From: gsmith@clio.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith)
Subject: Re: Individualism & the Common Weal
Organization: IWR, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 18:17:12 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.214348.2986@gordian.com> mike@gordian.com
(Michael A. Thomas) writes:
>In article <1992Nov11.181759.6528@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>,
gsmith@clio.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:

>> I've asked this before, but I will try again: since owning property is
>> based on the use of force, why is force an illegitimate when it taxes
>> property?  

>> "My property" is a *legal* definition, and without government, there
>> are no laws and hence no legal properties.

>  This, of course, depends on where a just government derives its
>power. 

I like the social contract school, which leads to the idea that
government derives whatever justice it has from the fact (if it is a
fact) that you are better off with it than without it.  Since those
with more property benefit more, they have the least claim to complain
that the government is oppressively looting them.  Someone in a slum,
without effective protection or much in the way of any benefit has the
most right to complain that the government isn't fulfilling its side
of the implicit bargain.  This would also be true in another way for
groups such as gays and lesbians, to the extent that the government
discriminates against or oppresses them (as, for instance, by sodomy
laws.)  This violates the social contract and hence tends to remove
the legitimacy of governmental power.

>Are governments instituted by men to protect their rights or do
>governments have a life of there own and, in order to stay around,
>toss a few crumbs to the masses.

Governments have a variety of purposes.  Defining rights and protecting
the rights so defined is only one of them

>  I believe the former. Governments are instituted among people
>to secure individual liberties from invaders, foreign and domestic.

Among other things.

>Rights and property are not doled out by government, they are
>independent of its (non)existence.

Nonsense.  Right, as an abstract moral thing, is indeed something you
can consider apart from government.  Aside from personal items you are
willing to carry around, it is hardly possible to consider property
aside from a social order, which we have embodied in a government.

>  As far as force and property goes, where is the force involved in
>the *act* of owning property? The only time force becomes an issue
>is when one party tries to *take* a piece of property from another
>person. 

This is only true if it is an item you carry with you.  Suppose you
park your car.  If I drive off with it, I have not committed any act of
force against your person.  The government will presumably decide I
have committed some kind of act against your property, and be ready to
commit violent acts against me to have it returned.

Suppose squatters move into a building you own.  To remove them, you
call the Sheriffs Department, which violently ejects them.  Suppose
the government is one of those which is unwilling to remove squatters
for you?  Then either you discover that in effect you don't really own
the property, or you hire "removers" privately who violently eject the
squatters.

Suppose a bunch of American Indians take over Alcatraz island.  They
claim they never gave up title to the land, and therefore still own it.
How do you know who really owns the land?  By whoever ends up (by force)
in actual possession.

The bottom line is, force is what *defines* ownership.  The one on whose
behalf the government is willing to exert force is the one who owns
the property.

This is one very good justification for having a government
>by way of arbitrating and codifying the method one gains property,
>but it doesn't alter the fact that property is independant of 
>government.

This is just gibberish, unless you can explain what it means.

>Property is just a realization of the fact that nature does not 
>deliver every desirable thing to you at any whim. As such some 
>things are going to be scarce and an allocation scheme must be 
>decided upon. 

By whom?  And on what basis?  That is the point.  The above is 
compatible with just about any view of property, and so doesn't
help at all.

>> What I am saying in various was is, Render unto Caesar that which is
>> Caesar's.  Or at least find an argument that it isn't Caesar's.

>  Ceasars come much later in the scheme of property rights. 

What does that mean?

>> Dear old Karl Marx would say that you only think this because your
>> ownership of property makes you do so.  But I figure you are capable
>> of figuring out that this is nonsense.  To start with, taxes are not
>> looting.  

>  Why? Because you say so? 

Didn't you read my article?  I've been giving reasons, you have
been giving statements.

>  And in many ways is far worse. You conviniently forget the fact
>that Germany has no concept of civil liberties the same way that
>the US does.

Ah, yer fadder's mustache.  In some ways, Germans have *more* civil
liberties than Americans.  It then depends on which liberties
you most regard whether you find Germany or the US more
congenial.

Anyway, what does this have to do with the fact that the manufacturing
sector of the German economy is much healthier than its US equivalent,
despite a higher tax rate?  Which was the point.

>  I don't think you can even say that though. What evidence do
>we have that high taxes produce a better standard of living? 

I was asking *you* what evidence it didn't, and citing Germany.  But
you can make the same argument Laffer made with his infamous curve.
If no taxes and confiscation both lead to a terrible standard of
living, then something in between must be better.  In any case, it
probably depends *at least* as much on what you spend the money on as
how much you take.

>We are still left with relatively high taxes in both systems
>producing relatively small differences in productivity. 

We know what is higher and what is lower.  How do we know both
rates are "high"?  Compared to what?

>  The closest that we have in history wrt to productivity and
>low taxes is the US, and perhaps on a smaller scale Singapore and
>Hong Kong. These, I will submit, produced spectacular gains
>in productivity -- far above the relatively high taxed states.

At this point I suppose I should introduce a red herring to the 
effect that neither place has as many civil rights as they could.

I suppose the thing to do, if you wanted to prove some rate of
taxation was the best for developing an economy, would be to compare
all available models, and then make an argument.  But my basic point
is that *some* rate of taxation is required.  If you want to say all
taxes beyond a certain point are looting, you'd better explain a
little better.

>  Jahowl! I didn't say that all government is bad. I'm not an
>anarchist (for the third time).

Jahowl?  I like this word!

But why are taxes "looting"?  Make up your mind!


-- 
     Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University 
               gsmith@kalliope.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de