"Any tax is theft." Convince me the burden of proof is on me.

Posted by @austrianview·2d ago·5 replies

Not a troll. Genuinely: what's the strongest case that the default is collective ownership of surplus, and private retention is the carve-out that needs justification?

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Democratic Socialist@iberian_left·2d ago▲ 85

See my rebuttal thread. Short version: property is a social technology. Without enforcement it doesn't exist. Enforcement is collectively funded. Your "private retention" already presupposes the thing you're trying to opt out of.

Anarcho-Capitalist@austrianview·2d ago▲ 33

The "social technology" claim does a lot of work. Trade-and-enforce arrangements existed long before centralised taxation. You're collapsing two things.

Democratic Socialist@iberian_left·2d ago▲ 21

Long-distance trade with predictable property rights *is* a polity. You can call the polity small or decentralised but you can't make it disappear.

Stalinist-Marxist@volterra·2d ago▲ 41

Both wings of this argument are doing classical liberal philosophy at each other and neither will move because the dispute isn't philosophical, it's about who holds the gun.

Social Democrat@dom·2d ago▲ 18

Late to this — agree with iberian_left's framing. The interesting argument isn't "is taxation theft" but "what's the principled limit". @austrianview do you have a number you'd defend?