Taxation as theft

The identification of taxation as theft is a common anarcho-capitalist viewpoint. It suggests that government is transgressing property rights by enforcing compulsory tax collection. This turns the issue into not just an issue of practicality but morality. Individualist anarchists, objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, and some libertarians see taxation as government aggression. The classic How many men? thought experiment challenges one to define the size and characteristics of a group that is ethically entitled to tax. Leo Tolstoy writes:

"Every thief knows that stealing is wrong … that it is immoral," said Rogozhinsky, with his … slightly contemptuous smile.

"No, he does not know it. They say to him: Don't steal! and he knows that...the Government, with its officials, robs him continually by taxation."

"Why, this is Anarchism," Rogozhinsky said. …

Murray Rothbard argues in The Ethics of Liberty that since taxation is theft, tax resistance is therefore legitimate: "Just as no one is morally required to answer a robber truthfully when he asks if there are any valuables in one’s house, so no one can be morally required to answer truthfully similar questions asked by the State, e.g., when filling out income tax returns."

How many men?

How many men? is a thought experiment often used by anarcho-capitalists as a moral argument for showing that taxation is theft. There are many variations of it, but one begins with the example of a man stealing a car, which most people would regard as unethical. It then proceeds to make slight changes to the equation, with the identity of the aggressor gradually shifting from one man, to a gang of five men, to a gang of ten men who take a vote (allowing the victim to vote as well) on whether to steal the car before stealing it; to a gang of twenty men who not only take votes but have specialization of labor; to one hundred men who take the car and give the victim back a bicycle; to two hundred men who not only give the victim back a bicycle but buy a poor person a bicycle as well. It ultimately challenges the reader to say how big a group needs to be, and what characteristics it needs to have, before the immorality of theft become the alleged morality of taxation.

Counter-arguments

A counter-argument is that taxation is a payment for services rendered, and that one who does not pay his taxes is cheating the government (and the taxpayers who shoulder the burden) by getting something for nothing and therefore deserves to be punished. Another justification for taxation is to remedy market failures with regard to "externalities". It is also argued that taxation is the 'ground rent' or compensation that is owed to each human being for the land and natural resources that have been deprived them by others' illicit appropriations. All property derives from these ill-gotten gains, and compensation must be paid accordingly. Thus, people are simply taking back what was rightly theirs by using the political system to tax others. Yet another counter-argument is that property is theft; i.e., that the use of "finders keepers" as a system for allocating unowned property is arbitrary and wrong.

Another counter-argument is that taxation is part of a social contract. If you are free to emigrate, you are also free to decide if you want to stay and pay taxes or not. Many critics answer to that, saying they haven't signed any contract. According to proponents of the argument about the social contract, all contracts doesn't have to be signed, as for example, ordering food on a restaurant.

See also

• Taxation as slavery
• Zero Aggression Principle