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From: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Strange Bedfellows
Message-ID: <557@qantel.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Dec-85 04:41:48 EST
Article-I.D.: qantel.557
Posted: Tue Dec  3 04:41:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Dec-85 20:18:14 EST
References: <549@qantel.UUCP> <28200323@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: gabor@qantel.UUCP
Organization: MDS Qantel, Hayward, CA
Lines: 36

In <28200323@inmet.UUCP> Jan Wasilewski writes:
> The following is Gabor's criticism of libertarians and  Marxists,
> respectively.
> 
> >The democratic process will not do [for libertarians] as a  source
> >of  legitimacy for the state: this is the translation of the slo-
> >gan 'Taxation is Theft'.
> 
> >Marx's ... assertion that 'human essence is the totality  of  so-
> >cial  relations'  is,  as far as I can see, incompatible with any
> >notion of inalienable rights.
> 
> There seems to be an implicit contradiction here. Can  the  demo-
> cratic  process,  in  your  view,  legitimize  alienation  of all
> rights, or only of some rights; and if so, which ?

The democratic process legitimizes the making of public policy. 
Taxation is an adjunct and precondition of public policy. Saying
'Taxation is Theft' is an attack on the legitimacy of political power
whether or not such legitimacy flows from the democratic process. 
This is the line of thought implicit in the first paragraph you quoted. 
Nothing was said about rights there, unless 'freedom from taxation' is 
regarded as a fundamental right or, alternatively, legitimacy is understood 
to mean 'a licence to abrogate rights'. But of course it means nothing of the 
sort. The striking thing about the democratic process is its ability to create
new rights at an alarming rate. For example, the right of disabled children
to 'mainstream' education, the right of schizophrenics to be released from
mental hospitals and the rights flowing from affirmative action laws or the 
Freedom of Information Act have all been codified within the last ten years
or so. It seems that the logic of the democratic process gravitates toward
inventing more rights rather than abolishing existing ones (whatever one may 
think of the recent crop). So I cannot make sense of your question without some
pointers to the implicit contradiction you are hinting at.

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Gabor Fencsik           {ihnp4,dual,lll-crg,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor