Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!crsp!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Taxation is theft? Message-ID: <333@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 22:21:27 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.333 Posted: Mon Feb 11 22:21:27 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 01:47:20 EST Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science Lines: 22 Laura Creighton writes: >About the ``everybody being better off'' proposition: > >I have yet to hear *anybody* say that ``the rich'' would be better >off if you took money away from them. But Laura, haven't you suggested that in a libertarian society, the rich would voluntarily donate to charities, and if they didn't, you would try to persuade them to share their wealth voluntarily? If you are so certain that the rich would be made worse off by someone's taking money away from them, how on earth do you expect to persuade them to give away money voluntarily? Do you plan to lie to them or invent fallacious arguments? Why do the rich in fact give money away, if they themselves do not think they are made better off by doing so? Perhaps they take seriously that passage in the Bible about a camel going through the eye of a needle, perhaps it gives them satisfaction to do some good in the world, perhaps they are appeasing a guilty conscience, perhaps theyactually CARE about their fellow human beings. But however you explain it, the fact remains that many rich people think they are better off with less money. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes