Is taxation voluntary?

[Greenbeard]

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

That's pretty basic economics. Secure property rights, contract enforcement, and conflict resolution through an impartial system of courts are necessary for well-functioning free markets and require some form of governance to achieve (you can go further and also consider the correction of market failures, like monopolies, but that isn't even necessary here).

Is the underground drug market in Mexico your idea of a well-functioning free market?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

When has choice ever meant "free of all constraint"? There are always limitations to what you can choose (there's actually an entire discipline dedicated to fleshing out this principle--it's called economics). That doesn't mean there is no such thing as choice or you don't have choices. As you even point out in your post, there are alternatives to the choice you've made, you simply like them less. Alternatives are available to you right now, some of which have already been suggested in this thread:

1. Emigrate. I suspect the tax rate in Mogadishu will be more to your liking.
2. Lower your income. The destitution choice will free you from the onerous burden of income taxes.
3. Pull a Thoreau. If you view your current situation as devoid of choice (and, perhaps, lacking in freedom), then presumably life as a wage earner and life as a prisoner lie on the same indifference curve for you. Try it out for a while.

Given that these alternatives are all available to you but instead you opt for paying taxes, by the definition you presented ("for something to be voluntary you have to be able to choose not to do it") they are voluntary. Similarly, illegality also doesn't absolutely restrict choices; you may have noticed that the crime rate isn't zero. What illegality does is alter the nature of the choice. If "A" is a legal option, and "B" is an illegal alternative, that doesn't mean there's some cosmic force or infinite potential well stopping you from choosing "B." Illegality simply means that with "B" comes some probability of sanction (a fine, jail time, whatever). That probability (and perhaps adherence to some particular moral tenets or conscience) is enough to make "B" the less desirable choice for most people but desirability doesn't determine whether the choice itself exists.

Quite a bit of what you probably consider to be voluntary is a bit more ambiguous if you want to take the position that constraint signals an absence of choice. Some examples: For many people, consumption patterns are dictated by the status group they happen to be in. Drug trafficking in a high unemployment inner city neighborhood may be the most immediately appealing option to a teenager facing a list of unpleasant options (just as paying your taxes is probably the most appealing option to you, given the list of alternatives I posted above). Choosing to go to work at a fast food joint while sick--even knowing one might, and probably will, infect customers--may be the only viable option for a low-wage hourly worker. A single mother may choose to settle for more less-than-healthy dollar menu meals and corn-based products for her children due to the relative prices and availability of fresh fruit and vegetables in her neighborhood.

These are all issues generally understood to fall under the umbrella of "personal responsibility." Life is full of constraints that make our actual choices less appealing than the choices we dream we'd make in some idealized world. But if you want to go down the road of suggesting that if the choices we're directed to make by ambient incentives and the contours of the world in which we live are not choices at all if they differ substantially from our ideal (e.g. if we simply don't like the best option available to us), then you're also going to have to accept that a great many people in this world, even in "free" countries, have never had the luxury of making a single substantial choice in their entire lives.

I keep hearing people telling me I do not have free will. I would probably have a lot less trouble with them arguing that if they were not always the same people who insist they know more about what is good for me than I do.

Free people choose what constraints they have on them, and are free to ignore those constraints at will. Governments tend to frown on free poeple who know they are free, which is why they pay people like you to argue that we are not truly free.

 

[Greenbeard]

Free people choose what constraints they have on them, and are free to ignore those constraints at will.

Are you of the opinion that no human being who has ever lived has been free?

 

[boedicca]

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

That's pretty basic economics. Secure property rights, contract enforcement, and conflict resolution through an impartial system of courts are necessary for well-functioning free markets and require some form of governance to achieve (you can go further and also consider the correction of market failures, like monopolies, but that isn't even necessary here).

If the underground drug market in Mexico your idea of a well-functioning free market?

The Government doesn't Give us a those things - it can only protect our natural rights and enforce a rule of law. Saying that the Government can give us property rights means it also has The Right & Power to take away those rights.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

When I refer to coercion I'm referring to what we might call "artificial coercion" as opposed to "natural coercion." In a natural scenario I would be permitted to work without the threat of being imprisoned if I don't give a portion of my income to the state. The state, however, adds the artificial coercion to the equation.

It sounds like you would consider any social constraints (as opposed to more basic constraining factors, like the need for food or shelter) to be "artificial." I don't know if you mean that word to be derogatory or to indicate a lesser degree of legitimacy, but I'm not sure why you think the constraints imposed by the rules of social interaction are less valid than those imposed by nature. The rules/constraints imposed by the Ten Commandments are all "artificial coercion" in the way you seem to be using the phrase; indeed, the state has stepped up to reiterate some of those rules (e.g. those against killing and stealing). Are those unacceptable constraints?

Again, the message is simple: choosing the items on this list results in sanction. People still kill and steal, there are just extra factors to weigh now when making that decision (the probability of the law catching you, your personal belief in cosmic justice, etc). Constraints. It sounds like you're arguing that since these constraints exist, no one who makes a choice like not murdering someone is on some level doing so involuntarily.

I would define to choose as to make a decision regarding something, but the question is whether that choice is voluntary or not.

