Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Is Coercive Taxation Justified?

Rate this topic


DMR

Recommended Posts

Objectivists typically hold that taxation should be voluntary. And yet, they also typically accept that it is not wrong to use force against a third party if necessary to protect yourself against a prior initiation of force, your use of force being understood as the responsibility of the initiator. For example, If I am shooting at you, and I have taken a hostage who I am using as a human shield, you may shoot the hostage as part of your attempt to defend yourself (I call this "Keanu's Law"). And Objectivists typically accept that to use force preemptively is not wrong if one has sufficient justification that another will initiate force.

Certainly, to kill another is a greater injury to him than to simply take his property. So if I am coming to kill you, and your friend Alice has a gun, but she refuses to let you use it ("It has new gun smell, you'll ruin it!"), you may steal it from her and use it to protect yourself, and the theft is not your responsibility, but mine, since I am the initiator of force.

On these grounds, I submit that not only may a government expropriate its citizens for national defense, it may expropriate them solely for its own defense, with no regard to their survival. However, it is probably in the government's interest to provide complete national defense, if only to ensure that the citizens are around to expropriate next time. The blame for this expropriation rests not on the government, but on those foreign enemies of the nation who make the world dangerous.

Did I screw up? Did Rand?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Objectivists typically hold that taxation should be voluntary.
True.

And yet, they also typically accept that it is not wrong to use force against a third party if necessary to protect yourself against a prior initiation of force, your use of force being understood as the responsibility of the initiator. For example, If I am shooting at you, and I have taken a hostage who I am using as a human shield, you may shoot the hostage as part of your attempt to defend yourself (I call this "Keanu's Law").
Huh? I have never seen such an idea stated by someone who claims to be Objectivist. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Using your scenario, are you saying that it would be okay for the human shield to draw a gun and kill me, if he had a reasonable belief that you would let him go free after I'm dead?

A threat to one's life is not carte blanche to infringe on any third party's rights.

Certainly, to kill another is a greater injury to him than to simply take his property. So if I am coming to kill you, and your friend Alice has a gun, but she refuses to let you use it ("It has new gun smell, you'll ruin it!"), you may steal it from her and use it to protect yourself, and the theft is not your responsibility, but mine, since I am the initiator of force.
No, the theft is still my responsibility, because it was my choice. It was short-sighted of me not to own a gun, if madmen like you are running around ;)

Did I screw up?
Yes, Ted "Theodore" Logan, I think so.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The whole line of reasoning you use to come to your conclusion makes no sense whatsoever. Your saying that since certain actions may be necessary in emergency situations, then the government can as a matter of course take money from you in non-emergency situations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On these grounds, I submit that not only may a government expropriate its citizens for national defense, it may expropriate them solely for its own defense, with no regard to their survival. However, it is probably in the government's interest to provide complete national defense, if only to ensure that the citizens are around to expropriate next time. The blame for this expropriation rests not on the government, but on those foreign enemies of the nation who make the world dangerous.

You are using the wrong gounds. The proper political system is not based on the ethics of emergencies.(by which individuals cannot be held to a moral standard while their lives are threatened by someone's initiation of force, and in which it is the right choice to violate someone's property rights in an emergency situation, as long as you report the crime and pay back the damage as soon as the emergency situation is over!!!)

Political systems are designed to protect people's rights in general, so no: it is not justified for a government to act in the manner you described. I guess it might be justified for an agent of the government to do something that uses soemone's property in an emergency situation, but only if he pays it back as soon as the immediate emergency is over.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Huh? I have never seen such an idea stated by someone who claims to be Objectivist. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Using your scenario, are you saying that it would be okay for the human shield to draw a gun and kill me, if he had a reasonable belief that you would let him go free after I'm dead?

I think he meant that it would be okay to shoot at the perpetrator. even tough you might hit the hostage, because the hostage is in that position because of the purpotrator.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just realized that the bigger error you're making (in interpreting Rand), beyond just the part where you're applying the ethics of emergencies a bit too broadly, should be pointed out. I don't think I was very clear about it before, so here it is:

Government isn't just another entity with rights that are the same as those of other entities (individuals). Government exists for the people, not along side the people, or above the people. Its only "right" is to use defensive or retributive force against those who threaten the rights of individuals.

The only reason we have government is to protect the rights of individuals, so it would be silly to assign it "rights" which served a different purpose. (as if the government was an individual, or even more important than an individual)

In fact, you did more than assign it rights, you are actually treating government as if it was a human being, with its ultimate value being its own existence and comfort, and as a result, you are saying that it should have the same morality a human being has. (and you're on top of that giving it a leeway not even a human being has, by misinterpreting the ethics of emergencies)

The difference between the ethics of government and humans is fundamental: they have a different purpose (government is meant to protect individual rights within a geographical area, a human being is meant to "live qua man"). Therefor, the ethics of human beings (or emergencies) cannot be applied to the entity called "government".

[edit]

Now, if you want to argue that Objectivists are wrong, because a voluntarily funded government would not be able to protect a country, and would in fact lead to the destruction of the country and everyone in it, that's different. Many Conservatives do hold that view. (there are a couple of very recent threads on the subject of the viability of a state funded by voluntary contributions, I'd suggest reading and adding to those rather than starting a new one)

But you just shouldn't suggest that there is a contradiction between Ayn Rand's politics (with a government that is expressly forbidden to tax people) and her ethics of emergencies. There isn't, as I explained above.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Objectivists typically hold that taxation should be voluntary.

I'll stop you right there. "Taxation" is a method of funding that employs coercion, so I would not even use the term "taxation" to describe the kind of funding method that would be proper to a rational government.

"Voluntary taxation" is a contradiction in terms.

Edited by AllMenAreIslands
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I submit that not only may a government expropriate its citizens for national defense, it may expropriate them solely for its own defense, with no regard to their survival.

Did I screw up? Did Rand?

Ayn Rand said that the only proper purpose of government is to protect the rights of its citizens and so it is imperative that the government not violate its citizen's rights.

You are saying that in order for a government to protect the rights of its citizens it is imperative that they violate them.

Which to you seems more consistent?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Objectivists typically hold that taxation should be voluntary. And yet, they also typically accept that it is not wrong to use force against a third party if necessary to protect yourself against a prior initiation of force, your use of force being understood as the responsibility of the initiator. For example, If I am shooting at you, and I have taken a hostage who I am using as a human shield, you may shoot the hostage as part of your attempt to defend yourself (I call this "Keanu's Law"). And Objectivists typically accept that to use force preemptively is not wrong if one has sufficient justification that another will initiate force.

Certainly, to kill another is a greater injury to him than to simply take his property. So if I am coming to kill you, and your friend Alice has a gun, but she refuses to let you use it ("It has new gun smell, you'll ruin it!"), you may steal it from her and use it to protect yourself, and the theft is not your responsibility, but mine, since I am the initiator of force.

On these grounds, I submit that not only may a government expropriate its citizens for national defense, it may expropriate them solely for its own defense, with no regard to their survival. However, it is probably in the government's interest to provide complete national defense, if only to ensure that the citizens are around to expropriate next time. The blame for this expropriation rests not on the government, but on those foreign enemies of the nation who make the world dangerous.

Did I screw up? Did Rand?

You are incorrect, because the logical thing to do is shoot the tax collector.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jake: Every Objectivist I have ever known accepts Keanu's Law. Some of these people now work for ARI. It is possible that they or I have misunderstood something, but not that this Law is foreign to Objectivism.

I grant, in principle, that the human shield could rightly shoot you (I was assuming that he did not have a gun, or could not draw it in his position).

I do not see what your short-sightedness has to do with whether your use of force is the responsibility of the initiator, yourself, or somehow split between you. In such situations, perhaps you should have known better than to not have a gun. But I should have known better than to try and shoot you. Why are you to blame for doing what is necessary to preserve yourself from my depredations?

At the risk of sounding cheeky, who is Ted Logan?

RationalBiker: What is the extent of an emergency? For example, in the case of me trying to shoot you, the emergency began when I decided to shoot you, not when I squeezed off the first round. I am suggesting that governments by their nature deal with the perpetual emergency that is a bunch of heavily armed warlords facing off against each other with no sovereign authority they can appeal to. Like all emergency situations, this is not likely to turn out well. All things considered, taxation for defense is not too bad.

Jake_Ellison: You are quite right about post-emergency considerations. Therefore, as soon as the government conquers the world (or eliminates all opposition), it should liquidate a good deal of its defense holdings and use the proceeds to compensate those it has taxed.

You're also right in how you delimit the problem. I agree that I am treating the government like a human being, and I am taking a specific position on the ethics of emergencies, namely that emergency expropriation is acceptable.

I also do not think that the notion of government existing for the people is any more sensible than that of GM existing for the people. GM exists for its own benefit, which is divided among its shareholders. I say the same is true of government, except that we don't like to talk about it and it's not clear who the shareholders are.

DavidOdden: I don't understand. I'm guessing that you're basically saying that I would need to posit the perpetual emergency, which I had not done when I made my first post. Now you would dispute it.

FrolicsomeQuipster: Or you could shoot the hostage so that his body sags, causing the hostage-taker to drop him and become an easier target.

AllMenAreIslands: I considered splitting hairs on this point, but decided against it.

Marc K: Well, I suppose I could say that Rand was using "Government" as a floating abstraction, but the board rules demand I be respectful...

Thales: The tax collector is assumed to be better armed than you. You are saying that the logical thing to do is to commit suicide. A novel approach, to be sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think he meant that it would be okay to shoot at the perpetrator. even tough you might hit the hostage, because the hostage is in that position because of the purpotrator.

He named his premise "Keanu's Law", which I figured was a reference to the movie Speed, in which Keanu Reeves intentionally shoots Jeff Daniels (hostage) in the leg to get a better shot at Dennis Hopper (bad guy).

Jake: Every Objectivist I have ever known accepts Keanu's Law. Some of these people now work for ARI. It is possible that they or I have misunderstood something, but not that this Law is foreign to Objectivism.

Normally, you wouldn't fire a bullet in the vicinity of an innocent person's head. As I see it, in the hostage situation, you might accept the increased risk of possibly injuring the hostage because you are also increasing the probability of surviving and killing the hostage-taker. This is not the same as intentionally harming the hostage.

I grant, in principle, that the human shield could rightly shoot you (I was assuming that he did not have a gun, or could not draw it in his position).

I do not.

At the risk of sounding cheeky, who is Ted Logan?

Ted Logan is Keanu Reeves' starring role in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also do not think that the notion of government existing for the people is any more sensible than that of GM existing for the people. GM exists for its own benefit, which is divided among its shareholders. I say the same is true of government, except that we don't like to talk about it and it's not clear who the shareholders are.

I think the US government has done a pretty good job in existing for the people for quite a while, even with an imperfect Constitution, and a culture that's been turning away from the country's founding ideals. All that would be needed is a Constitution which properly defines the role of the government, and a population which supports Objectivist principles to hold any politician which oversteps his bounds responsible, and such a government could exist again.

So not only can the notion exist, but even the actual implementation can and did exist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thales: The tax collector is assumed to be better armed than you. You are saying that the logical thing to do is to commit suicide. A novel approach, to be sure.

You are not grasping the point. What you go after are the force initiators, not innocent people. A tax collector is a force initiator. Furthermore, the fact is, you can have a revolution and they can work. See 1776 for details.

And Jake is right as well. You strangely give government this identity it does not have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RationalBiker: What is the extent of an emergency? For example, in the case of me trying to shoot you, the emergency began when I decided to shoot you, not when I squeezed off the first round. I am suggesting that governments by their nature deal with the perpetual emergency that is a bunch of heavily armed warlords facing off against each other with no sovereign authority they can appeal to. Like all emergency situations, this is not likely to turn out well. All things considered, taxation for defense is not too bad.

Well, one, you are suggesting something that you haven't established. We are not in a perpetual state of emergency. Were that the case, there would essentially be nothing different between 'non-emergency' and 'emergency'. If you want the extent of what an emergency is or how emergency is defined in the context of Objectivism, I suggest you read what Ayn Rand said about it in The Ethics of Emergencies in The Virtue of Selfishness. If you are going to try to establish how something is relevant and acceptable according to Objectivism (despite Ayn Rand having spelled out exactly why it isn't), then you need to know how to establish your argument, I'm not going to help you.

