A rallying cry I fully endorse, the last line from this piece 'The Tea Party as a Leaderless Movement' from Lew Rockwell's site, saying something similar to what I wrote below. As Lew puts it:
So take heart, my friends. Resistance is Victory.
"More and more of us are withdrawing our consent, the one deadly,non-violent threat they face. It is the role of LRC to stoke this rebellion. Thanks to all of you who make that possible. And what a great time to be alive! We have much work to do, but so much to look forward to. Fighting the bad guys by changing hearts and minds is not only essential to all we believe in, indeed to the future of our freedom, prosperity, and civilization, it is a heck of a lot of fun. Let’s roll!"
So take heart, my friends. Resistance is Victory.
18 comments:
It's easy slagging off publicly collected taxes, but what are your views on privately collected taxes?
That means money that private individuals are forced to give to other private individuals because 'the state' (as referee for 'society in general') creates, respects and protects certain privileges or quasi-monopolies of the latter group?
That's the only reason we have income tax and VAT and so on, because the latter group collected more and more and so 'the state' (i,e. 'society in general') had to resort to other means of raising money to fund those things that benefit us all.
You'll have to give me some examples of 'private taxes', as I don't know what you mean, and I don't recognise your description on the origin of taxes from any history book I've read.
Taking the state as, at best, a necessary evil, (I won't go further than that), I will concede that it needs some means to support its actions on our behalf, vis some form of revenue raising. This covers, I would say, less than 10% of its present activity, the rest being, by my reckoning, illegitimate, unnecessary and positively corrosive to society's interests.
In the small area where I think the state has some legimacy, it generally fails. Militarily, it drags our armies into unnecessary foreign wars, politically, it betrays the sovereignty of this nation and our laws and it does not safeguard our individual rights and liberties. Elsewhere, in areas where it has no business, it intervenes in disastrous ways. It runs up enormous bills, that we the people are expected to pay. In short, the state is often the enemy of the people, of which I am one.
You seem to suggest that without a state we would be prey to the petty tyrannies of petty tyrants. Perhaps so, but, like the credit companies who suggest consolidating all our debts into one, the state represents a consolidation of tyranny, and whereas the petty tyrant can be resisted or evaded, the grand tyrant is a far mightier foe.
You may dismiss these words, but please explain your position more. I know you talk much about tax on your blog, but I think I miss your fundamental point, and I'm always willing to learn and challenge my own views.
1. 'The State' and 'land ownership' are synonymous. You cannot have one without the other.
2. Landowners get a lot of money (from other citizens, i.e. from the productive economy) simply for being landowners.
3. Therefore any money you get from landownership is privately collected tax. And any money you pay to occupy or buy land* is exactly the same as paying tax.
* 'Land' as in 'location' and excluding the buildigns and improvements thereon.
5. In that sense, mediaeval tax systems (as still practised in Monaco, Jersey, Hong Kong) where you pay 'rent' to the King or the state, but little or no income tax are vastly preferable to modern tax systems where you pay rent** to landowners AND income tax to the government.
** Includes mortgage repayments - that's just rent paid indirectly via the bank.
All this stuff was clear to Adam Smith, Ricardo, JS Mill, Edmun Burke, Milton Friedman, Henry George, all of them said it.
The state and land ownership are by no means synonymous, and you can have land ownership without a state.
Land is an economic good like any other. The distinction between land ownership and 'the productive economy' is mistaken.
Your definition of 'privately collected tax' could equally be applied to any transaction, such as the one I made with the local off-licence, the difference being he was a beer-owner, rather than a land-owner.
Any system which reduces tax is preferable to the high-tax system we have here now, and you need to add Carl Menger to your reading list!
The state and land ownership are by no means synonymous, and you can have land ownership without a state
How? Property rights can only exist if there is the rule of law to enforce them. Without the state there can be no rule of law, as there is no ultimate authority. Without the state and the rule of law, there are just people with private armies and those that are coerced to pay tax to private armies to protect them.
I said 'land ownership'. You then substituted 'property rights'.
Either can be upheld by individual action. If you break into my house, I will attempt to demonstrate this. The picture you paint of private armies is not really different than the state as it is now - the difference is one of size. I am coerced to pay taxes just the same. Why is the state any more legitimate than any gangster with the means to coerce? What is the basis of this legitimacy?
In any case, to say that without the state there can be no private property is not the same as saying that the two are synonymous. A woman can't get pregnant without sexual intercourse, but pregnancy and sexual intercourse are not synonymous.
TT, as Stephen says: "Without the state and the rule of law, there are just people with private armies"
But if your private army is big enough (Normans invading Britain, British invading North America etc) your ARE the state. And the first thing you do is decide who 'owns' the land.
You cannot claim for one second that a totally fragmented society where everybody stands guard over what he considers to be his 'own' land with a shotgun, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is in anyway a 'land owner'.
Conversely, even in Soviet Russia (clearly a 'state') there was clear land ownership - it all 'belonged' legally to 'the state' (even though most business or families were given exclusive possession of bits of it, provided they kept their noses clean).
So maybe a gang of shotgun toting nutters decide it is silly pointing their weapons at each other 24/7 (because they'd starve to death if that's all they did) and form a sort of Neighbourhood Watch to keep out third parties who are fewer in number or don't have so many weapons? Is the Neighbourhood Watch then not 'the state'?
And if you don't have a shotgun but quite like the fact that the area patrolled by the Neighbourhood Watch is relatively peaceful and relatively prosperous (because only a small number of them are needed to be on patrol at any one time), then you would want to live their, and they will charge you rent for the pleasure of living their, rather than living somewhere where there is constant civil war.
How is that 'rent' funamentally different from 'tax'? If you don't want to pay tax to the UK state, try moving to somewhere like Somalia or Afghanistan where there is no 'state' in the Western sense.
Ergo, 'the state' and 'land ownership' are synonymous.
The fact that Western governments waste an awful amount of their tax revenues, and the fact that they tax us too much and on the wrong things is a separate debate.
TT: "In any case, to say that without the state there can be no private property is not the same as saying that the two are synonymous."
Yeah, but I never said that, did I, because that is a stupid thing to say.
You can take any other form of 'private property' abroad with you. Your appearance, skills, talent, trinkets of jewellery, your family - they go with you wherever you go. So these things do not rely on 'the state' for their existence.
(For example, drug dealers and prostitutes manage perfectly well to operate in a free market, despite most 'states' are doing their level best to criminalise them. If you've just bought some drugs, you would consider that to be your private property, and rightly so. A prostitute would consider her body to be her private property and rightly so).
BUT you cannot take 'land' abroad with you, and you can only 'own' it (in the modern Western sense) if there is a State to guarantee and protect your title.
Do you not see that there is a massive difference between land ownership and most other forms of 'private property'?
"Do you not see that there is a massive difference between land ownership and most other forms of 'private property'?"
Well, you can't move it, that's true, but you exchange land in the same way as other goods. In economic terms, I don't see that it should be treated differently from any other good.
"if your private army is big enough ... your ARE the state"
This is the point I've made above ('Why is the state any more legitimate than any gangster with the means to coerce? What is the basis of this legitimacy?')
"You cannot claim for one second that a totally fragmented society where everybody stands guard over what he considers to be his 'own' land with a shotgun, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is in anyway a 'land owner'."
I haven't claimed this, but I don't see why it is unclaimable. I would say a man pointing a shotgun at you, telling you to get off his land is in possession of quite a persuasive argument supporting his ownership of that particular parcel of land. In what way is he not the owner? In a broken society where trade has collapsed, he will still have the use of the land. Indeed he may own it more completely than in a highly-developed society, because there won't be any government inspectors telling him what he can and can't do with it.
"you can only 'own' it (in the modern Western sense) if there is a State to guarantee and protect your title"
But, we seem to agree that the state is merely the biggest, baddest coercive power. In your 'modern Western' concept of ownership, whatever you own is at the indulgence of this power, and if that power is swept away by an invading force, your ownership will likewise be swept away. If this is the case, yet again land ownership is shown to be no different from other forms of private property, such as gold or grain - they can be seized by force.
It seems to me, rather than 'the state' and 'land-ownership' being synonymous, it is 'the state' and 'the guy with the biggest gang' which are synonymous.
Alternatively to this view, I would say that the individual has rights and liberties that are not granted by the state, but rather inalienable and derived from natural law, including the right to private property. The state's legitimacy must derive from the individuals who comprise the society. Its function is to protect our rights and liberties. It does not grant these liberties. Taking this view, tax is only legitimate if it serves the purposes of legitimate action by the state. As is most often doesn't then the state can only fall back to the other argument of 'who's got the most guns'.
As this argument has ensued due to the title of this post, perhaps if I had inserted the word 'illegitimate' in the phrase 'No to taxation', we would have avoided much of the dispute, as I am not an anarcho-capitalist (yet). It may be the case that your views on land-ownership could provide a far better system of taxation than what we have at present, but I suspect they are in part based on erroneous classical economic concepts, that have been exploded by Menger and his descendents.
I said 'land ownership'. You then substituted 'property rights'
Because the same general problem applies to both.
Either can be upheld by individual action
Well, yes, but that hardly the basis for an orderly society, as it would place the burden upon the individual to protect his property. This would mean that anyone who was too weak to protect their property or unable to secure a protector, would lose it. That is very opposite of the rule of law - and is a gangster state.
The picture you paint of private armies is not really different than the state as it is now
It is very different. Even when the system fails, as it often does, there is still the expectation of equal treatment under the law and some statutory means to enforce it. I know that remark may be met with a cynical sneer, but I find that imperfect situation better than the absence of law we would find in the warlord society advocated by some anarcho-capitalists.
I am coerced to pay taxes just the same. Why is the state any more legitimate than any gangster with the means to coerce? What is the basis of this legitimacy?
This is just nihilism. We have a representative democracy and the principle of the rule of law. Thst is better than the rule of any arbirary Don Corleone. That would be taking us back to the Middle Ages, where the King operated like a mobster and his barons like his capos.
In any case, to say that without the state there can be no private property is not the same as saying that the two are synonymous
Private property is a legal construct. Without the rule of law, private property is whatever force of arms can retain. Private property cannot exist in any real sense without the state to provide the legal framework in which property rights can be asserted, rules of inheritance respected and the trade of property regulated. In the absence of those things, my property is what I can defend with my own hands and weapons. Once I become too weak to defend that property then it can become soneone else's who has the strength to take it from me. That is not a propety right that I would recognise.
In any case, to say that without the state there can be no private property is not the same as saying that the two are synonymous
I should add, in case it is not already abundantly clear, that I am not claiming them to be 'synonymous'. The state and the rule of law are necessary conditions for property rights to exist as an abstract concept; but plainly the existence of the state is not sufficient - as no end of tyrannies demonstrate.
I haven't claimed this, but I don't see why it is unclaimable. I would say a man pointing a shotgun at you, telling you to get off his land is in possession of quite a persuasive argument supporting his ownership of that particular parcel of land
But suppose you wake up in the middle of the night and find a trespasser standing over your bed with a shotgun pointed at your head. He informs you that by the authority of his shotgun, you are on HIS property and that you must leave or he will shoot you in the head. Isn't that just as 'persuasive' an argument? And if you do not have the means to counter his use of force, well your property has just become his property. Indeed this is precisely what Norman advertures did during the 20 years after 1066!
Individual action is not precluded by the existence of the state.
"hardly the basis for an orderly society"
On the contrary, individuals willing and able to defend themselves and their property is the basis for a free and orderly society. An armed home-owner is a powerful disincentive to burglars.
"it would place the burden upon the individual to protect his property"
The burden is on the individual. If I leave my front door open, and the television disappears, the insurance company would not pay compensation, notwithstanding the illegality of whoever took it.
"we would find in the warlord society advocated by some anarcho-capitalists"
This is not what anarcho-capitalists advocate. It is what they are told would inevitably arise from the application of their principles.
"This is just nihilism"
Certainly not. I merely asked the question of what the legitimacy of the state is based on. I am all in favour of the Rule of Law. If the Rule of Law means anything, the state must be subject to it as well as the people. However, I can find many instances where the state violates the Rule of Law, indeed I would say that the state is by far the greatest threat to the Rule of Law. It is not nihilism to deny the state's God-like status. Far from this, I maintain individual liberty and natural rights.
"Private property is a legal construct."
Only to you, who puts the state in the position of God, from whom all things descend. Private property was not created by the state. It was not brought into being by legislative action, but arose spontaneously amongst individuals. The legal construct came afterwards.
This argument is looking at fundamental issues of political philosophy, which do not necessarily affect our decisions in the present moment. You have brought up, for example, the subject of the Rule of Law, and I expect you would agree that this is not something that can easily be pinned down.
My answer to your question at 13:57, is that this doesn't refute the point I made, which is land-ownership can exist without the state playing a role. However, my individual, inalienable right has been violated in this act, irrespective of if this trespasser is a common criminal or is wearing the uniform of a state official.
The Norman adventurers which you use to bolster your argument actually undermine it, as these are the originators of our modern state. It was, and continues to be, necessary to force the state to accept the Rule of Law being above them. This is what Magna Carta shows, and the constitutional documents of the United States.
In your interpretation of the situation you describe, you will have to run to the state and ask them to uphold your prior claim. Likewise so will I. However, if the state is corrupt and rules against me, you will have no complaint, unless you believe that your right is based on something other than the state's discretion. I will have every reason to complain, as the state is not upholding the Rule of Law.
Individual action is not precluded by the existence of the state
I never claimed it was.
On the contrary, individuals willing and able to defend themselves and their property is the basis for a free and orderly society
I never said that individuals did not have the right to defend themselves. What I am saying is that a society in which the ONLY means of defending your property is by individual action is not an orderly or just society, as it puts those who are unable to defend themselves at the mercy of those aggressive individuals who will use force to get whatthey want.
This is not what anarcho-capitalists advocate
Whatever. If they are so naive or obstinate to deny the inevitable consequences of their ideas, then I care not one whit whether they overtly advocate it or not.
It is what they are told would inevitably arise from the application of their principles
But I have yet to read a convincing argument why their utopian ideas would not have this result.
I merely asked the question of what the legitimacy of the state is based on
That could be a book in itself. In the case of a modern western state, its legitimacy derives from being a democratic state.
I am all in favour of the Rule of Law. If the Rule of Law means anything, the state must be subject to it as well as the people
I am not disagreeing.
However, I can find many instances where the state violates the Rule of Law, indeed I would say that the state is by far the greatest threat to the Rule of Law
Although I can also think of cases where the state behaves illegally, you are exaggerating wildly when you claim that the state in general is the 'greatest threat to the rule of law'. Not every state is Nazi Germany!!!
It is not nihilism to deny the state's God-like status. Far from this, I maintain individual liberty and natural rights
You claimed considerably more than that before. You impiled that the modern democratic state was equivalent to rule by a gangster. That is absurd.
Only to you
Not only to me, though of course I concede that this is an idea that is anathema to libertarians.
Private property was not created by the state. It was not brought into being by legislative action, but arose spontaneously amongst individuals. The legal construct came afterwards
But without the state, and without the rule of law, title to property rests with the person who has the power to keep it. Therefore property rights in the time before the state and the law, are based wholly upon who is strong enough to hold onto that property. In pre-history, who can say when the concept of property arose? I don't think it is terribly important because all of the important attributes of property - that it can sold, rented, lent, made to work for its owner - are all wholly dependent upon its legal status.
My answer to your question at 13:57, is that this doesn't refute the point I made, which is land-ownership can exist without the state playing a role
I think it refutes it utterly as the ownership of the land has changed through the application of violence. And if you disagree with this position then that means that no one in the UK has good title to any piece of land, as nearly all of it will have changed hands in the past through the use of force.
The Norman adventurers which you use to bolster your argument actually undermine it, as these are the originators of our modern state
How does it invalidate my point? All present onwership of land is derived from the 'good title' that the Domesday Book defined. The logic of your position is to say that all ownership of land in the present era is illegitimate because it is based on the expropriations of 1066 - 1086. Therefore if I can establish that I am descended from a Saxon living in Chelsea in 1070, I should be entitled to claim my share of a Chelsea flat in 2010. Somehow I don't think even the Libertarian Party would subscribe to that interpretation of property rights!
"You impiled that the modern democratic state was equivalent to rule by a gangster."
What I did was ask you what the state's legitimacy was based upon. If it is based upon mere force, then indeed the difference between the modern state and rule by a gangster is only one of size.
Above you say that its legitimacy derives from democracy. Okay, I agree the consent of the people is necessary, but you may well go further. So, what do you mean by the Rule of Law? Is the Rule of Law whatever the demos decides? Can the majority of the people take away the rights and liberties of a minority? Does anyone even have any rights and liberties, or are these just 'legal constructs' granted by the state? Are there limitations on the state? If so, who or what sets these limitations? Are there limitations on democracy, or can the demos do whatever a majority of them choose? These are fundamental questions that you are avoiding, by reducing your defence to the 'modern, democratic state' which seems to have leapt into being, fully-armed and fully-formed, as Athena from the body of Zeus.
"Not only to me, though of course I concede that this is an idea that is anathema to libertarians"
You can't get away with such sweeping histrionics. It's got nothing to do with being anathema to anyone. It is a question of 'which came first?' I say that private property came first, arising naturally, and the legal construct followed. You seem to be saying that there was no such thing as private property before somebody wrote a law, thereby creating the legal construct. This is surely wrong. If private property did not exist, there would have been no sense in creating it by law.
"you are exaggerating wildly when you claim that the state in general is the 'greatest threat to the rule of law'."
It is certainly no wild exaggeration. The state is in a far stronger position than anyone or anything else to violate the Rule of Law, the very notion of which has been denigrated for 100 years and more, as have the biblical/natural law foundations of it in this country's legal system. There is a distinction between Law and legislation, but the argument would probably be lost on you.
@ 18:36 (sigh)
"I think it refutes it utterly as the ownership of the land has changed through the application of violence."
You're tying yourself up in knots, now. The ownership of the land has indeed changed through violence. But you said that there was no ownership in existence. Now you acknowledge that there is ownership, because if the ownership has changed, it necessarily exists in the first place.
I have no idea where the rest of your argument blew in from.
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