EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
"Taxes are theft." You may have heard similar statements made or shared by your acquaintances with libertarian (or classical liberal) views. Is there any logic behind this statement, however, or is it just another hollow political slogan?
Let's start with a thought experiment. If a robber threatened you with a gun on the street and ordered you to give him your money, you would hardly call this act anything other than theft, robbery, or mugging. Similarly, if a group of robbers threatened you with violence if you did not hand over the part of your property they wanted, that would also be theft, and you would hardly hesitate to call it that. Now ask yourself:
What is the difference between simple theft and taxes?
However, when another group of people, namely the state, takes money from us in the form of taxes in a completely violent way, without seeking our consent, we, for some unclear reason, in most cases are not inclined to call this theft or robbery at all, even though this action in itself shares all the key characteristics of these crimes.
Why? One obvious reason is that it is the state that, through its organs, determines what the laws are and accordingly determines what is a crime and what is not. And of course, in its eyes, the actions through which it supports itself, such as the forcible seizure of property from citizens, called "tax", will not be defined as theft, even if it shares all the characteristics of such. This is the tautological explanation of why taxes are not considered theft.
Interestingly, if you open a tax law textbook, you will notice definitions of taxation that clearly imply that it is, in fact, formalized theft. For example, you may come across quotes like this: " […] tax can be perceived as a system that has replaced robbery and the distribution of the loot". This is not a joke, but an actual quote from the sixth edition of "Tax Law" by Ivan G. Stoyanov, published in January 2016. If even in a tax textbook, taxes are defined as theft, why then are we shy about calling them by their real name?
The myth of the "voluntary" tax
Of course, some of you would object that citizens have actually agreed to pay taxes voluntarily because they have "signed" the so-called "social contract" that establishes the society we live in and formalizes its political structure. But in reality, none of us have signed any contract, none of us have had the opportunity to agree to this so-called "contract" and, most importantly, none of us can refuse it.
Social contract theory is a theory that purports to explain how a state should be established. It is not even a theory of how human states were actually established. History shows that states usually emerge not as a result of voluntary agreements between certain individuals or groups of individuals, but as a result of war in which a small group (tribe) subjugates other groups to its rule. Hundreds of historical chronicles describe precisely these processes, contrary to the impression that Enlightenment political theory creates.
The myth of the "justified" tax
Another objection to the claim that taxes are theft of a more utilitarian kind is the argument that taxes are justified because the state performs a key function for society, most notably the maintenance of public peace and order and the enforcement of the law through its police and judicial functions. First, this objection does not actually address, but rather sidesteps, the issue, because it does not address the question of whether taxes are theft or not, but rather argues that even if they are factually theft, such theft is justified for relevant reasons. But that is not the main issue at all.
Otherwise, maintaining public order and enforcing the law are indeed key activities without which any society would collapse. However, the question arises here, since these activities are of such great importance and we, the citizens, all agree that they are extremely important – why should we be robbed in order to finance the provision of these services? Food production is also of key importance for obvious reasons – without food we cannot survive. But food producers and sellers do not rob us in the form of taxes to provide us with food. We voluntarily give them our money by buying food from them because we need it! It is completely logical to ask ourselves why it is different with the functions that the state performs? Not to mention that the state does not spend the money it seizes from us in a satisfactory manner at all, and in most cases wastes it, and this is also the opinion of the majority of Bulgarians.
Not only is there no satisfactory argument for taxation, but accepting the forcible seizure of property as legitimate has some very frightening socio-moral implications. When someone takes your property without your consent once, that is called theft. But what do you call a situation where an individual or group of individuals forcibly takes your property on a regular, regular basis, at regular intervals, and society considers it perfectly justified?
To justify taxes is to justify slavery.
Think about what it means for the state to have the right to seize part of your income – the money you have earned with your own labor. This practically means that the state has the right to ownership over (at least part of) the fruits of your labor. From where to where? This is not like signing a contract with an employer in which you agree to provide certain services in exchange for a certain payment. In this case, there is an exchange – your labor for a certain payment. However, there is no such thing in income taxation. On the contrary, the state completely unilaterally seizes part of your labor income, which you yourself have earned.
Many people don't realize the implications of this, but they are absolutely shocking. The implication of taxing your labor is that you are effectively owned by the state! That is, you are slaves to the state. The state owns you. This is not a metaphor. It is not even hyperbole. The state literally owns you, because the only way you can have ownership of the fruits of another individual's labor is for that individual to be your property.
The American philosopher Nozick the Slave gives a very good illustration of precisely this implication of taxation in the form of a thought experiment. What is the difference between a slave whose master forcibly seizes 100% of what he produces and one whose master seizes 50%, or 40%, or 30%? You can probably guess by now that the difference between the two examples is not essential, but purely quantitative.
In both cases we are talking about slaves because they have no choice – their master will seize some part of what they produce completely unilaterally, i.e. by force. The only difference is that in the first case the master seizes 100% of what is produced, and in the second case a smaller part, leaving the rest to his slave so that he can support himself and the master can save himself the trouble of doing it for him. In any case, whether partially or completely, a slave is still a slave.
Yes, taxes are theft.
This is reality. None of what I say is an exaggeration. Every tax is theft. Formalized and legalized theft that the state systematically imposes on all of us, its citizens. And that effectively makes us its slaves.
