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To Alter Or To AbolishChapter 30TaxationWritten by Darrell Anderson. The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes, and, of course, bear exclusively the burthen of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds, through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers. John C. Calhoun, Disquisition on Government Taxation serves only one purpose, regardless of what arguments are used to justify taxation. That purpose is to forcibly transfer wealth from one group of people to another. All kinds of arguments might be offered to defend taxation, but those arguments cannot change the ultimate purpose of taxation. Taxation is a method of coercively sustaining energy flows without providing direct labor. In the modern world, what exactly is a tax? The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica provided the definition of taxation as “that part of the revenue of a state which is obtained by compulsory dues and charges upon its subjects.” However, John Dickinson, 18th century Pennsylvania legislator and participant in the 1787 Constitutional Convention, provided one of the most simple yet direct modern definitions: an imposition on the subject, for the sole purpose of levying (taking) money.[1] By definition therefore, taxation is a coerced taking of property. If taxation were a voluntary process, the word taxation would transform into an association or user fee. Anyone who has been convicted for failing to pay a tax has discovered that taxation has nothing to do with “social contracts,” free association, or voluntary exchange, and has everything to do with sustaining the energy flows of other people. Some individuals argue that there are only three possible subjects of a tax:[2]
Although taxes can be classified as such, the only subject of a tax is people. Only people can pay taxes. A tax can be classified as against a thing or for participating in certain activities, or can be measured by the subjective value of those things or activities, but only people can pay those taxes. Although taxation often has been a form of tribute from captives to conquerors, paying this tribute has roots in ancient social structures. Among the early hunter-gatherers, herders, and agrarians, survival of the individual depended greatly upon all people within the clan, tribe, or family surviving. Survival of the tribe carried utmost importance and individuality was a foreign idea to those people. Many resources were shared without resistance to ensure the survival of all. These ancient societies were clearly communal in nature, with major property titles recognized in the group, not the individual. Humans are social creatures and become anti-social only with respect to trespass. By nature, humans usually want to share and exchange resources through persuasion and cooperation. This sharing mentality is only a short step removed from paying tribute to conquerors. If a conqueror encourages social order and is seen as a protector of the group, tribute is merely an extension of the original concept of sharing resources to promote mutual survival. Modern taxation is little different when people willingly participate in various social systems. The desire for security and protection of property probably gave rise to written forms of communications and the early rudiments of coercive tax systems.[3] Hunter-gatherers or herders have little need for the concept of personal or private property and could more easily vote with their feet against such coercive demands. People in fixed locations cannot easily avoid such conflict. The modern concept of property probably materialized when early hunter-gatherers or herders decided to remain in a specific geographical area to protect food supplies.[4] This is only a description about the early seeds of voluntary social communal efforts to provide protection, not a statement about how “the state” evolved throughout history. A casual review of history shows that most political systems were formed by thugs and bullies who moved into peaceful communities, and using the threat of violence “convinced” the people in those communities to support the new “protectors.”[5] History also shows that most tax systems evolved because the same thugs and bullies who moved into the neighborhood demanded tribute. Thus, in order to create an illusion of quid pro quo and reciprocity, providing services became an excuse for coerced taxes.[6] The ideas proposed by Enlightenment philosophers likely would sound strange and foreign to those ancient hunter-gatherers, herders, and agrarians. Only after the Enlightenment and Industrial Age has the concept of coerced resource sharing been significantly challenged. As people became more mobile, the ideas of individuality, free association, and voluntary exchange became more important. As people became more mobile and less affixed or dependant upon a specific geographical area or community, the idea of coerced sharing made less sense to many people. The alleged protection and common goods and services provided by a centralized figure were questioned. As scientific knowledge and technology improved the standard of living for many people, the idea that such services must be coercively provided was further challenged. Coerced sharing was further challenged as the concepts of consent and contract became more prominent in social structures. Today, now that virtual communities exist throughout the planet and technology has reduced the cost of distribution to almost zero for many products, even more people question this ancient practice. The great struggle today with the concept of taxation is that many individuals challenge whether a true nexus or connection exists with those people who demand payment. Until a few hundred years ago, when survival depended entirely upon a communal approach, nobody questioned the sharing of resources. Not to share resources was suicidal — individually and collectively. Today those communal foundations are challenged. Tribute today is not a form of mutual survival, but a process of attempting to create virtual perpetual motion through the captured labor of other people. Whereas all taxation is a form of wealth redistribution, some taxes are designed to create artificial scarcity, such as tariffs.[7] Such taxes increase the cost of exchange and through that process indirectly redistributes wealth. As John C. Calhoun noticed, the process of coercive taxation divides the population into two classes: tax-payers and tax-consumers. That is, dividing people into those who receive disbursements and those who are taxed.