Tell that to Wesley Snipes. Ultimately, the payment of taxes is enforced by the threat of force.

I'm not virulently anti-tax and I think OP's view isn't very well thought-out, but it has some merit at the edges of things.

Actually, I thought his post was a sideways invitation for a giant derail and not relevant to the discussion at hand. So, no.

Under your ideal system of ordering society, what is the difference between a landlord and a king?

I want to leave aside the semantic argument about defining "theft" (which is why I snipped the first post I quoted), because I think the crux of this issue is really about volunteerism. n.b. others have touched on this a bit, so sorry if I'm slightly repetitive.

So, I think I can understand why the ideal of a voluntary society would seem appealing, or why the alternatives to volunteerism seem morally problematic when viewed from a standpoint that emphasizes individual liberty and autonomy.

The problem I have is that it seems like the conclusion is totally impractical. Should societies be dissolved and completely reconstituted every 20 years, in order to ensure that participation is voluntary? Even if you try that, what happens to dissenting minorities? Social scientists and anthropologists have spent a lot of time researching and writing about the nature of society and culture as something that is at once "objective" (outside the individual) and "subjective" (shaped and refashioned over time by individuals), and I think it's a fascinating topic. But all the research suggests to me that the objective and external aspects of culture (i.e. many non-voluntary parts) are absolutely necessary and universal in human existence.

There is not and never has been such a thing as a fully voluntary society, and when you start thinking about really mundane things like enculturating children into the norms and values of a society it seems impossible that there could be. Elements of coercion (even "mild" ones like enculturation) are fundamental to to the formation and stability of human cultures.

So, if you accept the anthropological necessity of some form of involuntary social control which persists over time and transcends the individual (including various kinds of norms, whether informal or formal like laws) then I think you are forced to look for some way of understanding morality that does not make voluntarism the criteria of permissibility, because voluntarism is infeasible. That is the real reason why definitions of theft in use everywhere involve more than just whether or not a thing was taken voluntarily or not.

The idea that people should only be subject to laws if they voluntarily opt in is so ridiculous.

The alternative being what - that you be free to live on an unclaimed parcel of land? And what if there are none? Then you have to pay someone for the right to live and do things on their land, and agree to their rules.

It's hard to have sympathy who people who make the argument since there are no cases in western countries where someone who lacks the capacity to move to a different country is anything other than a net beneficiary of the social contract. But for anyone who actually feels they'd be better off, there're plenty of rural land in America that the owners will never actually visit that you can camp out in. No taxes. No running water. Just all the freedom you can handle.

It seems like the real case being made by these people isn't that they want government to be voluntary, it's that they want their preferred form of governance to be mandatory.

Ultimately OP wants the state to enforce his property rights because they matter to him (presumably because he has property), but doesn't want the government to do anything else that he doesn't personally want. He also doesn't want to pay taxes because taxes are theft, but doesn't explain how the government is going to pay the violent men it's going to have to hire to protect his property. I guess in his world the government is a band of bandits who only protect you if you 'opt-in' to their taxation for protection scheme?

We figured out a better way to do this as far back as ancient Rome. We make sure that the people without property feel like they have some stake in society by providing public services. It's much cheaper than killing them every time they revolt, which when they have no stake in society is super often.

I'm good and done with this thread. I can't actually believe I just rehashed my entire anti AC argument from 2013 again. I told myself I'd never argue with one of these people ever again. Just way too much fanciful idiocy in their world view to fix.

I'm sorry OP but your interests aren't any more important or valuable than anyone else's. We live in a society, which you benefit quite a lot from, and your criticism is simply not valid. You need to work on living on planet Earth instead of some imaginary Conan the Barbarian fantasy land where you're a king and the rest of us cower at your property rights.

It sure has.

All states that exist today monopolize violence. The monopoly of violence is even a central concept in the formation of the ideas that led up the modern state, and I don't think any political scientist would bat an eye-lid if you used it. So yes, the state does force you to pay tax. It does punish you if you do not. It gets to say what you can and can not to do. The state as a mechanism of society is intensely coercive. Sure, it would prefer if if you did things willingly, and it would collapse if enough people did not. But the stick is always there if the carrot isn't enough.

However, the birth of modern democracy and the liberal state is founded on the idea that everyone has rights, not just the state or people who are powerful enough to demand them.

This is evident even in how the term state has evolved. In Machiavelli's writings it was "lo stato", something an individual possessed, the right to rule. But in the liberal democracy the state is its own judicial persona, not something someone owns. You can (at least in principle) even face that persona in court on equal terms.

And that's where his edgy (and likely trollish) posts loses out on. The rights he refers to, the theft he speaks of and the tax he admonishes are concepts of the modern state (and especially the liberal state). Saying "tax is theft" is a bit like saying a formula one car is a golf cart, and then every time someone makes a counter-point just loudly declare "they both have wheels!".

