WHY TAXATION IS SLAVERY

WHY TAXATION IS SLAVERY

By Robert E. Podolsky

I have maintained for some time that taxation is government’s most criminal enterprise and that it is, in fact, a form of slavery.  Yet it continues to baffle me that so many people cannot or will not see the obvious truth in these statements and insist on arguing that taxation is necessary to humanity’s well being and that it is not slavery at all.  “The greatest good for the greatest number” goes the usual utilitarian refrain…which I maintain is one of the greater falsehoods…for the usual reasons.  But since these reasons are so elusive to the greatest number I have decided to explain my reasoning in language that (hopefully) anyone can understand, thus settling this dispute once and for all in the eyes of any reasonable person.

While a whole book might easily be devoted to this subject, it is my intention to present here only a brief treatise on the subject in order to make the information as accessible as possible.  I present herein three separate, but not entirely independent, arguments to make my case.  I call them respectively:

1.     The Property Rights Argument,

2.     The Robin Hood Argument, and

3.     The Smart Business Argument.

The Property Rights Argument is the one usually presented by libertarians in the manner of the late Murray Rothbard. Unfortunately, Rothbard presupposed that most people would accept intuitively that people own their own bodies. From this assumption he then reasoned that this implied the existence of property rights and hence absolute ownership of whatever the individual might create or produce.  While the reasoning behind this argument is correct, few people accept it because it is counter-intuitive.  It is counter-intuitive because as children it is obvious to us that our parents own our bodies, rather than we ourselves.  When we go to school our teachers appear to own us.  And when we grow up and become employees it often seems that our employers own us.  We also observe as adults that if we refuse to pay taxes we can involuntarily lose possession of all our assets, thus demonstrating that government has a higher claim than we do to whatever we would like to believe we own.  In the midst of such a society it is hardly surprising that most of us are unconvinced that we have any property rights not mitigated by government decree.

So it follows that if indeed we have any property rights worth discussing we will need some other way to discover this fact than simply agreeing with the Rothbard assertion that we own our own bodies. Fortunately there is another avenue of reasoning that we can call upon for this purpose.  It begins with the definition of an ethical act:

An act is ethical if it increases the creativity of anyone, including the person acting, without limiting or diminishing the creativity of anyone.

As I have shown elsewhere, this definition is logically equivalent to similar definitions in which the word “creativity” is replaced by “love”, “awareness”, “personal evolution”, or any of a potentially large set of resources that are logical equivalents of creativity.  I have also conclusively shown elsewhere that the utilitarian definition defining an ethical act as one that does more good than harm is invalid, and that because of this that it follows by simple logic that ethical ends cannot ever be attained by unethical means no matter who (or how many) benefits from such an act[1].

Now let’s ask the question, “Might it be ethical to steal someone’s possessions, either by force or by deceit?”  And the answer is a resounding, “NO!”  The scientist depends on her computer.  The poet depends on his word processor.  The artist needs her brushes and paints.  Steal these things from someone and they are rendered less creative.  By definition such an act is unethical…bad…evil.  It follows logically from this that if we have the “right” to be treated ethically then we must have the “right” to own whatever we are able to acquire without stealing from someone else…and that therefore no one has the right, for any reason, to deprive us of the fruit of our bodies’ labor.  By similar reasoning it follows that we do indeed own our own bodies and that any act which abrogates that right of ownership is an act of slavery because it diminishes our self-ownership.  If our physical and financial possessions indeed contribute to our creativity, then it follows that the systematic removal of any such resources from our possession is evil and is a form of enslavement.  Taxation is just such an act.

The Robin Hood Argument is even easier to understand.  We begin the discussion with my asking you the question, “Would it be all right with you if I stole your assets?”

And of course your answer is, “No.”

Next I ask, “Would it matter to you whether the theft was by force or by fraud?”

Again you answer, “No.”

Then I ask, “Would you care what I did with the money?”

Again, “No.”

Then I ask, “What if I gave the money away…would that make it okay?”

Again, “No.”

“Suppose I gave half the money to a lot of poor people and they liked it and wanted more.  Would that make the theft okay with you?”

Still, “No.”

“Suppose all those poor folks elected a bunch of congressmen and I gave the other half of your money to them to spend as they wished.  Would that make the theft okay with you?”

Still, “No.”

“Finally, suppose those congressmen got together and wrote a piece of paper saying it was all right for me to steal from you and give away the proceeds; and they called that piece of paper a ‘tax law’.  Would that make the theft okay with you?”

At this point I hope you have the good sense to continue saying, “No. NO. NO!”

Now I put it to you that the above description is exactly the reality that you face in relation to government as we know it today.  The “I” in the example above is the IRS.  It takes away your money by means of coercion, intimidation, and force and gives it to others who claim to legitimize the theft on the basis of majority rule, public benefit, wealth distribution, homeland security, etc., etc., etc.  To the extent that the above description is correct, the government is a thieving parasite and you are its host.  To the extent that you don’t get to keep the fruit of your labor the government owns it, not you; and to that extent you are a slave.

I should say a few words here about how the government steals from you.  It does so in three ways.  First it taxes you directly by means of income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, parking and traffic tickets, court imposed fines, school and utility district assessments, licensing and registration fees, gasoline, alcohol, and tobacco taxes, etc.  Then there are taxes passed on to you indirectly.  Most of these are taxes paid by the businesses which make or import the things you buy.  Every time the government requires a tariff for the importation of foreign goods or raw materials it requires you to pay more and get less.  If your Toyota dealer pays a tariff, then you are paying more for a car than the free market would charge.  If you save yourself the added expense by buying a Ford, then in effect your government insists you settle for an inferior product so that Ford can make a bigger profit.  This amounts to an indirect tax.  Either way value is taken away from you and given to someone else who didn’t earn it.

And finally there are hidden taxes.  The most blatant example of a hidden tax is inflation…the illusion of rising prices. Every time the Federal Reserve prints money for the government to spend, the government gets the full value of each Federal Reserve “dollar” printed.  But shortly after the money is spent by the government it is absorbed by the economy and the value of every dollar in your bank account is diminished. In effect the government thereby steals the buying power of all of your money without your even knowing that you are being taxed[2].

All in all, if one includes direct, indirect, and hidden taxes, the average American gives up about 50% of their gross income to local, state, and federal authorities by way of taxes.  That means that fully half the fruit of your labor is forfeit whether you like it or not. Is it any less odious to be a half time slave than it would be to live as a full time slave?  I think not?  Slavery is slavery.

The Smart Business Argument starts with a fantasy.  Imagine I am a slave owner and you are one of my hard-working slaves whom I use as labor in my agricultural business.  They (and you) plant my fields and harvest my crops, which I sell at a substantial profit.  My business depends on them.  While you may think that slave labor is free to me, the fact is that it is not. Besides the initial purchase of my slaves, I have to maintain them.  I feed, clothe, and house them…albeit cheaply, but it’s not free.  I pay for whatever medical expenses I decide to invest in their health and I pay for their management, which includes the services of bounty hunters who round them up for me when they escape. I also have to pay for the tools and implements that my slaves use and the seeds that they plant.  All in all it’s an expensive operation.  What is more, I am limited in the geographical scope over which I can deploy my slaves, so my business is pretty much limited to the acreage contiguous to my home.  This limits my profits still further.

Not wishing to remain so limited I consult a savvy business advisor and soon create a labor cartel together with a number of my colleagues.  The cartel in turn goes into partnership with the government.  Soon thereafter I round up all my slaves to attend a meeting at which I make the following announcements:

“As of today your life will be different.  Subject to certain rules and conditions, you and all other slaves will hereby be set free.  The purpose of the rules is to reimburse me and my colleagues for the investment that we have made in you.  When that debt has been paid, you will be completely free for all time.  These are the rules:

1.    You can live anywhere in the world you wish.  As of today you can live in any housing you can afford.  You pay for your own.

2.    You can do any kind of work you want to do. You will work whatever hours you and your employer agree upon.

3.     You will attend school through at least the age of 18 in preparation for your work.  You will pay for your schools through taxes.

4.    You may own a business if you so desire and are able to acquire the capital needed to start it.

5.    You will carry an identification token all your life and through it your income will be tracked. I will know where you are working and for whom.  I will know how much you earn and where you bank.

6.    Directly and indirectly you will pay me and my colleagues 50¢ out of every dollar that you earn.  This will apply toward payment of your debt to me.

7.    If you need to borrow additional money and can convince a bank that you are a good ‘credit risk’, money will be created for you with the stroke of a computer key. This money costs the bank nothing to create and represents no risk to the bank, but if you fail to repay it with interest the bank will take away your house, your car, or any other assets you have that the bank required as collateral for the loan.

8.    When the government needs to spend more money than it has collected in taxes, it will ‘borrow’ it from the Federal Reserve System which is a cartel of the world’s biggest banks. It will not need your permission to do this, but you and your descendents will be responsible for repayment of the loan. It will simply be added to whatever you already owe[3].  Naturally the value (buying power) of all the money (Federal Reserve Notes) in your possession will steadily diminish as the Fed continues this practice, so of course your debt to me and my colleagues will never be repaid in full.

9.    In order to maintain your sense of freedom you will participate in general elections at regular intervals.  The majority vote will determine who occupy the positions of elected officialdom. But the rules above will never be changed to your advantage…only to the advantage of the banking and labor cartels that are actually the owners of the whole system (including you).  Accordingly, discussion of these rules will never be part of the general debate at election time.

10.                        The local, state, and federal governments of the United States will be responsible for enforcement of the rules above in keeping with its partnership in the banking and labor cartels.  The courts will adjudicate any conflicts that arise; but discussion of these rules will be forbidden in court and any reference to them will be deemed ‘frivolous’ by the courts.  In this way the rules become in themselves a form of law more potent and inviolable than the state and federal constitutions and local charters that might otherwise interfere with the working of the rules.”

The rules above are just “smart business” from the viewpoint of the modern slave owner.  Costs are held to a minimum.  Productivity is maximized.  The slaves manage themselves.  There are no rebellions to be concerned with.  And yet the slaves are easy to manipulate and control using modern methods of scholastic indoctrination and media communication.  What a blessing that most of the slaves have no inkling whatever that they are in fact slaves.  This fact alone makes the whole system worth whatever sacrifices the slave owners have made to create it, because there are no organized modes of resistance to the system. Even the organized religions don’t protest the half-time slavery imposed on the public.  What a deal for the owners of the system!