doesn't seek or accept any government money.
Ironically, this virtue of the Fraser Institute is routinely condemned
by the left who believe it is nobler to live off the avails of
legalized theft than by voluntary donations!
Libertarians view the seeking after
government funding by people who would never personally take people's
money by force as the rankest hypocrisy and the basest evil. We
look to a world where all individuals interact by mutual voluntary
consent and force and fraud are outlawed. Not just force and fraud
committed by individuals, but by governments. We look to a society
where the ends do not justify the means. We look
to a world of good where institutionalized evils like taxes
are abolished forever.
 (drawing copyright Grin Graphics) |
Tuesday, April 30, 1996. Join us in protesting legalized thievery outside the Revenue Canada Building on Pender Street from 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM |
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Nov. 8, 1997.