Thread
Taxation is theft is perceived as a snarky little quip to most ears. It’s bound to appeal to emotionality in either direction without proper qualification. If you witness that statement draw out an emotional trigger in someone, qualify the statement around consent.
Taxation is, and only can be, qualified as theft, precisely because I do not consent to it.
You may say that you do consent. But within the state apparatus, you have no option to withdraw your consent, at least not without perceived penalty.
You do have agency though. You can opt out of the state apparatus in multiple ways, major and minor.
The premise that taxation is theft is always true then. Whether you’d like to argue that it’s justified theft, well I suppose that’s your right. Just know you’re standing on shaky ground with that premise.
Replies (5)
Makes me think at what percentage of taxation is one not slave when rate is below 100%.
I want to say it’s a 1:1 ratio. If they make you work 6 months of the year to pay the piper, you’re at 50% servitude. Then another part wants me to say if you don’t control the entirety of your income, no matter what percentage, you’re at 100% servitude.
That 50% feels like a ball and chain if you cannot leave no matter where you go. Someone once said (paraphrasing here) make someone feel free and they’re the perfect prisoner.
The agency is there though. Depends on how you act on it.
I have no source for this other than a tour guide I once had in New Orleans. He said that certain slave owners started allowing one day a week where the slaves went into town, and sold things they made at the market, and they were “allowed” to keep the income. And then some of these slaves “bought” themselves out of slavery and became successful businessmen.
The premise that you could buy your own freedom back is fucked up in and of itself. Whether true or not, it illustrates that there’s actions and options to free ourselves, even within that fucked up and unjust system. We have to opt out in anyway we can find.
Pay us or else and dont ask questions, is definitely theft.
