Help me with this: Is compulsory financing of a proper government mora

Political Philosophy
1

I have problems with thinking out this issue. I will appreciate your opinion:

The existence of a proper State is the rational corollary of rational individuals living together in a organized community. It is not optional, in the sense that, if you are rational, you must support the existence of a government.

The government, in order to work, needs the means (resources) to work.

If citizens could choose between financing the government or not financing it, then the existence of the State would be optional.

But if the existence of a (proper) State is not morally optional, but necessary, then that financing should be compulsory (taxes).

You can’t have your pie and eat it.

When we explain property rights, we say that the concept of property is a corollary of the right to life. If man is to live qua man, he needs control over the means that keep them alive.

Then, what about that: If the goverment is to function like government, it needs the means to support it existence.

Since men have to respect the rights of others and have their own rights respected, having a government is a MUST.

Not sustaining a government through taxes would be equivalent to not supporting a system that protects rights.

Not sustaining a proper government would be equivalent to violating the rights of others, since a right that cannot be defended is meaningless.

Therefore, compulsory financing of a PROPER government is moral.

What is the flaw in this reasoning?

2

Check out this thread:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=20527&st=0

3

But if the existence of a (proper) State is not morally optional, but necessary, then that financing should be compulsory (taxes).

It is morally necessary to think, does that mean it is proper to threaten people with violence if they aren’t thinking?

You jumped from it is good to do X, to we must make people do X.

4

But if the existence of a (proper) State is not morally optional, but necessary, then that financing should be compulsory (taxes).

Stop at “not morally optional”. There are no unchosen moral obligations, no duties. A government is desirable, justified, even needed, but not full-out necessary in the logical sense as anarchy exists in both theory and practice.

To keep the thread alive a little longer and not let it be a stub, you might want to further inquire about the limits of the concept of “compulsory”. What exactly is compulsory and is it necessarily true (in the logical sense) that taxes must be compulsory? Is Ayn Rand’s proposed fee on contracts in the essay “Government Financing in a Free Society” fall into the category of a compulsory tax or a voluntary transaction? Does the government’s coercive monopoly on the use of retaliatory force necessarily victimize everyone who elects not to make a contract official by paying the fee?

In a fully free society, taxation-or, to be exact, payment for governmental services-would be voluntary.

If “payment for governmental services” is more exact than “taxation”, that means that “taxation” is inexact but not necessarily the wrong word. The sentence without the inserted clause asserts taxation can be voluntary. If taxation can be voluntary your whole problem is transformed.

5

I spent part of the night reading the thread that freestyle kindly suggested, including Grames last intervention in that thread, which is thought-provoking and in line with my reasoning.

If you uphold rights, you uphold ( fund) a system to make those rights effective: a retaliatory system.

Your choices are:

  1. A system with the monopoly of such a force within a territory ( government)

  2. A private agency of your choice, in line with Rothbard and anarchocapitalists

  3. Your own hands, in line with primitive men or civilized men living in a primitive society

Let’s say that 30% of the population of a country choose not to fund the government.

The government, according to Objectivism, could not force them to do it.

But then, most of this 30% chooses to fund private retaliatory agencies, because, in their opinion, they are better trained, less venial, and more reliable than the government.

A small precentage chooses to take retailatory force in their own hands.

How could the government FORCE the people who chose to fund private agencies to stop funding them?

How could the government FORCE the people who chose to take retaliation in their own hands to stop doing it?

If a proper government is entitled to exert retailatory force against people choosing to fund a private agency instead of the government, or to exert retaliatory force towards people taking justice in their own hands, it is because the actions of that 30% represent, indirectly, a violation to the concept of rights.

So we come up with two solutions:

Either we embrace the political proposal of anarchocapitalism, or we sanction compulsory taxing to sustain a proper government.

Well, what a third option, which I think brings the best of these two visions: a monopoly of force, sustained by compulsory tax, over such a small territory, that people could easily move in and out, choosing with their feet the retailatory system they are willing to fund. In such a system, the border between what is voluntary and what is compulsory would be blurred.

6

In such a system, the border between what is voluntary and what is compulsory would be blurred.

Ayn Rand’s proposed contract tax, a tax which you don’t need to pay if you are willing to do without civil court protection for that contract, also “blurs the line”.

7

Ayn Rand’s proposed contract tax, a tax which you don’t need to pay if you are willing to do without civil court protection for that contract, also “blurs the line”.

The line is the initiation of physical force. There are no gray or blurred areas, it’s a very clear line that you either cross or not.

8

But if the existence of a (proper) State is not morally optional, but necessary, then that financing should be compulsory (taxes).

Regarding this first point, I agree with the opinion already stated that just because a thing is good doesn’t mean it’s good to force people to do/support it.

How could the government FORCE the people who chose to fund private agencies to stop funding them?

I don’t think the Objectivist government would try and stop the funding, they’d just refuse to recognize the new entity as a legitimate legal authority. If the agents of that entity tried to arrest someone, the government would arrest *them* for kidnapping. If a judge from that entity sentenced someone to death, he would be arrested for murder. They would be treated like any other private citizen who tried to do those things.

One general comment I would make is that practically, for a donation-based system to ever get enacted, the level of reason in society/culture would have to be so high that there shouldn’t be any shortage of donors. And if the level of reason ever started to wane again, I’m sure one of the first things to go would be donation-based government, so I can’t see government ever running out of money, in a rational or irrational culture (well in a fully irrational of course it would, but so would everyone).

9

The line is the initiation of physical force. There are no gray or blurred areas, it’s a very clear line that you either cross or not.

Does the person who breaks the terms of a contract initiate physical force? Is the person who tries to enforce his own contracts initiating physical force? Does a government that forbids people from enforcing their own contracts itself initiate force by doing so? Is the government, by refusing to enforce a contract which has not been made formal by a fee paid to the government, participating in a kind of extortion?

I have my own answers, my point is that even here on OO.net we can get multiple answers to these questions. I am confident this can be straightened out, but nothing about it is self-evident or obvious.

10

Does the person who breaks the terms of a contract initiate physical force?

If the contract was a legally binding one (at the time it was signed), then yes. Otherwise, no. That solves all the other questions too, as follows:

Is the person who tries to enforce his own contracts initiating physical force?

Does a government that forbids people from enforcing their own contracts itself initiate force by doing so?

Is the government, by refusing to enforce a contract which has not been made formal by a fee paid to the government, participating in a kind of extortion?

Yes.

No.

No (unless the fee is exorbitant, and the money is used for a purpose other than paying for the functioning of those arms of government which are involved in contract enforcement - the Courts, Police, and the political hierarchy).

I have my own answers, my point is that even here on OO.net we can get multiple answers to these questions. I am confident this can be straightened out, but nothing about it is self-evident or obvious.

It’s not self-evident, but there are clear answers. In your contract example, charging for contract enforcement is clearly not initiation of force, and in Hotu Matua’s example there’s clearly initiation of force going on (forced taxation is force, even if the victim can move). The line isn’t blurred in either case.

11

The line [between what is voluntary and what is compulsory] is the initiation of physical force. There are no gray or blurred areas, it’s a very clear line that you either cross or not.

The “initiation of physical force” is itself not a very clear line. It is not immediately clear, looking at any particular case, whether someone has initiated force or not. For example, what constitutes a threat and what does not is a very complex question (threats to initiate force being equivalent to the initiation of force itself). Here is an example thread that discusses this question. For another example, it can be very involved to discover whether or not intellectual property rights have been violated in any particular case. Questions of “how similar is too similar” must be answered contextually and therefore individually. While the initiation of physical force as a concept is very helpful and is correct in principle, those four words do not contain everything we’d ever need to know to determine when rights have been violated in any particular case.

1 Like
12

And, ultimately, the point is whether government agents can circumvent individual rights in some degree, or not at all.

That is the ultimate line in the sand.

Now, we can debate the HOW of Rights protection by government agents, but before that, the first question is: does a government agent have the right to compel an individual to do even the slightest thing? How about just a tiny sliver of such right to initiate force, is that okay? Context: not an emergency, compelled individual not a criminal – rather, an “upstanding” citizen.

  • ico
13

Subpoena power comes to mind.