There is nothing in Objectivism that justifies the perpetual violation of individual rights on the part of the government for the sake of protecting those individual rights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jake: So are you saying that if your only chance of survival is to shoot the hostage, you are somehow duty-bound not to? Why is that?

Jake_Ellison: Would you agree then that unless the entire population (or at least X%) positively supports Objectivism, no written constitution, no matter how proper, is sufficient to guarantee a proper Objectivist government?

Thales: Certainly at least one of us is giving the government an identity it does not have. And I am aware that there have been successful revolutions, although they often involve the dominant power being unwilling to engage in total war, for one reason or another.

RationalBiker: Is VOS online? I cannot find it, so I'm going off of the Lexicon.

That we were in a perpetual emergency would not, by itself, demonstrate that no distinction between emergency and non-emergency exists. A shipwreck (one of Rand's examples) is a perpetual emergency until you find your way home. That you have not yet done this does not demonstrate that there is no such thing as getting home again. Likewise, if we destroyed all hostile powers, our perpetual emergency would be over. If hostile powers remain, we are in an emergency. If we cannot destroy or subjugate them, we have to establish a power equilibrium. This is sort of like being shipwrecked, but having enough coconuts to survive while you try to figure out how to get off the island. It's still sort of an emergency, but certainly better than before you found the coconuts. In any case, it would be kind of silly to blame the coconuts for your predicament.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jake_Ellison: Would you agree then that unless the entire population (or at least X%) positively supports Objectivism, no written constitution, no matter how proper, is sufficient to guarantee a proper Objectivist government?

No. (meaning there isn't a percentage that would need to support Objectivism. It's more of a question of general cultural trends) I'd elaborate, but it seems irrelevant to the question you raised.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RationalBiker: Is VOS online? I cannot find it, so I'm going off of the Lexicon.

No it is available in paperback form though. It would probably be a very helpful read (the whole book) for you if you really want to understand what you are talking about. You may or may not want to invest in the book, but it's relatively inexpensive way to address the knowledge that you are lacking that might cause you to come to the faulty conclusion to which you have come.

The Lexicon is not a sufficient source from which to learn the philosophy.

Objectivism does not support coercive taxation.

You are not the first person to come on here with a bit or a piece of knowledge about Objectivism who then thought that bit or piece of Objectivism could be used to justify some idea that is not consistent with the philosophy. If you only look at the outside of an apple, one might be tempted to claim that whole apple is red. It's only when you open the apple up and inspect it further that you find out it is not red on the inside.

And we are not in a state of perpetual emergency.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Marc K: Well, I suppose I could say that Rand was using "Government" as a floating abstraction, but the board rules demand I be respectful...

Good for you, you managed to get the insult in (though if rational discussion is what you seek, this will not encourage it), but I see no defense of your own idea. Could that be because it is self contradictory? Or are you 11? Since I suspect most 12 year olds could identify the self defeating nature of your position that: in order to protect rights, governments must violate them.

If you don't like Ayn Rand's definitions of "government", "individual rights" and "rational self-interest", then you should propose your own. Here's a hint: they should not contradict themselves or one another.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Objectivists typically hold that taxation should be voluntary. And yet, they also typically accept that it is not wrong to use force against a third party if necessary to protect yourself against a prior initiation of force, your use of force being understood as the responsibility of the initiator. For example, If I am shooting at you, and I have taken a hostage who I am using as a human shield, you may shoot the hostage as part of your attempt to defend yourself (I call this "Keanu's Law"). And Objectivists typically accept that to use force preemptively is not wrong if one has sufficient justification that another will initiate force.

Certainly, to kill another is a greater injury to him than to simply take his property. So if I am coming to kill you, and your friend Alice has a gun, but she refuses to let you use it ("It has new gun smell, you'll ruin it!"), you may steal it from her and use it to protect yourself, and the theft is not your responsibility, but mine, since I am the initiator of force.

On these grounds, I submit that not only may a government expropriate its citizens for national defense, it may expropriate them solely for its own defense, with no regard to their survival. However, it is probably in the government's interest to provide complete national defense, if only to ensure that the citizens are around to expropriate next time. The blame for this expropriation rests not on the government, but on those foreign enemies of the nation who make the world dangerous.

Did I screw up? Did Rand?

In your example Alice is not the source of the force initiated against you, nor is she standing between you and the source of the force, so there is no justification for initiating force against her. So you have no justification for steeling her gun, or using any of her property without her permission. Offcourse in an emergency situation, to save my life, I would take her gun, but I would have to repay her after the situation is resolved. Keanu's law is also a little bit unclear. You wouldn't be shooting the hostage directly, its just that in defending your self against the force initiator you are not the one responsible for innocent people that the force intiator puts in your way of defending your self.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Marc K: Your complaint might be more accurately phrased as that I am saying: in order to protect the rights most dear to you, the government must violate those less dear to you. You might find this objectionable, but I do not see how it is inconsistent.

Jake_Ellison: My point here is that you seem fundamentally to be saying the government would not have to violate anybody's rights in order to do what is objectively necessary secure and protect a proper (or best-of-all-possible-worlds) society if that entire society was so rational that they voluntarily obeyed the commands of the government. I agree. I also think having a society this rational (let alone getting from here to there) is so unlikely that it isn't worth considering. Thus the government finds itself torn between violating its citizen's rights to some extent or abandoning the best possible approximation of a proper society it can achieve, given the available means. Maybe there's a false premise in here somewhere, but if you're going to claim that the downfall of Western civilization is preferable to a modest tax, I have to disagree. I kind of like Western civilization.

avgleandt: If by "standing between you and the source" you mean where she is physically standing, then I cannot understand why this is a justification for use (not sure it would count as initiation) of force against her, but my example is not. In both cases, she is not the source of force, and we ask whether the fact that she has NOT done something (move, lend you the gun) means you may use force to alter what she is doing. On the other hand, we could read "standing" in the metaphorical sense, and say that by not lending you the gun, she is standing between you and resolving your situation favorably, in which case again her actions seem no different from obscuring your line of sight to the target.

In any case, you say that you would take the gun because it was an emergency. Me too. Why is it wrong for the government to take a bunch of guns in response to an even bigger emergency?

To clarify: Keanu's Law says simply: "Shoot the hostage." Or rather, "You may shoot the hostage in the situation described, and the moral responsibility falls on he who initiated force."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Marc K: Your complaint might be more accurately phrased as that I am saying: in order to protect the rights most dear to you, the government must violate those less dear to you. You might find this objectionable, but I do not see how it is inconsistent.

It is a pretty big complaint when your proposition is self defeating and you can't see it.

Your conception of rights is flawed so I'll suggest again that you try to define the concept "rights" and also identify the principle from which they are derived.

"Rights" are a unified whole that can be summed up as the "Right to Life". It is impossible to separate them and hold some of them sacred while violating the rest. If one is violated, they are all violated. If one person's rights are violated, all of our rights are violated.

Would you have me renounce my right to property and then have me pretend that I still have a right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness? Once one right is frustrated so are the rest, try this same test with the rest of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Marc K: A robber says to you, "Your money or your life." You respond that rights are a unified whole and cannot be separated. You bleed out in the gutter and die.

I am not going to try and define the concept of rights at this time. Maybe sometime later I'll come back and say "OMG, Marc K., you were right and I was wrong!" For now, I will say that if your own conception of rights leads you into danger and absurdity for the sake of what you call a perfect, logical, objective deduction of morality, then, I don't know, maybe you did it wrong. It's been known to happen.

Once we have finished our conceptual analysis of rights, if you want to say that for some person to demand a small share of your wealth for some purpose which is objectively in your interest is to viciously profane your sacred right to life, I am not terribly interested. My question is: can you do better? Can you build a society which violates your rights less egregiously that will survive in this world against those who would threaten it? If so, I'm interested. But I am not willing to rule out a priori that (though we're obviously nowhere near it) there is a best of all possible states, and it's going to violate your rights. I have heard Objectivists, perfectly nice people I love and respect, take up this question, and their analysis could be summarized as: "That thought is evil. Period." If this claim is wrong, there's got to be a better reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...