Comments on: Nozick and taxes

By: Jonathan Wilde

Jonathan Wilde — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:25:34 +0000

Which again is: a society can have any rules it’s members want. You can make up rules that lead to the extermination of millions and there will be no tidal waves or plauges of locusts or black holes. And I am saying that there is a contradiction in this statement. When you say "it's members" which members do you mean? Surely not the ones being exterminated. Otherwise, your statement simply boils down to an observation that the people who have power have power. Okay, no problem. But I assume that most people, whether they be libertarians, egalitarians, etc are arguing about which people ought to rule, and what the rules ought to be. Back to your original statement: A society is, by definition, whatever set of arbitrary rules the members create, so any rule that society creates through it’s rule making process is legitimate. If by "members" you mean each and every member, then I submit that taken from the purely moral standpoint, this view is most consistent with market anarchism.

By: cw

cw — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 05:10:25 +0000

RE J. Wilde You are missing my point. I have been responding to the acres of posts above that seemed to me to be struggling to ligitimize various societal rules according to some kind of universal non-human standards (or maybe human satndards attributed to the universe). I have been trying to say that societal rules are made up by soley the people living in those societies, and they are not subject to review by gods or the laws of physics. The fact that the nazis for instance, commited such horrible things without suffering any divine retribution proves my point. Which again is: a society can have any rules it’s members want. You can make up rules that lead to the extermination of millions and there will be no tidal waves or plauges of locusts or black holes. Not that exterminating millions would be a good thing or a fair thing or a moral thing. Just that good, fair, moral are human abstractions. My point is purely a technical one, but one that I think is important. Of course others may believe differently.

By: Jonathan Wilde

Jonathan Wilde — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 03:11:13 +0000

It dosen’t even have to be as few as 49% who disagree. That sounds like a majority rules democracy. But any process a society uses to create it’s rules are legitimate in the sense that whatever the rules are IS the society. THe rules may be cruel, inefficient, unfair, confusing, whatever. But none of these abstract concepts exisit outside of society in the non-human universe, so it doesn’t do any good to say that these rules are bad becasue Jesus wouldn’t have like them, or they don’t support the thrust of human evolution, or they are against natural law. Such a view boils down to a justification for the Nazi holocaust, antebellum slavery, and the killing fields. There were rules, created by “society”, they were enforced by “society”. Very effectively. The victims of these atrocities tried to change the rules, tried to adjust to them, and even tried to escape. But they ran into the human meat shredder of “society”.

By: cw

cw — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 03:04:55 +0000

It dosen’t even have to be as few as 49% who disagree. That sounds like a majority rules democracy. But any process a society uses to create it’s rules are legitimate in the sense that whatever the rules are IS the society. THe rules may be cruel, inefficient, unfair, confusing, whatever. But none of these abstract concepts exisit outside of society in the non-human universe, so it doesn’t do any good to say that these rules are bad becasue Jesus wouldn’t have like them, or they don’t support the thrust of human evolution, or they are against natural law. The point I’m making by this is that it’s a waste of time to try to decide the legitimacy of certain rules acorrding objective, non-human standards, as it seem to me many people are doing on this thread. Of course there could be something I’m not understanding. But if someone dosen’t like the rules of a particular society then they can try to change them, adjust to them, or move to a different society.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:26:57 +0000

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch. The other 49% are the lunch. Still, I suppose it’s better than one wolf having two sheep for dinner…

By: Jonathan Wilde

Jonathan Wilde — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:12:22 +0000

Whichever members are effective in creating the rules. What about the 49% that are on the short end of the stick, and don't agree on the rules?

By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:02:38 +0000

Georgist philosophy on this question rocks— Land, not being the product of anyone, belongs in common usufruct, and those who desire exclusive rights to land owe compensation to the community thereby dispossessed. I can see absolutely no philosophical objection to the above. Definitions about “compensation” and “community” are admitedly tricky, but David LLoyd George’s: “To prove a legal title to land one must trace it back to the man who stole it.” is the last word on this particular issue IMV.

By: cw

cw — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 00:56:56 +0000

Whichever members are effective in creating the rules.

By: Jonathan Wilde

Jonathan Wilde — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 00:25:16 +0000

A society is, by definition, whatever set of arbitrary rules the members create, so any rule that society creates through it’s rule making process is legitimate. Which members?

By: cw

cw — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 23:45:15 +0000

You guys seem to be trying to justify an origin of human rights via some source located outside of society. You want to do this in order to legitimize or deligitimize a particular system of property rights. I don’t believe this can be done. There are no rules for human conduct (so far as I can tell) outside of human society (other than the laws of physics: gravity, entropy, fire bad, bread good, etc…). No natural law, no moral law, no christian, islamic, judaic law, etc… Therefore there is no objective set of standards to determine what rights humans should have or not have. For instance, if I steal someone’s house and some non-human feature of the universe swings down to take retribution, then we could say that there is something in the structure of the universe that requires strong property rights for humans, an that human laws contrary to this are illegitimate. But I’m pretty sure the structure of the universe contains no mechanisms for the enforcement of property rights, or any other rights. Thus there is no way to determine which system of property rights, or taxation, or whatever is legitimate or not by refering to nature. To make this determination you will have to agree on a set of human-invented standards: our property system should be just, efficient, compatible with Jesus’s teachings, consistent with the goals of human evoloution, whatever…. As soon as you have created a set of standards you will have a small society, and can start to legislate and all well be well until someone comes along who doesn’t agree with your standards. She will tell you that your laws are illegitimate. A society is, by definition, whatever set of arbitrary rules the members create, so any rule that society creates through it’s rule making process is legitimate.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 21:34:56 +0000

After giving this much thought, I think I came up with a way to save John Quiggin's criticisms of Nozick from my rebuttal. (Of course, you say, Quiggin doesn't need saving because I never successfully rebutted his arguments. Well, just bare with me anyway.) Quiggin claims that "given any plausible starting point, Nozick’s approach leads to the conclusion that the status quo, including taxes, regulations and other government interventions is just." I still disagree with this formulation of his argument, because historically, I do not believe that the government ever had a legitimate claim on the land, which is a necessary premise to reach John's desired conclusions. But I do think it is possible to construct a hypothetical situation whereby the status quo of a large, regulatory welfare state could have come about without violating any libertarian premises. And as John notes, this should present a problem for libertarians who base their political ideology on natural rights as opposed to consequentialism. I posted the following hypothetical situation on Catallarchy.net in response to this thread:

In the same way that egalitarian premises can lead to inegalitarian conclusions, so too libertarian premises can lead to illibertarian conclusions. This doesn't bother me very much as a consequentialist, but I think it may present a problem for rights-based libertarians.

By: Decnavda

Decnavda — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 20:07:21 +0000

“I suppose you can argue that taxing individual labour is acceptable within a Georgist model because it’s accepted that the state creates the framework for the protection of one’s income derived from labour, and is entitled to its share. Yes, it’s a protection racket, but it’s one that is theoretically based upon egalitarian (or at least equable) principles.” Further, the difference between the state and the mafia is that, in a democracy, the citizen is a soverien of the state, so it’s more like the mafia imposing a protection racket on “made” men. This is the best argument for the income tax I have heard of, and it is one with which I currently struggling, since on a personal level I REALLY do not like the individual income tax. But this is a social contract version of Georgist theory, and does not in any way flow from Nozick’s arguments.

By: Decnavda

Decnavda — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:55:51 +0000

gareth- Your argument against me flowed thus: 1. If A freely purchases property subject to a restriction against building a factory, and then freely transfer this property to B, B is still subject to the restriction because he can only recieve the rights held by A and no more. I agree, and I think Nozick would too. 2. By analogy, if I purchace a plot of land subject to zoning restrictions, those restrictions have moral force because I knew when I bought the property that it was subject to zoning restrictions. I agree. Nozick might balk, but John in this post demonstrated how it flows from his arguments because the land was, as historical fact, initially owned by the government at one time, and transfered to individuals subject to the government’s laws. 3. By analogy, if I took a job knowing that I am subject to an income tax, that tax has moral force because I knew about it before I accepted the job. Wrong. From a Noizickean point of view, what matters is not prior knowledge of coersive restrictions, but but the legitimacy of initial aquisition and the chain of transfer. John’s argument works for land because it was at a prior time, woned by the government and transfered subject to restrictions. But another premise of Noizickean theory is that each individual intially ownes their own labor. The government’s requirement that I pay it a tax on my labor is not legitimate because, unlike land, (or corporate charters, or intelectual property monopolies, etc.) they never owned my labor and never transfered my labor to me suject to any restrictions. Your argument about respecting people’s expectation to welfare from the government is a good one, but it is separate from the question of how the government should raise the revenue to pay for these programs.

By: ahem

ahem — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:48:13 +0000

Rights are never derived from the government. Rights are inherent in the people. But that’s begging the questions, since it’s just a reiteration of Jefferson-after-Locke, and the big problem with Locke is that he engages in some sleight-of-hand with the chronology. One aspect of this is that he analogises the ‘state of nature’ to the commons, whereas the commons itself comes into being because of state acts: to borrow from the philosopher Douglas Adams, they are ‘rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty’ within a system of titled property. What’s slightly disturbing, I suppose, is that the patriarchal model which Locke targets in the first Treatise of Government probably comes closer to the model of original acquisition than Locke’s own counter-model. Not that the absolute (Filmerian) patriachal model isn’t flawed in the extreme; but Locke’s model has a rhetorical satisfaction because of its back-referencing of contemporary socio-corporate structures to ‘corporeal’ ones, i.e. the origins of property-protecting minimal societies. I suppose you can argue that taxing individual labour is acceptable within a Georgist model because it’s accepted that the state creates the framework for the protection of one’s income derived from labour, and is entitled to its share. Yes, it’s a protection racket, but it’s one that is theoretically based upon egalitarian (or at least equable) principles.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:41:00 +0000

Dick, I don’t recall anyone in this thread trying to justify the existence of rights. You are arguing against a straw man. But I do agree with you that the traditional justifications for rights are extremely weak, which is why I tend to be more concerned with consequences. Gareth, But logically, the same point could be made for a zoning by-law: if I bought the land knowing it was zoned residential, how is that different from buying it knowing there was a restrictive covenant on it? This is why my primary tactic in this thread was to deny the authority for government to implement such zoning laws in the first place. Otherwise, I would agree that the two are basically the same. Unfortunately decnavda, the same point can be made for income tax. Last year, I negotiated a certain income from my employer in exchange for work. We both knew that a certain percentage would go to income tax. We also both expected (as Canadians) that the government would provide me with a basic health insurance package at a nominal premium paid for out of those taxes. I don’t think this follows. While it is true that you both knew a certain percentage of your income would go to the government, your decision to go through with the labor contract in no way implies that you gave implicit consent to taxation. Imagine a mafia that moves into your neighborhood and demands a percentage of all wages in exchange for “protection.” The fact that you begrudgingly give in to the mafia’s demands does not mean that you consent to them. Until someone can establish where this authority to tax comes from, the state remains unjustified. The point is that the “process” model of justice, once detached from historically-specific common law concepts of property and civil rights amounts basically to respecting people’s existing expectations. It is an argument against dismantling a welfare state or seniority rights as much as against setting them up in the first place. This seems to be simply a definition of conservative ideology. The problem with this defense of the status quo is that it has nothing to do with rights or justice. To paraphrase what you wrote, if a libertarian party came to power two hundred years ago and eliminated slavery, it would be interfering with the bargain slave sellers and slave buyers agreed to. To which I say, So what?