Taxation Is Thievery

Taxes have for eons been regarded as inevitable, to be accepted with fatalism, as in "death and taxes."

At one time a few thousand years ago, people knew taxes were theft. Since the "tax collectors" were robber gangs who pillaged and extorted farmers and villages and then pretended to be nothing else. The robbers eventually found it to be more efficient to settle among their victims and to rule. Then taxed them continuously rather then just hit them in occasional raids that would impair the productivity of the victims and thus reduce the available swag. This was the origin of rulers and taxes. After anything has seen long usage it seems "natural" ... even if it is absurd or unjust.

So taxes originated as theft, so what? Aren't taxes necessary? Aren't they moral in a democracy, after all, we're doing it to ourselves, aren't we?

To take the second question first, NO, we're not "doing it to ourselves," some of us are doing it to the rest of us. It would make little sense to "tax" yourself $5.00 from your right pocket and put the "tax revenue" into your left pocket. It is also a fallacy to regard the mere mechanism with which decisions are reached to affirm its moral character. If I shoot you without just cause, I've performed an immoral act. If ten of your neighbors don't like the way you dress and hold a lynch party for you, "democratically" electing to stretch your neck, it is still immoral. It would still be immoral if 200 million or two billion people had an election to decide if you should be hung. Also, using the euphemism, "taxation" instead of theft, and having an agency that claims to represent "the people" or "the nation" instead of one lone robber, in no way changes the moral quality of the act, in fact, the mugger is MORE moral, since he doesn't try to claim that YOU are the criminal if you try to avoid him.

To the question: "Aren't taxes necessary?" We must ask what do we mean by necessary. Necessary for what and to whom? The argument of the pro-taxers goes almost like this: "There are some things that are very desirable that cannot be supported by people voluntarily trading on a free market. To get these desirable goals we must force people to support them. "Sometimes they add: "We, being experts, can spend the people's money much wiser than they could themselves. Besides, our goals are much more noble and loftier than the frivolous and trivial ends for which people would use the money anyway."

It's claimed, garbage would lay knee deep in the streets if trash removal isn't provided by government; that muggers and rapists would roam at will without government police on hand; that the commuter train and bus lines would cease if turned back to private enterprise. If you believe that, you also must believe that wet streets make rain. Why, would men be so foolish to allow such services to cease without the government intervention? Do men go bare foot because the shoe industry is still a private operation? Do men forget to report to their jobs every morning because the government does not yet provide them with alarm clocks? Of course not. It is ridiculous to assert that rational men would fail to support voluntarily services they need if they weren't forced to do so. It's ridiculous, and immoral, to force men to support services they do not use and do not value, just because one man or a group of men think they know what is best for everybody else.

Government services furnished today could be provided just as well by free market entrepreneurs. People would pay for what they need. No person would be forced to work for the benefit of another (sometimes known as slavery) and no other person could expect to have that person work for him. Taxation is theft and should be abolished. Government monopolies must be removed so that entrepreneurs can freely compete and make taxation unnecessary. Only then, will man, be truly able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Remember, in a free market, people willingly make any exchange that will improve their condition, AS THEY SEE IT. If you value something of somebody else's, less than you value what you could exchange for it (labor, money, goods, lands, etc.) then you won't make the exchange. On a free market BOTH parties to an exchange must benefit before any trade can occur. If we value a person's property more than he does we would be willing to offer what he wants, and would not need to use force. Because we feel we need to use compulsion is proof that our ends are less good than those that would be sought on a free market.

Besides the economic loss to the tax victim, we are robbing him of an even greater value, his personal autonomy; his right of self ownership. When we say you "own" something we mean that you control it for your benefit. When you use coercion to control someone who has not transgressed against you, you are to some degree, enslaving him.

The basis of a belief in liberty must start with the premise of an individual's ownership of himself, mind and body. A person's property is an extension of his self. ANY element of coercion, even for "good" reasons, subverts this self ownership and further encroachments are inevitable, until we reach the point where slavery is almost total, such as in the communist countries, or in a system of taxpayer feudalism as in the United States of America today.

The fundamental right of any man is the right to life, sustained by freedom of choice. The right to control the property he earns through his efforts or voluntary exchange with other men. Any man has the right to defend, by force if necessary, his life, liberty or property. A man's existence or what he has earned is not the property of others. Man is not a slave to be exploited for the desires, whims or needs of other people. When the property of a man (his life, or that that sustains it) is taken from him by force, the actions are THEFT.

One man has taken it upon himself, to demand money of people on the street. If they refuse, he assaults them and takes their money by force. This person is immoral and is a thief. The individual robbed is a blameless, innocent victim.

When in search of more prey, the man gathers a group of accomplices who then title themselves the "syndicate." They go to terrorize small businessmen until they turn over "safeguard" money on demand. Those who refuse meet with "accidents." Are the actions of this gang any less criminal simply because there were a dozen of them instead of only one? The only rational answer is that their action would not be any different, that ROBBERY is ROBBERY and MURDER is MURDER whether committed by one man or dozens acting in unity.

Finding the "syndicate" at odds over splitting the plunderage, our man decides to take a job for a very large ring called the "Internal Revenue Service." He now declares that he is an agent of a larger group called "the government." And is empowered to seize money or property to satisfy alleged debts due "the government." Instead of being labeled a THIEF, our man is called a TAX COLLECTOR. He now claims he isn't taking the money for himself (though he's paid handsomely and has little risk) but is collecting for"the poor" or "defense" or for "the man on the moon." Is he now acting anymore moral that when he was a lone thief or a member of the gangster "syndicate?" Like the criminal, the "TAX COLLECTOR" is taking money or property that does not belong to him or "the government" and the victim does not choose to give voluntarily. If the victim voluntarily supported the cause for which he's taxed, there would be no need to tax him in the first place. A criminal will SEIZE property if he wishes and a "TAX COLLECTOR" will do the same, threatens the victim with jail if he attempts to protect what is his.

It is irrelevant whether another man steals by his authority or with the sanction of a million others. Whether he takes money for himself or for "the poor" or for any other group that did not earn it. Theft consists of taking a man's property against his will, despite the beneficiary. If the individual has an unalienable right to his life, liberty and property, then morally his life and property are his to do with as he pleases. It is just as immoral for a government to attempt to tax his earnings. Regulate his business or draft his sons as it would be for some isolated individual acting on his own authority to do so. The association of men into a group called "government" does not free them from morality or sanction actions otherwise immoral.

Here arises the myth that governments are empowered to do things that people are not. What thing? It's alleged, the majority has the right to rule over the minority. This idea could lead to dictatorship of the majority and genocide if carried to its logical extreme. That which government can properly do, is no different in essence from what people may do. Governments are nothing more than a collection of people organized for some purpose, preferably protection. If a single individual does not have the right to do something, then there is no way that an association of people can suddenly own this so called right. All that is immoral for the individual to do, is immoral for a group of people to do, no matter how lofty the ends they proclaim or divinely inspired they claim their association to be.

Taxes on American people are estimated to be 35 to 54% of an average man's wages. If you are rich, or richer than most you may pay a lot more. The graduated income tax feature adds to the injustice of taxation. It hits hard at those whom by their savings and their abilities, have shown themselves to be efficient satisfiers to the wants of men. Taxation is bad enough without adding special features that penalize the doers, the creators of wealth, the inventors, and the rest, upon who, progress for all mankind depends.

Taxes are extorted for projects of which the "taxpayer" does not approve. They cause dislocation of scarce economic resources and retard growth. They enable the state to carry on all manner of anti-freedom activities. They permit the state to manipulate persons, or special interest groups, by helping them or harming them by tax regulations. It's stated that "THE POWER TO TAX IS THE POWER TO ENSLAVE."

What we need is not "tax reform" that is a euphemism for "tax him more and me less"; not more taxes on business that are, after all, ultimately passed on to the consumer; not more taxes on more things or on "bad" things like cigarettes, poor housing, or luxury cars; not tariffs or savings bonds or deficit spending or inflation or gimmicks that politicians pull to hide the magnitude of their theft from the wage earner. What we need is an end to taxes entirely!

Even if it is theft, aren't there still SOME things, for which we need taxes? What about schools, fire departments, roads, police, the post office, and national defense? Well, private schools cost less and provide much higher quality education. More important such schools are much more diverse and schools can be found to meet special needs of different students. Fire departments originated as part of private insurance companies. The first good road systems in both England and America were built by private toll companies. The only reason the post office survived the 19th century is that Congress outlawed private postal companies granting the post office the monopoly. There are many private security companies growing at a rapid pace as the government police prove ineffective at stopping crime. Private arbitration agreements are replacing costly and drawn out court procedures. Private military forces can offer defense to large corporations and insurance companies. If there were no "nations" we wouldn't need national defense.

"Libertarians" who don't believe in government, they're advocates of a pure free market. They say that ALL goods and services can be supplied much more effectively and morally on a free market basis, if they should be supplied at all.

"Limited Government" libertarians favor a government that could ONLY provide police, law and national defense services. They agree that everything else the state does could be provided better, on the free market or shouldn't be done anyway. Limited government libertarians do not advocate tax-theft to support the few services they would allow the state to provide. The costs of a mini-state would be low by today's standards. They say revenues could be raised from lotteries, voluntary contributions, and fees for the uses of certain government services. Such as the right to enforce a contract in a court of law. It's suggested that contracts to be enforced in a government court could be registered when made and a fee paid for that registration.

TAXATION IS BOTH UNNECESSARY AND AN EVIL. BUT THEN THEFT ALWAYS IS.

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