[8] Or in the paraphrased words of sociologist Franz Oppenheimer, those who seek to sustain energy flows through the political means. Some individuals argue that in exchange for taxes people receive protection or the benefits of various “public goods and services”; but such an argument places the cart before the horse. The test is this: allow all people not to pay taxes and see how many continue to pay. Some will continue and some will not. Those individuals who stop paying were not voluntary participants in the political society. Furthermore, if people opted-out and refused to pay, then those actions indicate the good or service rendered was never a good or service received through free association and voluntary exchange — there never was any true desire to pay the price of exchange. The illusion of desire or demand, and the illusion of exchange was artificially created through the threat of violence. Understanding this quid pro quo concept of exchange is critical because that is how statists expropriate revenues and property from people.[9] Two characteristics identify this process:[10]
Lysander Spooner noticed this illusionary effect:[11] But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: “Your money, or your life.” And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is nonetheless a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travelers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. 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. A crucial difference is statists prefer to begin their argument that protection and services are provided, thus reciprocating payments are “obligingly due.” Statists conveniently presume every individual agrees to accept this protection. This kind of social contract is one-sided. There is no explicit consent, but only presumption, force, coercion, and the ultimate threat of violence. Statists (arguably) provide services, expect payment, and declare those terms regardless of what the other party decides. In legal parlance, such an act is known as an adhesion contract, and most adhesion contracts are considered unconscionable. At least highway robbers do not pretend they are participating in social contracts. The discussion does not begin with who provides what to whom. The argument begins with free association and voluntary exchange. If a neighbor mowed your lawn you certainly receive a benefit, but if the action occurred without your explicit consent, then how can you be under any obligation to compensate the neighbor? That statists use the threat of violence to compel performance blatantly reveals that there is no valid contract or compact, but only strong-arm “might makes right” tactics. If there were a true social contract there would be no need for force and coercion — the relationship would be voluntary, reciprocating, mutually beneficial, and therefore self-enforcing. An exception to this line of thought is if you observed and then passively accepted an individual mowing your lawn. By the argument of consistency you cannot later claim there was no contract. You saw, you knew, you made no attempt to stop the action, therefore you consented to the act. To counter that argument you would need to explicitly inform the individual you have no contract to mow your lawn and desire no such contract. If that individual continued to mow you have no obligation to pay. Of course, if the individual mowed your lawn without your knowledge then you still have standing to argue there was no contract (you might need to initiate some sort of action to assert your claim — perhaps a newspaper advertisement or affidavit). Statists often use this argument to justify taxation claiming that “recipients” of the benefits offer no active objection. That thought fails because although theoretically a political process is a process of objection and discussion, in reality individuals are provided no opportunity to participate in such a process. Statists will use the threat of violence to collect taxes — even if somebody explicitly objects and argues there is no contract. This denial to withdraw from benefiting from certain goods and services is a denial of the basic right not to contract. Southern secessionists experienced this same denial. The concept of government is a natural outgrowth of any collection of people and is maintained by voluntary cooperation, persuasion, and mutually benefiting reciprocal exchange. Statists use force and coercion — sometimes deadly — to expropriate resources through taxation, a euphemism for extortion. Some people argue that there is a difference between taxes on production and taxes on consumption. Such discussions are misleading and meaningless. All taxation is about the coercive redirection of energy flows. People produce in order to consume. Production is an act of converting raw energy into a storable form for later consumption. Consumption is an act of converting stored energy into useful energy. Regardless of where taxation occurs — during production or consumption, the result is the same — the coerced redirection of energy flows. Conflict occurs primarily when people choose to ignore or refuse to honor boundaries. The political means of sustaining energy flows, specifically in the nature of taxation, is a process of creating a coerced association. Coerced associations oppose free associations. Taxation is a process of dictatorial law, not customary law. Regardless of the form of taxation — income, property, excise, or tariff, a coerced relationship exists, tensions arise, and conflict results in some form or manner. Taxation is another way people try to create a virtual perpetual motion machine and mask the coercive redirecting of energy flows. Finis. Next: Chapter 31 — Land Title Distribution Endnotes [1] Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer. [2] Skinner, The Biggest “Tax Loophole” of All, pp. 3, 16, 30. [3] Davidson and Rees-Mogg, The Great Reckoning, pp. 59–61. [4] Zane, The Story of Law, p. 33. [5] Oppenheimer, The State, Chapter 1, Theories of the State. [6] Oppenheimer, The State, Chapter 2, The Genesis of the State. [7] Sumner, What Social Classes Owe, pp. 124–125. [8] Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government, p. 16. [9] Epstein Takings, p. 15, footnote 20. [10] Kropotkin, “Law and Authority,” The Essential Kropotkin, p. 34. [11] Spooner, The Lysander Spooner Reader, “No Treason No. II,” p. 84–85. |
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