The Issue with Taxes
Taxes make up a good portion of political debates. With controversy over raising or lowering taxes, taxes continue to stay a current political issue. Democrats advocate for raising taxes or implementing new taxes while republicans advocate for lowering taxes, but keeping them established. Due to the polarized democracy that the United States citizens live in, taxes are seen as a very black-and-white issue. The majority of the arguments relating to taxes consist of whether we raise or keep the same/lower taxes, but society is missing a crucial factor in the fundamental nature of taxes: theft. Depending on who you talk to, the phrase “taxation is theft” is simply a humorous meme. However, this is not always the case. The phrase “taxation is theft” is totally valid.
Imagine that I am a mugger. I go up to a bystander and demand that he gives me a portion of his money in return for food. The bystander is in fact receiving food, but he is still being mugged and his money is being taken away without any form of consent. This is exactly what the government is justifying. You are required to pay taxes without any form of consent. If you opt out of paying taxes, you are at risk of imprisonment. To simplify, the government is requiring you to enact an unjust procedure in return for your rights.
A common argument used against my analogy is the social contract argument. The social construct argument goes like this:
Taxation is not theft, because citizens have agreed to pay taxes. This is part of the “social contract,” which is a kind of agreement between citizens and the government, whereby the citizens agree to pay taxes and obey the laws, in return for the government’s protection. By using government services (such as roads, schools, and police), and remaining present in the government’s territory, you indicate that you accept the social contract.
This can not be right, though. The government never asked for your consent. No physical contract was given out allowing for you to choose. You may argue that the “contract” is the use of government services, but that still is incorrect. I can guarantee that you are paying for a service or “protection” that you do not use nor support. Pacifists pay for war, vegans pay for animal agriculture, democrats pay for republicans (and vice versa), non-smokers pay for the tobacco industry, etc. The government forces you to pay taxes whether you use the government services or not. Therefore, the fact that you use government services does not indicate anything about whether you agree to pay taxes.
Remaining present in the government's territory is another false argument. Most land that the government claims is owned by private individuals. If I own land that others are utilizing, I have the right to demand that they either pay me money or quit my land. However, if I notice people on their property, I cannot insist that they pay me money or leave their property. I’m a thief if I do that.
To justify the social contract argument, individuals will commonly respond with the classic, “who would build the roads then?” If people want something, they will pay for it. If there were no roads, how would car companies make money? How would fuel producers make money? How would food and drink get from farms to factories to supermarkets? Everyone uses roads. If everyone was destroying their car by driving on terrible roads, insurance companies would lose their minds. It is in everyone’s interest for well-maintained roads. Furthermore, privatization of roads would allow for proper allocation of resources as well as innovation. Firstly, how does the government know the proper amount to invest in infrastructure? How does it know that resources should be allocated to widening a highway as opposed to building another school? The problem for the government is that value is subjective. The government doesn’t have any way of knowing if a repaved Park Avenue is more valuable than a Repaved BQE. The decisions may as well be purely arbitrary to the government. In the market, by contrast, people’s subjective preferences manifest themselves through profit and loss. Businesses use this data to make allocation decisions ensuring that resources are directed to people’s highest valued ends. Secondly, when was the last time you saw any innovation when it comes to infrastructure? All I can think of is annoying laws and implementation of useless features. If the roads were privatized, businessmen would have to compete thus innovation. Those that find new and better ways of doing this are rewarded with greater profits.
Here is a fantastic video that I recommend everyone watch. A power outage knocked out the traffic light and look how much better traffic flows without the light.
Before I wrap up this article, I would like to talk about one other commonly used argument. The argument being that “people would not pay if they had the choice.” Like I said before, if people want something, they will pay for it. If you allowed public works to be properly run by the market, services would be heavily desired. Allowing for competition results in better products, services, etc. If someone can not pay for it, the company or individual would make it more affordable as it is one new customer thus more money in their pockets. Through the government’s monopoly, the government can set whatever price they want. Without a monopoly, the buyers set the price and establish its true worth. If people were released from their tax burden and were offered the good and not the bad, and of better quality at lower prices, they would pay for it. There is no reason to think otherwise.
Other arguments exist such as “taxes are the law” or “actually, wage labor is theft” but I will not be touching on those in this article as I do not want it to drag on.
This is only a brief introduction to the world of taxes and the various beliefs associated with it. I strongly suggest doing your own research alongside this.
