nazgulnarsil: tax is rent. all property on earth is currently owned by people with nukes. countries without nukes are not sovereign. They nominally exist for the sake of appearances.
tax is rent. all property on earth is currently owned by people with nukes. countries without nukes are not sovereign. They nominally exist for the sake of appearances.
That's an interesting way to look at it
Thanks for the links, everybody. I've already read Chaos Theory, it was pretty cool.
Taxation is not statutory theft. If it were you could use those same statutes for relief.
Other issues to be addressed is constitutionality. And beyond that perhaps there is a possible violation of biblical principles if you are the sort of person that accpets those types of arguments. BTW, if you disapprove of taxation on biblical principles all it means is you cannot be involved in collecting taxes, you still have to pay them.
Sorry taxation is not literaly theft.
geo8rge: Taxation is not statutory theft.
Taxation is not statutory theft.
Agreed. Statute = Formal written enactment of a legislative authority
But this is irrelevant to the question, which was: Is taxation equivalent to theft?
Theft = Taking someone else's property without their freely-given consent
The Government does not ask for consent. It simply takes. Therefore, taxation is equivalent to theft.
geo8rge: Other issues to be addressed is constitutionality. And beyond that perhaps there is a possible violation of biblical principles if you are the sort of person that accpets those types of arguments. BTW, if you disapprove of taxation on biblical principles all it means is you cannot be involved in collecting taxes, you still have to pay them.
Irrelevant
geo8rge: BTW, if you disapprove of taxation on biblical principles all it means is you cannot be involved in collecting taxes, you still have to pay them.
BTW, if you disapprove of taxation on biblical principles all it means is you cannot be involved in collecting taxes, you still have to pay them.
You have to? Where does it say that?
Give on to Ceasar that which is his. Old testement may differ on this point, I vaguely remember the Israelites in Eygpt moving to a different tax juristiction. You will note they did pay Pharoh while they were there.
Suicide is also against most world religions. Non payment of taxes would at some point result in your self destruction if not death.
As to the theft question, at some point what is and what is not theft has to be codified. In biblical terms the old testimate, even with commentaries(Torah) was not enought, so the Jews created the Talmud which is a codification of exactly what is meant by the old testimate. If the definition of theft is not codified then as a practicle matter obtaining relief from theft is impossible. This is particularly true in a complex society with a large division of labor.
It is the same with killing and murder. Murder is statutory illegal. Killing, maybe maybe not. Exactly when killing is not murder is the subject of written laws and debate.
It is certainly possible for laws to be the problem. But in that case the trouble is not taxes it is the laws.
geo8rge:Give on to Ceasar that which is his.
You'd probably be better off quoting Romans 13 here than this verse. The whole verse is: “Well, then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”
It's very ambiguous, and was phrased in such a way to pacify the pharisees without really giving anything away. He never actually says the roman coin belongs to Caesar, he just asks whose face is stamped on it. And God owns everything, so how do you separate what Caesar owns from what God owns even if you assume he was in fact giving ownership of the coin to Caesar?
On the other hand, I find Romans 13 very straightforward. I've read some commentary that attempts to refute the idea that we should pay taxes, but I've not been too convinced by it.
1Let every person(A) be subject to the governing authorities. For(B) there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you(C) will receive his approval, 4for(D) he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God,(E) an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also(F) for the sake of conscience. 6For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7(G) Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
geo8rge:You will note they did pay Pharoh while they were there.
Okay, didn't notice this in my first response. They also looted Egypt on the way out of town to pay them back for years of extremely high taxes. They were kept essentially as slaves for most of their time in Egypt after Joseph died.
I've blogged at length about this topic before:
Essentially, you are being forced to live/participate in a society because the government bundles all its goods/services together and you can't buy just the ones you want. There's also the pesky little problem of territorial monopoly, and the fact that you are literally not allowed to lawfully extricate yourself from the State's jurisdiction.
Also, you never consented, and even if you had, you're not allowed to withdraw your consent. And if you're not allowed to withdraw it (let alone, having never been asked!) they clearly don't give a damn about your consent in the first place. So the social contract/consent argument is pretty ridiculous, really.
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David Z
"The issue is always the same, the government or the market. There is no third solution."
The problem with your reasoning is that you are starting with "Thou shalt not steal" and ending with taxation is theft. Unfortunately the starting point is codification of laws that define what property is and is not and what stealing is and is not. Taxation may be inconsistent with those laws and therefore illegal and theft. But the act of taking something you claim is yours with the threat of violence is not necessarily illegal. Under all property schemes you will eventually have a dispute and that property dispute will not be settled to the satisfaction of the parties involved and will require the equivalent of a sheriff. The party that does not accept the result of the dispsute will claim theft.
Then I am the State's property? Or, 28% (or 35% or whatever) of me is the State's property?
Theft is defined by the law. In theory things codified in the law that contradict the constitution and perhaps religious scriptures are not laws, or you can demand relief from those laws.
Slavery was not theft of service. Indian 'ethnic cleansing' was not theft. ect. I know this as I am not giving any of my land back to the Indians nor am I paying reparations for slavery. If you really believe that taxation was theft then why not return the value of the services slaves provided (minus the cost of their upkeep) and the value of the Indian lands. That is the problem with theft. Once you go down that road people with claim to own things they do not, and that transfers of their property were illegal.
Slavery ended with the civil war and the overthrow of the governments in the south.
You are relying on an absolute definition of theft. That is fine as long as you understand that an absolute definition of theft is not a legal but a theological concept. Taxation is theft because god meant it that way is fine with me, but understand that in other religions they will not see it that way. The more or less secular Constitution of the US permitted taxation, maybe not progressive income taxation, but it did allow taxation.
geo8rge:Slavery was not theft of service. Indian 'ethnic cleansing' was not theft. ect. I know this as I am not giving any of my land back to the Indians nor am I paying reparations for slavery. If you really believe that taxation was theft then why not return the value of the services slaves provided (minus the cost of their upkeep) and the value of the Indian lands. That is the problem with theft. Once you go down that road people with claim to own things they do not, and that transfers of their property were illegal.
How does this possibly follow the other? I don't owe anything to a decendent of a slave because I didn't force him to work for me, period. I own myself and the result of my labor, and anyone forcibly taking the product of my labor has commited theft, be it a government or individual.
Treating the involuntary, forced surrender of person/property to another is certainly not a "theological" construct.
I'm most definitely aware of the "subsidy of history" by which some people have been enriched, and others impoverished unfairly. Unfortunately, there isn't a clear answer to the redistribution problem. The world isn't a perfect place, this I know. I don't dispute the fact that the State codifies law, but nowhere have I made any claims to the contrary. You'll not see me citing the U.S. Constitution.
Sure, it's technically correct, since the government defines what is (and is not) law, and therefore what is (and is not) legal, but relying on "If the government does it, it's not illegal" is kind of a stupid argument to make. It's like saying that oranges are orange because orange is the color of an orange, or "whatever god says is good, because god is good." It's an inter-subjective proposition, and it's just intellectually lazy.
geo8rge:Slavery was not theft of service. Indian 'ethnic cleansing' was not theft. ect. I know this as I am not giving any of my land back to the Indians nor am I paying reparations for slavery.
I'm willing to run the risk of being moderated to point out that this is probably the single dumbest thing I've read on Mises.org. Slavery was not theft of service? Ethnic cleansing was not some sort of crime? You deduce these "facts" because you're not currently compensating the victims for the actions? In terms of post hoc ergo propter hoc, this really takes the cake. "Since I haven't been punished for someone else's crimes, therefor those actions weren't crimes in the first place."
No, no, no, no. THINK GOD DAMN IT!
Are we supposed to believe that the institution of slavery was AOK, hunky-dory until that fateful day in 1865 when the Confederacy surrendered? That at that instant, it became wrong to hold another man against his will and force him to labor for you? That it simply became wrong overnight?
Are we supposed to believe that the ethnic cleansing of native tribes, the expropriation of settled lands, was anything but outright murder, writ large? Is it fundamentally any different than the soviet reclamation? Can I invoke Godwin's law? Six million jews systematically murdered, but it wasn't a crime because the German Government said it was the law? Are you out of your mind?
These things were wrong at the time they happened. They are wrong today, and they will be wrong tomorrow and the next day.
Good day, sir.
Inquisitor: FYI, taxation isn't theft. It is retroactive slavery.
FYI, taxation isn't theft. It is retroactive slavery.
I disagree. Slavery is command over your 'natural person', IE the body you inhabit. Theft is the appropriation of some property you have acquired without your consent. Taxes are theft, it just so happens that because of the way we keep money that stealing half of someone's money is similar to partial slavery in economic results.
Taxation is theft by the conventions that govern the behavior of most people, legally, it is not.
Had the thief compelled one to labour for a certain good and then simply expropriated it, that'd be slavery. They do exactly this, only with no preceding commandment. They do not presume to own one's labour, indeed. But what they do is scarcely dissimilar from forcing a slave to produce goods for their merriment.
To darkness I condemn you...
I need some help responding to a friend's argument... again :) I referred to taxation as theft, and he responded with something like this: You can call a tax bad, or stupid, and you can say we should change it or get rid of it. But you can't call it "theft" unless you're being forced to live in and participate in society, because theft can only occur when the person being stolen from is a wholly unwilling participant. I have no real retort to this. Can anyone help? Thanks
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
"single dumbest thing I've read on Mises.org. Slavery was not theft of service? Ethnic cleansing was not some sort of crime? "
The 'crimes' were not prosecuted at the time. Nor do you think compensation should be paid now. So how are they crimes?
My original point is that you can start with 'thou shalt not steal' but beyond that it gets murky.
What property do you own and why do you think you own it. Do you own it after you are dead. Why can you decide what happens to you your stuff when you do not exist. What if there is a dispute about who owns what you say you own. Sadly 'thou shalt not steal' does not get you to those answers. That is where codificatin of laws takes place. Courts come into play. And eventually the Sheriff to enforce court judgements.
Slavery was not illegal in the US, so it was not theft. Then the South lost the civil war. Then it was theft.
Taking Indian lands under the Jackson administration was theft, but POTUS had the loyalty of the legions (in Georgia) so nothing was done about it.
Taking Indian lands in the late 1800s was evidently legal.
The problem you are having is you have a religous concept of property and theft, which is fine. The problem is that God is not talking and people with other beliefs run the government.
Back to the original question taxation in general is allowed by all mainstream religions. It is allowed by the constitution. So it is not theft. The income tax used to be theft, but now it is legal, so it is not.
If you worked for the government or received a pension from the government you would think quite the opposite, if you do not pay taxes you are stealing their services. So not paying taxes it theft. Talk to anyone with Social Security and they are indignant about what they paid into it.
Just because something is permitted does not mean it is good, or wise, it just means it is legal.
It may also be useful to call taxation theft in politcal arguments.
geo8rge, you're espousing a strange variant of legal positivism. Are you sure that's what you want? Or perhaps are you just stating what was legally vs what should be?
Knight_of_BAAWA: geo8rge, you're espousing a strange variant of legal positivism. Are you sure that's what you want? Or perhaps are you just stating what was legally vs what should be?
One does not have to be a 'legal positivist' in the narrow sense to reject legal anachronism. Also, the reason why slavery is so 'obviously' theft to many people is only because the people on here tend to accept all sorts of incompatible moralism.
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