The statement “taxation is theft” feels, in the literal sense, at least sort of true. If you do not pay your taxes, after a few strongly worded letters, the IRS (or equivalent government agency) will send armed men to take your money by force and maybe put you in jail for good measure. Nevertheless, it is generally held by most people that taxation is a legitimate object of government; revolts and rebellions over taxation occur not on general principle, but against *excessive* taxation or taxation *without representation*. So why do we accept taxation?
This post will not, to be clear, be a general argument against taxation. I am no anarchist; I’m not even a libertarian. Rather, I seek here to explore the moral and practical underpinnings of **redistributive** taxation. For this purpose, it is worth thinking about in what ways taxation is similar to, or different from, theft, since theft is something of a moral calibrator: most people pretty much agree that it is bad, and even in what ways and for what reasons it is bad.
In this (first) post on the topic, I will be asking whether the rich can be said to ‘deserve’ their wealth. Most of my argumentation will not, I expect, be novel; rather, think of this as a crash course on the standard back-and-forth which has been going on for ages, so that after reading this, we’ll all be able to engage on the topic on a deeper level and with a certain amount of common knowledge.
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The statement “taxation is theft” feels, in the literal sense, at least sort of true. If you do not pay your taxes, after a few strongly worded letters, the IRS (or equivalent government agency) will send armed men to take your money by force and maybe put you in jail for good measure. Nevertheless, it is generally held by most people that taxation is a legitimate object of government; revolts and rebellions over taxation occur not on general principle, but against *excessive* taxation or taxation *without representation*. So why do we accept taxation?
This post will not, to be clear, be a general argument against taxation. I am no anarchist; I’m not even a libertarian. Rather, I seek here to explore the moral and practical underpinnings of **redistributive** taxation. For this purpose, it is worth thinking about in what ways taxation is similar to, or different from, theft, since theft is something of a moral calibrator: most people pretty much agree that it is bad, and even in what ways and for what reasons it is bad.
In this (first) post on the topic, I will be asking whether the rich can be said to ‘deserve’ their wealth. Most of my argumentation will not, I expect, be novel; rather, think of this as a crash course on the standard back-and-forth which has been going on for ages, so that after reading this, we’ll all be able to engage on the topic on a deeper level and with a certain amount of common knowledge.