Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site whuxl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!whuxl!orb From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: freedom and taxes: Reply to Barry Message-ID: <462@whuxl.UUCP> Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 08:47:26 EST Article-I.D.: whuxl.462 Posted: Fri Feb 1 08:47:26 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 11:48:43 EST References: <630@wucs.UUCP> <452@whuxl.UUCP> <421@topaz.ARPA> <459@whuxl.UUCP> <4499@ucbvax.ARPA> Distribution: net Organization: Bell Labs Lines: 83 > > > >Just how *is* taxation a restriction of one's freedom any different than > >paying for bread in the grocery store? > > Really, Tim. We've explained it before, but I'll try again: > buying bread at the grocery store is an act of voluntary exchange. > I value the bread more than my dollar, the grocery store values my > dollar more than the bread, and we trade. No one can coerce either > party into parting with what we own; we trade because we want to > and have a natural right to. Far from being a restriction of freedom, > buying bread is an affirmation of it. Once again, I will point out that this is *only* true *if* I have some property to exchange. *If* I have some property *then* I am free to exchange it. Meanwhile the biological demands for food mean that I am not really free to obtain some sort of food. It is a necessity for my continued life. Once again we can point out the restrictions on freedom implied by private property in the most extreme case: i.e. where one person or group owns all property or all means of production at least. JoSH suggested the person buying bread had a choice: raise his own vegetable garden. But what if the person owns no land? (Many people in this country are in exactly that position) This choice is taken from him. Moreover, what if the person has no money? Then he can't get bread anywhere. One can talk as much as you like about being *free* to exchange but this doesn't mean anything unless one owns something to exchange. Someone with a monopoly of property will have a monopoly of power just as absolute as any "government". > >Certainly there is some diminution of freedom in being excuded from the use of >a piece of bread unless a fee is paid. > > No. Consider: > 1) A necessary and sufficient condition for the dimunition of freedom > by an action is for a person to have less freedom after the action than > before. > > 2) Assume initially, before I go into the store to by the bread, that I > have X amount of freedom. > > 3) Two (legal) possibilities exist: I can buy the bread, or I can walk > out. > 3a) Suppose I walk out. I still have the same amount of freedom, > X, that I had when I walked in. > 3b) Suppose I purchase the bread. I'm down a dollar and up a > loaf of bread (a situation I obviously approve of), but I still > have X "units" of freedom. By the very same reasoning, suppose I have X amount of freedom before voting to approve a municipal bond and consequent increase in taxation. Now I join a majority of other citizens in approving a municipal bond which will go to provide an education to all children in the community. After joining this majority I will find myself with less money to spend: BUT I still have the same freedom I had before approving this referendum to work for its repeal, AND to vote for its repeal. How has my freedom been diminished? The *only* way in which my freedom has been diminished is economic. Exactly the way in which buying bread has done nothing to diminish my freedom to exchange but *HAS* diminished how much money I have available to exchange. A further point: at the very least most Libertarians will concede that there must be *some* role for government. For law enforcement, arbitration, etc., even if *no* other services are provided. These things are *absolutely necessary* for an orderly society. Without these things your *freedom of exchange* will devolve into a total war of power for no agency will exist to protect anyone's rights to life, liberty, happiness, or your precious and so-sacred right to property. (notice the latter was *never* mentioned in the Declaration of Independence??) How is this to be paid for? What is wrong with a tax levied upon citizens to provide the means with which they can live and the conditions under which even "free markets" can exist? Whether particular taxes are justified or not, the government's right to tax to provide the very minimum in services is a precondition of government and orderly society. I would go so far as to call it a precondition of democracy itself: for without it there would be absolutely no check upon the powerful taking whatever they want. > > (By the way, I won't trade my TV for the grocery store's bread, but I > would trade it for the contents of the cash register at the end of the > day. Am I diminishing their freedom by excluding them from my TV > unless they empty their cash register?) MY REPLY: YES tim sevener whuxl!orb