This is a debate that requires nuance, because it is about imperfect systems with ideals that aren't achievable, and who often operate with concessions and paradoxes. If it is between "lol, states use force" and "lol, you'd die without it", then the debate is useless.

Sorry but no. There is no debtor's prison. The thing Wesley was guilty of was failing to file a return and/or filing a false return. That's a far cry from filing a return and then being unable or unwilling to pay.

Like if you filed a return and then the IRS came to you and said you owed them $5000 and you were all like, "nah man, I object to taxation as morally wrong," they'd be all like, "that's cool, fortunately your bank doesn't," and then vacuum what you owe them out of your account (plus interest and penalties). No need to use force at all.

And before you come back with 'well isn't that theft?' the answer is NO, because you already agreed to let them do that. Or didn't you read those forms that you signed when you opened your account that said, right there in black and white, that the bank would comply with all tax laws and tax authorities pertaining to your account?

So maybe the year after you can get paid only in cash or bitcoin or something, and hoard all your loot in cyberspace or under your mattress. Well that's cool too, because then they'll just seize and auction off any property you have (again something you already agreed to let them do when you signed the papers to get your title). Don't have any property? That's cool too, they'll register a judgement against you and when the day comes that you want to come in off the grid and retire or whatever they'll still be there waiting with your bill. Want to stay out in the bush and live off the land? That's cool too, because the debt will pass to your estate when you die and they'll take their share of it before your heirs do.

But prison? Nope. Not in the USA anyways.

The options aren’t no property vs strictly enforced property rights to the exclusion of any other function.

@tame_deuces - i cannot remember where I first read about it, but the monopolization of violence serving as a main legitimacy of state is a fascinating concept; glad you brought it up.

also, taxation is probably one of the better examples out there of the paradoxical nature of the ideology of rights: funding the protection/security of an individual's rights by seemingly infringing on an individual's rights to do so.

@dino:

Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

26 USC 7201.

It's paradoxical only if you refuse to parse out the objective of the law from the law itself.

Is there anyone who doesn't think that there exist situations where the ends justify the means?

A form of Socialism.

You might want to study how this law actually works and get back to me, because you're flatly wrong about it.

Here's a clue: the key words are 'willfully' and 'evade or defeat'.

That is the point. Taxes are collected through coercion. Pay up, or we will hurt you. It's the same modus operandi as a crack head robbing a seven eleven. But surely we can all agree that it is wrong to threaten people with violence in order to get their money.

I disagree. I think it works well. When I try to go into the kitchen to make a burrito the Taco Bell cooks restrained me and told me I had to pay them money if I wanted a burrito from that kitchen or else the cops would throw me in jail.

No, they're not. As I said your taxes are withheld by your employer because you signed forms allowing them to do that. If you owe at the end of the year and don't or can't pay then the case is civil, not criminal. (Same goes for sales taxes by the way; if you don't want to pay them, don't buy stuff. Simple really.)

Further you always have the right to move away and live in a place where you are not taxed. The social contract you entered into by agreeing to stay in the US is that you will contribute to it through your taxes. If you don't like that, there's nothing keeping you here. Monte Carlo, Dubai, UAE, you could be there by tomorrow. Don't forget to write.

No, the only time you're threatened with 'violence' (as you call it) is if you willfully lie or cheat. And I'm okay with that, because if the rest of us have to fill out the forms honestly and pay what we owe why the hell should deadbeats like Wesley Snipes be able to cheat and get away with it?

If you’re suggesting that Snipes didn’t willfully evade his taxes and was then jailed for that willful evasion, you’re wrong.

At root, the collection of taxes is based on an application of force by the state. There are of course many circumstances where enforcement is done civilly, but your contention was “never,” not “seldom.”

Like a landlord?

So your claim is there are several cases of people following all the rules right up to sending a check to the IRS who are being jailed for not sending in the check?

That is not my claim, nor would anyone reasonable reading my posts think that it was.

I haven't been paying really close attention, but it does seem to me that you guys might be talking past each other.

I'm fairly sure dinopoker is arguing that laws against tax evasion are not equivalent to debtor's prisons because in order to be criminally prosecuted and imprisoned you have to be guilty of something more than just owing taxes. If your only crime is inability to pay you won't be imprisoned, although you will in most cases have wages garnished and face other consequences.

It seems like Howard's point is more general: there may not be debtor's prisons as described by dino but tax collection is coercive nonetheless. Which I think is clearly true.

if we could freely choose to live or not in a country organised along the lines of the ones we happen to live in then would it still be an immoral institution?

Suppose countries were organised along the line you want. Would it be moral to force people to live in them even if they would prefer the above?

That’s what you’re arguing, go check. Why was Snipes put in jail?

Perhaps, but there can be no rules without punishment and if the point is all punishment is coercion then may as well lock up the thread.