From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft (was Re: Negative Income Tax)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 03:56:05 GMT

In article <93012.175116SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1993Jan12.033525.26729@athena.mit.edu>, cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles
>M Kozierok) says:
>
>>i think the only difference we have is how the relationship between
>>people and material items is defined. i still don't see the essential
>>point you are trying to make. i apologize (no sarcasm intended here).
>
>If you see that the only difference we have involves the definition
>of the relationship between people and material items, then you do get
>my essential point. I think you may have assumed I meant to make a
>more complex point than I did.

fine. though i'm sure that is a big enough point that we will have
plenty to argue about. :^)

>>true; though you will admit that that comment in no way reduces
>>the validity of my point above. this is a problem with your definition of
>>property, is it not? do you own your body or not?
>
>Since I did not make, and can not make, my body, I don't own it.
>Since nobody else made it, they can't own it, either.

then why not extend that to everything? then how can there be
any property?

>That does not
>make me a slave; indeed, it makes me a slave to nobody, not even
>myself.

then how do you have any rights? seriously, i don't know how
you can build a philosophy on quicksand. maybe you are just
more creative than i am.

>The distinction matters here: a person who owns themselves
>remains a commodity. I believe humans fall out of the category of
>property entirely. This distinction matters considerably when we
>come to deal with such things as labour relations.

given this position, we are not likely to agree on much more.
because i do believe that i have the right to own my body.

>>>Look at it this way. A farmer sows and reaps, and brings in a crop.
>>>That crop exists partly because of the farmer's effort, and you I
>>>do not question the moral right of the farmer to profit from the
>>>work involved. But the crop also exists because of a multitude of
>>>factors which the farmer did not create: farmers do not, after all,
>>>create crops from nothing. And many of the raw materials (such as
>>>the sun and the air) they use "belong" to nobody.
>>
>>i see your point, but i don't think it makes any difference. i look at
>>it this way: ignore all the factors that are common to all humans,
>>and all natural factors, because only humans can own property. now,
>>examine the situation and say "of all the humans involved, who
>>is responsible for the production of the item? that person should
>>own it". all persons who are involved should either own it or
>>be compensated in some way.
>
>Right. And in a limitless world, the discussion would end there.
>But the crops the farmer grows stem not just from his work, but
>also from the land, which the farmer owns or rents.

and for which he paid or pays, compensating those who contributed
indirectly to the crop.

>And that use
>of property provides the farmer with access to resources that
>nobody created, and which others can not use.

he bought it, or rented it.

>>in your example above, the crop exists because of a multitude of
>>factors which the farmer did not create; true enough. but the essential
>>question is: without whom would the crops not have been created? the answer
>>is the farmer. the crops would have been created fine if *i* ceased to
>>exist; and i have the same access to all the resources the farmer does.
>
>Really? Do you have a farm?

irrelevant. a salary at a company is equivalent to growing crops
for our purposes.

>More to the point, our society does
>not provide everyone with land for growing crops; nor should it.

right. it provides us with the brain to find a way to acquire crops
through other means.

>Look at it this way (to turn your argument around: you claim that
>allocating resources you did not create constitutes theft. All right,
>I can recognise the farmer's right to the crops because I know who
>did the work that went into them. I can't assign the rights to the
>sun and the air to the farmer, because I didn't make them; neither
>can anyone else. So I have to accept that the farmer has used resources
>to make the crop that no human agent created. How should we treat
>these resources?

and as i said, we don't need to treat them. the only problem is if
the farmer uses a resource that belongs to someone *else*.
the sun and and air are "free agents" if you will (ignoring
pollution, etc. for now). it doesn't matter how we allocate the
rights to the sun -- because it is there and free.

we are still looking past each other here.


>>>God imposed them. That's my short answer. If you don't believe in
>>>God, well, God still believes in you.
>>
>>well, i may or may not. or i may believe in a different one. i don't
>>want to broach the subject personally.
>
>Fair enough. You asked me who I believe imposed the obligation on me
>personally, and I answered. However, I can defend the legitimacy of
>the claims of the poor on the rich without referring to divine
>commandment.

i don't believe you can. but i may not have the stamina to prove it,
so i won't make any claims yet.

>Going back to natural resources (the portion that do NOT come to us
>through human effort): who owns them? And how do we justify this
>ownership? Well, if you believe as I do that we all have an equal
>right to live, and that we need access to natural resources in order
>to live, we all have an equal right to those natural resources
>nobody can claim on the basis of creation.

the only point i might concede to you here relates to the land. who
owns it and why? a valid argument against current land ownership is
that most of it was taken by force or assigned arbitrarily by a
government with subjective motives.

that said, why does need have anything to do with anything?
try to stick to the farmer as an example if possible.

>Also, as equal participants in the human endeavour, we have an
>equal right to the heritage of knowledge (such as the lever)
>which nobody living has created.

fine, but not relevant to the farmer.

>I therefore believe that to the extent the property we create
>incorporates such shared resources, we have an obligation to share
>the results. Taxation for social welfare constitutes one
>implementation of such sharing, although it has a major flaw: it
>does not make the relationship between the use of shared resources
>and the obligation to share the results clear. Taxes have a ring of
>"pay because we say so" that everyone (rightly or wrongly) resents.

there's a *big* problem with this leap. the problem is the phrase
"to the extent the property we create incorporates shared resources".
now i have a second argument, leaving aside how we decide to allocate
these things: how *much* these resources are incorporated into
property we create. because shared resources form a very small
part of the property.

>>i have had recommended to me the book "The Enterprise of Law" by Bruce
>>Benson which describes a paradigm of anarcho-capitalism which may
>>show otherwise. i haven't read it yet myself. but i just found myself
>>on the other end of a (well-argued) discussion where some others
>>were suggesting that even less government than objectivists would
>>like may be possible. check it out.
>
>As an anarchist,

you? are an anarchist? forgive my shock, but i didn't know that
"need for access to resources" was the kind of phrase an
anarchist would use.

>I believe that "there's no government like no
>government".

then how are you going to guarantee these social redistributions
you advocate?

>But if you want a paradigm for the necessary sharing
>based on fundamental rights that does not rest on a "we need it
>so we can take it" argument, check this proposal out:

well, thanks for anticipating the question :^)

>If we want a money/trade economy (not an essential, but possibly
>useful), we vest in a sort of "commons" all abandoned intellectual
>property; that is, all of the patents, copyrights, etc. whose
>holders died without heirs. The license fees from this material
>goes to fund education and other "social" expenses, including the
>social investment needed to encourage people to succeed and
>produce more intellectual and material goods. We limit government
>to the basic functions of protecting lives, etc. Call itthe
>Intellectual Heritage Trust arrangement for social investment.

nice attempt, but i have a problem with this.
you are imposing these fees based on your previous claim that
these things are "shared resources". if they are shared resources,
why do you have the right to tax some people for using them to give the fees
to others? let's take the "wheel" as an example. if the wheel
is "public domain", why do you have the right to charge for development
based on it? i don't see how this can be justified.
it just sounds like a more interesting version
of socialist taxation (no labels intended).

also, if there is "no government", how will you impose these "licence
fees"? again, how is this consistent with anarchism?

>Anyway, that's one possible alternative to standard taxation.
>Personally, I prefer classical anarchism, which drastically
>modifies the property paradigm by eliminating the overall idea
>of "property" in favour of particular relationships (the hat I
>wear, the house I live in, and so on). For a good imaginative
>picture of such a society, see Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossessed".

could you please give me two or three paragraphs on this property
elimination idea? i don't have time for another book now.
i'm trying hard to reconcile your statements with your claims
of anarchistic philosophy.

--
charles
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada