From: phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone)
Subject: Re: Ludwig von Mises laughs at Ronzone from the grave
Organization: Generally in favor of, but mostly random.
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 17:49:53 GMT

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In article <1992Nov4.195603.15759@clipper.ingr.com> ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date) writes:
    >In article <1992Oct28.172210.2184@netcom.com> phil@netcom.com
    >(Phil Ronzone) writes:
    >>In article <1992Oct27.234938.11676@clipper.ingr.com>
    >>ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date) writes:
    >>Oh I see. So if I take your stereo and sell it and give the
    >>money to police department (which was broke), then it's O.K.?
    >>Right? It's O.K. to steal from you if it goes to a *worthy
    >>cause*, right?
    >>
    >Again, you show a lack of discernment. Minimal taxes are
    >different than theft on two counts: 1. They are done with due
    >process of law. and 2. They are intended to secure the
    >benefits of liberty to all posterity, which is a worthy cause
    >which you yourself have espoused.

What does "due process of law" have to do with it? Due process of law, with
subjective law, is merely mob rule. Get enough thieves to justify it, and
you can do ANYTHING. What Hitler did WAS legal. Legal does not equal moral.

And what does the purpose of the theft have to do with it either? Can I steal
$1,000,000 if I intended to give (most of it) to Mother Teresa?


    >Human Action, Chapter XXVIII: BEGIN QUOTE To keep the social
    >apparatus of coercion and compulsion running requires
    >expenditure of labor and commodities. Under a [classical]
    >liberal system of govt, these expenditures are small compared
    >with the sum of the individuals' incomes. The more the govt
    >expands the sphere of its activities, the more its budget
    >increases.
    >
    >...Govts must resort to taxation, i.e., they must raise
    >revenues by forcing the subjects to surrender a part of their
    >wealth or income.
    >
    >A neutral mode of taxation is conceivable that would not
    >divert the operation of the market from the lines in which it
    >would develop in the absence of any taxation. However, the
    >vast literature on problems of taxation as well as the
    >policies of govts have hardly ever given thought to the
    >problem of the *neutral* tax. They have been more eager to
    >find the *just* tax.
    >
    >The neutral tax would affect the conditions of the citizens
    >only to the extent required by the fact that a part of the
    >labor and material goods available is absorbed by the govt
    >apparatus. In the imaginary construction of the evenly
    >rotating economy the treasury continually levies taxes and
    >spends the whole amount raised, neither more nor less, for
    >defraying the costs incurred by the activities of the govt's
    >officers. A part of each citizen's income is spent for public
    >expenditure.
    >
    >...
    >
    >Taxation is a matter of the market economy. It is one of the
    >characteristic features of the market economy that the govt
    >does not interfere with the market phenomena and that its
    >technical apparatus is so small that its maintenance absorbs
    >only a modest fraction of the total sum of the individual
    >citizens' incomes. Then taxes are an appropriate vehicle for
    >providing the funds needed by govt. They are appropriate
    >because they are low and do not perceptibly disarrange
    >production and consumption. END QUOTE

I haven't read Human Action since the seventies -- I can't even find my copy
right now. I will take your word for it on the quote. I find that your quote
supports my tenets -- again and again Von Mises goes up to the point of
all taxation is theft, and stops just short.

Of course, very very few of us would complain about coercive taxation
that took an average of $1 a year from us.


    >>Ah yes, vote for the lesser of two evils. And yes, anybody
    >>that wants to take my property is a thief.
    >>
    >Mises also disagrees that govt is a necessary "evil." Why
    >dont you contradict that, so I can quote him further in this
    >manner?

Again, I am reluctant to use only your quote, but trusting that you have
corre tly quoted LVM: Do you NOT think that "the social apparatus of coercion
and compulsion running" is evil?

Are you PRO coercion and compulsion?


    >NOT. "The sole object of govt ought to be the greatest
    >happiness of the greatest possible number of the community."
    >--Jeremy Bentham, Anarchical Fallacies; being an examination
    >of the Declaration of Rights issued during the French
    >Revolution.
    >
    >Mises follows in this same tradition, of utilitarian
    >economics.
    >
    >What amazes me is that you seem to think Mises is someone he
    >is not.

What amazes me is that you can't even parse his words into meanings.


-- 
I believe Gennifer Flowers.

These opinions are MINE, and you can't have 'em! (But I'll rent 'em cheap ...)