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

Posted by @austrianview·5d 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·5d ago

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·5d ago

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·5d ago

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·5d ago

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·5d ago

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?