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From: fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Why taxation *is* coercive
Message-ID: <4759@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 12-Feb-85 15:13:03 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.4759
Posted: Tue Feb 12 15:13:03 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 04:37:27 EST
Reply-To: fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 40
Keywords: taxation, coercion
Xref: watmath net.politics:7559 net.politics.theory:96
Summary: 

Numerous people have claimed that taxation is not coercive because those
taxed (at least in the US) have the freedom to emigrate.  In reply to
this, I first note that the punishment for tax evasion is not deportation,
but imprisonment.  But let's ignore that for now, and instead suppose that 
government does indeed give each of its citizens a choice: pay taxes, or
leave.  

By what right can a government force a person from her home if taxes are
not paid?  Does the government own the land upon which she lives?  Does
the government own her house?  Does the government have a right to say
whether or not this person can stay in a house that she owns, paid for with 
her salary, that she earned from selling her labor, eitc?  Or is something
more fundamental, more important at work here?  It seems to me that if
the state does not own the property in question, then it has no right
to force a person to leave it, regardless of whether or not taxes are
paid.

In trying to understand why people think it legitimate for governments to
offer this choice to their citizens, I can only conclude that people
who find taxation noncoercive believe that people live in their homes *at the
pleasure* of their elected governments, and therefore it's OK for those
same governments to kick them out if taxes aren't paid.  If there are
other reasons why people think taxation isn't coercive, I'd like to hear
them.

If governments attempted to withdraw their services from those who
didn't pay taxes, then taxation would be noncoercive.  If governments 
presented delinquent taxpayers with a bill for services rendered and
attempted to collect, then taxation would be noncoercive.  But since the 
only choice people who refuse to pay taxes have is to leave the country or 
face imprisonment, a choice it could not possibly present people with if
it did not have a monopoly on the initiaition of force, taxation is coercive.  
Whether or not this coercion is "necessary" is, of course, another matter, 
but it is still coercion and should be called such.  


--Barry

-- 
Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley