Is Taxation Stealing?
Many people on the political right insinuate that taxation is stealing. Here is an example from a good friend of mine. He is discussing social safety net programs such as welfare, medicare, medicaid, and social security.
"To me, it is a religious duty, not a civic one. When freely given and gratefully received, charity ennobles the soul and both the giver and recipient are bettered. To have my property taken from me on pain of imprisonment (taxes) and given to support others only causes bitterness on both parts. There is no spiritual benefit to being forced to do good deeds. Once a wealthy young man asked Jesus what he needed to do to get into heaven. Jesus responded "Go, sell all thou hast and give to the poor, then come and follow me." He didn't say "Peter, you hold him down. John, you go grab this kid's stuff and give it to the poor. There, now you can get into heaven, kid." I hope that made sense. True charity is a good thing, one of the best things that there is. It's given in brotherhood and love and received in gratitude. That's not how one could describe the welfare office."
Stealing has two conditions. First, when someone steals your money you don’t get anything in return. Second, for it to be stealing it cannot be the case that you voluntarily give up your money. In the quotation above, references are made to forcibly grabbing someone else’s stuff. This implies stealing. Taxation is not stealing. The first condition most certainly does not apply and there is an extremely good case to be made that the second condition doesn’t apply either.
When you pay taxes you are buying a service. Those tax dollars pay for the roads you drive on, the schools your children are educated in, the police force that protects you and your property, the military that defends you from foreign invaders, and the printed money that you use for your economic transactions. You pay your taxes because you want at least some of these services. When you pay taxes you get something in return. Taxation is not stealing.
As a citizen of this country you are in a contract with all the other citizens of this country. We all agree to collectively pay for these services because we cannot efficiently afford them on our own. We collectively agree, in a spirit of charity, to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. This agreement occurs through the democratic process. We vote for those who decide who is taxed, how much they are taxed, and where those tax dollars will be spent. When a citizen violates this collective agreement by not paying taxes, there have to be consequences. Agreements often fail is there is no enforcement. When people make agreements sometimes they are lying. Taxes are not a case of forcibly taking someone else’s stuff. That stuff is owed to society as a part of the agreement every citizen makes with the other citizens in his country. This is done in a spirit of compromise. If you will pay for some of the programs I would like to see, then I will pay some of the programs you favor. You are not even forced to accept this contract with your fellow citizens. You can always go somewhere else. It is perfectly reasonable to debate what services should be paid for collectively and which should be paid by the individual. It is not reasonable to describe the result of these deliberations as stealing.
Comments
I am always amused by proponents of the "taxation is theft" rant. I've never understood how thgey fail to see the huge gaping hole in their logic. They never complain about taxes collected to support the defence of their country and policing of the citizenry.
Yet, if taxation is theft then these taxes too are theft. Indeed, if any taxation by legitimate government is theft then all taxation is theft as to distinguish between forms of taxation is a matter of degree and not kind. If that is the case then one must accept that having a government requires theft, as all governments require funding to govern and taxation of one form or another is a governments only real source of income.
The only government that such individuals could logically accept would be no government at all in any form - total anarchy. Yet that is not what these individuals propose. For the most part they come from the Libertarian background which proposes limitations on government but not the absence of government.
So the question is how do they justify their position that theft used to support their political philosophy (strong military/police) is OK but other theft to support positions antithetical to their political philosophy (healthcare/charity) is not?
First: excuse my english.
Very easy to answer. We libertarians say that ALL taxes are stealing, also the ones who would fund police and military. Therefor we have come up with an alternative to taxation.
We advocate a government who offer an insurance, when you sign a contract. If you CHOOSE to insure your contract, so that you can sue (correct spelling?) the other part IF he breaks the contract. The government would take a percentage of how much money is involved in the contract when you sign it.
This would cover the costs of a police, military and courtrooms.
Mikael Eriksson libertarian Sweden