Taxation is violent robbery.

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Ecurb
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Ecurb »

Taxation is clearly violent, and clearly not "robbery". Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Without the government there would be no property laws, and thus no property. People have money that can be taxed only because laws (and the violent support for those laws) is financed by taxation. If you own a house and pay property taxes on it (as all of us filthy rich people do), your "ownership" allows you to gain the support of the state in preventing other people from sleeping in the house or in the yard. Obviously, this "ownership" is violent, just as taxation is. How do we get around it, though? Surely without violence homeless people would sleep in my house every night! Spartan as it is, it still beats sleeping under a bridge.

I've had homeless people sleep in my house before, but they are generally homeless people I know and like. I'm not sure I want random strangers sleeping here and eating the food in the refrigerator, unless they are willing to mow the lawn. I suppose I could violently prevent strangers from sleeping here myself (instead of relying on the tax-financed police), but is idiosyncratic viloence really better than that which is state sanctioned and democratically approved? After all, if I violently prevent random strangers from sleeping in my house, why shouldn't they violently assert there right to do so?
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Robert66
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Robert66 »

Scott wrote: April 15th, 2021, 7:57 pm
Robert66 wrote: April 15th, 2021, 6:04 pm Humans share a tendency toward selfishness and violence, writes Scott, so we should remove taxation and dismantle governments.

???
That's a misquote because I would not use the word "should". There are no shoulds in my philosophy.

Nonetheless, you may find the answers to your word-less triple-punctuated question in my topic, Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man: My Philosophy of Non-Violence, Self-Government [...]


Robert66 wrote: April 15th, 2021, 4:20 am It seems a bit rich (pun intended) to express gratitude for a lifestyle unobtainable without taxes and government while arguing for their abolishment.
Scott wrote: Would it be more rich (pun intended) to (1) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and then be ungrateful and discontent out of insatiable ungrateful greed and a discontent desire for even more money, or (2) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and being grateful that one has food to eat and a working toilet?
Robert66 wrote: April 15th, 2021, 6:16 pm What does this mean? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
I am sorry the question is not clear, but I am not sure how to clarify it. Is there a particular part of the above question that is confusing or unclear to you?
Its not just the bizarre question that is perplexing. We are meant to accept from the beginning of the OP that taxation is violent robbery, and the government owns us. I accept neither proposition, and you haven't proven them.
Tegularius
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Tegularius »

Why is everything with people so bloody complicated? Taxation is a necessity for any government to operate. It's as simple as simple can be that it's not taxation per se which is the problem but the way its implemented. What can make taxation violent robbery is the ability of those in charge to make it blatantly unfair of which there are countless examples causing revolutions and riots among the many unfairly affected. By its protectionism of the rich and privileged it becomes, in effect, a mandated self-endorsed subsidy paid for by the middle and lower classes; in short, legalized subterfuge.
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Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Ecurb wrote: April 15th, 2021, 9:24 pm Taxation is clearly violent, and clearly not "robbery".
I agree that it's clear taxation is violence, non-defensively so.

However, it's not clear at all to me that it is not robbery. In fact, quite the opposite; it's clear to me that it is robbery, at least when it is done by a big state or national government, versus for instance the governing of a condo community or small town, an important limitation explained explicitly in the OP.

Ecurb wrote: April 15th, 2021, 9:24 pm Without the government there would be no property laws, and thus no property.
That seems like a non-sequitur to me, but even if it isn't, it may be irrelevant.

It's easy enough to form a small government to declare property laws, potentially without taxes.

I can't be sure, but perhaps what you have in mind is some kind of localized property registration fee in place of taxes? That's just a guess, though. Self-government can come in many forms. The beauty of freedom, in my opinion, is the creative diversity it engenders.

I'm quite sure it doesn't take $4 trillion dollars to stop homeless people from stealing your house.

Of course, in the USA there are more homeless people than there are vacant houses, houses that themselves were arguably stolen by the for-profit big banks bailed out with taxpayer money during the housing crash of 2008. It might take a noteworthy chunk of that $4 trillion of violently taken taxpayer money to keep those vacant houses vacant for the big banks, if not to make sure the other homeowners keep paying into the rigged system not just with taxes but on other rigged end too. The profitably fun feature of state capitalism if you are a big bank is hitting people on both ends.

The USA government isn't spending $4 trillion dollars a year to protect you from homeless people. But they might use some of the $4 trillion to violently protect big banks and such from you, if needed, and to manipulate the markets in favor of big business, wall street, and state-sponsored corporations, doing whatever the paid lobbyists and campaign financiers are asking for. The big government doesn't work for you, and they never will. They work for money. It's a pay to play system, and you are the product. You have to pay voluntarily to get what you want; otherwise there's no leverage. And even when paying voluntarily, you still tend to just get your money's worth. A billion in a billion or so out. If you got enough to invest and play it right, you can make a profit. But if you only pay your lobbyist minimum wage, then it's basically useless. If you can only afford to pay minimum wage for one lobbyist, you might be better off not bothering.
Ecurb wrote: April 15th, 2021, 9:24 pm Obviously, this "ownership" is violent, just as taxation is. How do we get around it, though? Surely without violence homeless people would sleep in my house every night! Spartan as it is, it still beats sleeping under a bridge.

[...] I suppose I could violently prevent strangers from sleeping here myself (instead of relying on the tax-financed police), but is idiosyncratic viloence really better than that which is state sanctioned and democratically approved? After all, if I violently prevent random strangers from sleeping in my house, why shouldn't they violently assert there right to do so?
Each person has their own opinions and way of deciding what kind of violence they personally support if any, but for me I can't at all imagine for myself even starting to think it matters whether or not the violence is state-sanctioned. The Nazi murdering of Jews among other victims was state-sanctioned, to be philosophically cliché.

To me, what matters is whether the violence is non-defensive or not.

I'm sorry if the OP was not clear about that.


***
Tegularius wrote: April 15th, 2021, 10:25 pm Why is everything with people so bloody complicated? Taxation is a necessity for any government to operate. It's as simple as simple can be that it's not taxation per se which is the problem...
It might get complicated if we start talking about other things like (1) whether or not taxes are necessary for government to operate or (2) whether or not taxation is "the problem". Talking about too many things at once could get complicated.

However, what I wrote was that taxation is violent robbery, which is a very different matter than whether such violent robbery is "necessary" for XYZ or whether it is "the problem". Moreover, in the OP, I very clearly limited my concern to big governments, namely state, national, or global governments spending billions or trillions of dollars per year.

If I recall correctly, I very explicitly excluded, for instance, the governing board of some condo community or small town.

Self-government is the antithesis of big government.

Tegularius wrote: April 15th, 2021, 10:25 pm By its protectionism of the rich and privileged it becomes, in effect, a mandated self-endorsed subsidy paid for by the middle and lower classes; in short, legalized subterfuge.
I totally agree.
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Alias »

Scott wrote: April 15th, 2021, 11:41 pm In fact, quite the opposite; it's clear to me that it is robbery, at least when it is done by a big state or national government, versus for instance the governing of a condo community or small town, an important limitation explained explicitly in the OP.
So, in order to prevent this large-scale "robbery" all you have to do is limit the size of your republic to the population of a high-rise building (though I'm not clear on how it would get water, electric or sewer service) or a small town.

It's easy enough to form a small government to declare property laws, potentially without taxes.
True: declaration is free. Operation, however, has some cost. Without taxes, I don't see what this small government would be able to do.
I'm quite sure it doesn't take $4 trillion dollars to stop homeless people from stealing your house.
Does if you include the people your and their elite have rendered homeless in Asia, South America and Africa.
However, what I wrote was that taxation is violent robbery, which is a very different matter than whether such violent robbery is "necessary" for XYZ or whether it is "the problem". Moreover, in the OP, I very clearly limited my concern to big governments, namely state, national, or global governments spending billions or trillions of dollars per year.
Well, if the real issue is the size of government, we need to look no further than the size of populations. Cull 200 million citizens, and the budget, as well as the legislature, shrinks accordingly.
Self-government is the antithesis of big government.
Self-control may be the antithesis of, and possibly the antidote for, big government. But the latter has actually been invented and implemented, while the former is still on the metaphorical drawing-board.

[By its protectionism of the rich and privileged it becomes, in effect, a mandated self-endorsed subsidy paid for by the middle and lower classes; in short, legalized subterfuge.]
I totally agree.
When it's actually violent, it doesn't resort to subterfuge.
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LuckyR
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by LuckyR »

Ok, so you abhor violence, therefore I guess there are no taxes, thus no services. Hope your house doesn't catch fire...

Oh BTW, there's no internet, nor snail mail, so we'll be running the Forum by homing pigeon and smoke signals.

Though you get to keep your money... except that there is no longer money. But at least you don't have to pay taxes, whoo hoo.
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Steve3007
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Steve3007 »

Scott wrote:It seems like you be committing the false dichotomy fallacy...
I take your point and I can see why you think I might be committing that false dichotomy fallacy. It is perfectly possible that taxation is necessary violent robbery. So I'll clarify by saying that I don't believe it is violent robbery, and I believe that it is necessary to pay for public services, but I believe those two things separately, so saying both of them together doesn't mean I'm implying mutual exclusivity.

I can see your argument for claiming that it is violent robbery (because we are forced to pay using threats up to and including prison), and it's an interesting and thought-provoking point to make. But I come back to a general belief I have about language: that it should be useful. I don't think it's useful to place taxation in the classification "violent robbery" because, as we see from some of the comments in this topic, it obviously has very negative connotations. People generally parse a statement like "taxation is violent robbery" to mean something similar to "I am strongly against taxation". Although you could argue that that's their problem for incorrectly reading between the lines.
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Steve3007 »

Scott wrote:1. Taxation is violent robbery.
2. Taxation is a levy that finances the things we need to do collectively.

I don't agree with #2, but even if I did, it seems irrelevant to me because the above is a false dichotomy. Logically speaking, it's possible for both #1 and #2 to be true.
So if we agree that the above is not presented as a dichotomy but as two separate propositions whereby we can consistently agree with all, any or none of them, I'm interested in why you disagree with #2. Some people disagree with it because of a theory called Modern Monetary Theory which has been discussed here in at least a couple of topics previously. But, judging by the OP in this topic, you seem to disagree with it because of a general idea that it makes the rich richer?

To take the example of the National Health Service here in the UK: I believe that it offers free-at-the-point-of-consumption healthcare to all UK citizens and is funded by taxation. i.e. the wages of doctors and nurses and the costs of medication and equipment are met by taking some of my income in the form of taxation. Do you think I'm mistaken in that belief? Or do you think that I'm correct and that that constitutes making the rich richer?
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

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Scott wrote: April 14th, 2021, 10:07 pm Generally speaking, taxation is violent robbery that makes the rich richer.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 15th, 2021, 12:51 pm I disagree. Taxation is a levy that finances the things we need to do collectively.
Scott wrote: April 15th, 2021, 5:28 pm ...the rich not only get richer from not having to pay for trillions of dollars of violent government spending...

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. You aren't saying that taxation is violent, you're saying that the proceeds of taxation are used by your government to commit acts of violence. And I must agree; that is a fact. Your country spends more on killing, and the machinery to accomplish it, than all other nations on Earth put together.

I still disagree that taxation is robbery, but I understand the "violent" part now.
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Steve3007
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Steve3007 »

Pattern-chaser wrote:Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. You aren't saying that taxation is violent, you're saying that the proceeds of taxation are used by your government to commit acts of violence. And I must agree; that is a fact. Your country spends more on killing, and the machinery to accomplish it, than all other nations on Earth put together.
That's not my interpretation of what he meant. I thought he meant simply that taxes are extracted with the threat of punishment for non-compliance, and he views that as a threat of violence. If the point was about spending tax money on the military then since the US defence budget, though large in absolute terms, is still only a small fraction of the total tax take, the argument wouldn't work. And the fraction of the tax take that is spent on other violent acts, like the police shooting people, is very much smaller still.
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Steve3007 wrote: April 16th, 2021, 9:05 am If the point was about spending tax money on the military then since the US defence budget, though large in absolute terms, is still only a small fraction of the total tax take...
Point of information: the American killing machine receives half of all tax revenue raised. This is more than a "small fraction".
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Steve3007
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Steve3007 »

Pattern-chaser wrote:Point of information: the American killing machine receives half of all tax revenue raised. This is more than a "small fraction".
Really? I thought it was, like, 4% or something. I vaguely remember that 4% is the figure that NATO members are supposed to spend on defence and that successive US presidents, particularly Trump, have complained that some NATO members, particularly Germany, weren't/aren't meeting that target.
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Steve3007 wrote: April 16th, 2021, 9:31 am
Pattern-chaser wrote:Point of information: the American killing machine receives half of all tax revenue raised. This is more than a "small fraction".
Really? I thought it was, like, 4% or something. I vaguely remember that 4% is the figure that NATO members are supposed to spend on defence and that successive US presidents, particularly Trump, have complained that some NATO members, particularly Germany, weren't/aren't meeting that target.
Apologies. A little research indicates I've been peddling urban myths. 😊 The amount of military spending by America exceeds that of all other nations put together. Also:
In 2019, the militarized budget amounted to 64.5 percent of discretionary spending. Source
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Steve3007 »

It looks like we were equally wrong but in opposite directions! US GDP is apparently about $21 trillion. Government spending about $4 trillion (according to Scott). Military spending about $730 billion (2019). So I guess military spending as a proportion of GDP is somewhere around the 4% figure that I had vaguely remembered, but as a proportion of taxation it's somewhere around 20% (ballpark figures). Still a heck of a lot of money to allocate to one department.
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.

Post by Ecurb »

Scott wrote: April 15th, 2021, 11:41 pm
Each person has their own opinions and way of deciding what kind of violence they personally support if any, but for me I can't at all imagine for myself even starting to think it matters whether or not the violence is state-sanctioned. The Nazi murdering of Jews among other victims was state-sanctioned, to be philosophically cliché.

To me, what matters is whether the violence is non-defensive or not.

I'm sorry if the OP was not clear about that.

All laws are violent and coersive. If violent coersion is (ipso facto) a bad thing, utopia must be an anarchy. Nonetheless, the extent to which laws constitute "defensive violence" is arguable. If we throw someone in prison for speeding, we can certainly argue that the violence is "defensive". After all, driving at 50 mph in a school zone is dangerous, and the laws defend our children.

Can we make the same argument about property laws? I'm not sure. Perhaps having homeless people sleep in my house endangers me and my family.

We can certainly make the argument that taxation is "defensive violence". Without taxes funding the police, more people would doubtless drive at 50 mph in school zones. More people would probably murder other people, or assault them, or rape them. If economic hardship fuels violent criminality, then we can argue that the infrastructure (roads, armies, health care, etc.) is "defensive". Without taxes funding the "Department of Defense", we might be invaded. It depends on the level of abstraction to which you are willing to go. It is, however, eminently reasonable to argue that mandatory taxes are "defensive violence".

Obviously state sanctioned violence (per your example) can be evil. Nonetheless, the Nazis argued that discrimination against the Jews was "defensive". In addition, I don't trust other people to make their own decisions about what violence is justified. By making the "State" ("Crown" for you Brits) the plaintiff in criminal trials, we argue that crimes are not crimes against a particular victim, but against society and the social order. This approach suggests that punishing criminals is "defensive violence" because defending the social order defends indivduals.

It seems to me you are over-simplifying the issue.
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