But that gets to the heart of it. What's an involuntary choice? Suppose I argue that decision-making (choosing) is the result of a calculation, an algorithm in a person's head based on his many preferences. And let's imagine I'm able to program a machine with all of my preferences (assuming completeness and transitivity of my own preferences). So now I can feed this machine any conceivable situation and set of circumstances/constraints and it spits out a choice either identical to the one I make or equivalent to it (meaning when comparing the machine's output and my own, I'm indifferent between them).

In this little thought experiment, is the machine making choices? Given its (or, rather, my) preferences, it's choosing the best option available in a given circumstance. But generally we associate the act of choosing with free will. Presumably just programming in some preferences doesn't confer free will to the machine. But maybe you object that the machine is proceeding from my preferences--I put them into it and thus it's a slave to my preferences, it hasn't chosen anything. The outcomes of its "choice" calculations are all deterministic and ultimately I'm the one pulling its strings.

But then you have to ask what that says about me. For again, when I make choices I, too, am weighing my preferences against the incentives and constraints facing me. And it doesn't seem to me I've chosen my preferences anymore than the machine chose them. I don't recall sitting down at any point and consciously deciding that in general steak tastes better than chicken which tastes better than pork. I don't recall choosing to find most shades of green more aesthetically pleasing than most shades of yellow. So when a decision needs to be made and I feed the relevant constraints (natural, artificial, whatever) and circumstances into my mental preference algorithm, have I exercised free will in coming up with my final choice? And is the existence of constraints (including artificial ones) to be weighed any more eyebrow-raising than the fact the set of preferences ultimately determining my choice wasn't itself consciously chosen by me? But what would it even mean to choose one's preferences (on what basis could a preference-less person choose which preferences to select)? Or, put more simply, who's in the driver's seat during the decision-making process? If the machine in my thought experiment isn't displaying free will and doing its own bidding when it spits out a choice, should I be any more convinced that I'm doing my own bidding when I make the same calculation using the same preference-algorithm (of mysterious origin)?

What's the point here? Choices arise when constraints (social-artificial, necessary-natural) collide with preferences, resulting in multiple possible outcomes. What I argued in the earlier post is essentially that since there are multiple possible outcomes for you (compliance, emigration, destitution, sanction) then the basic definition of choice as "multiple options" is satisfied. Your response is that choice isn't really present because 1) several of these possible outcomes are unreasonable and you can't be expected to actually choose them, and 2) your ideal outcome is absent from the list of possible outcomes due to constraints (in other words, the constraints have eliminated your top preference from the realm of possibility).

And so this emphasis on "voluntary" seems to really be a daydream about a perfect world where your personal preferences and the external constraints are orthogonal; the constraints turn out not to be constraints on your preferences at all. That seems implicit in the notion of involuntary choice that you're proposing. And I'd say not only is that a very limited definition of what is or isn't voluntary, it doesn't answer why preferences should be considered so much more legitimate than constraints in this equation, given the haziness of their origins--if, again, you're trying to make a more philosophical point about free will and choice.

I'll just be honest, you lost me with the entire second half of your post.

As for the first part, I didn't define it as "arbitrary coercion" to belittle it in and of itself, I simply chose arbitrary to mean man-made coercion. Now you're right that laws against murder would be a form of arbitrary coercion, but taxation and murder aren't analogous aside from that. We'd have to make a value-judgement as to whether there should be arbitrary coercion for one thing, and whether there shouldn't be for something else. Like I said in the OP, this thread isn't necessarily trying to distinguish whether we think taxation is moral or immoral just whether it's voluntary. We could ask the same of murder and I would come to the conclusion, using the criteria I've set forth and setting morality aside, that because of the artificial coercion involved in choosing to murder somebody it can't be a truly voluntary choice. Somebody may choose to not murder somebody else because of the laws against murder, but in the absence of those laws would do so. Again, this is setting the idea of morality regarding murder and whether or not there should be this artificial coercion against murder aside completely.

 

[Big Fitz]

Next time I go to a drive through, I want them to ask me "You want tax with that?"

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

That's pretty basic economics. Secure property rights, contract enforcement, and conflict resolution through an impartial system of courts are necessary for well-functioning free markets and require some form of governance to achieve (you can go further and also consider the correction of market failures, like monopolies, but that isn't even necessary here).

Is the underground drug market in Mexico your idea of a well-functioning free market?

Basic economics?

Where buyers and sellers can make the deals they wish to make without any interference, except by the forces of demand and supply. A stockmarket comes closest to this ideal. See also market economy and open market.

free market definition

You must have a different dictionary than everyone else in the world. It is not my definition, it is the definition.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Free people choose what constraints they have on them, and are free to ignore those constraints at will.

Are you of the opinion that no human being who has ever lived has been free?

Not at all, you are.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

That's pretty basic economics. Secure property rights, contract enforcement, and conflict resolution through an impartial system of courts are necessary for well-functioning free markets and require some form of governance to achieve (you can go further and also consider the correction of market failures, like monopolies, but that isn't even necessary here).

If the underground drug market in Mexico your idea of a well-functioning free market?

The Government doesn't Give us a those things - it can only protect our natural rights and enforce a rule of law. Saying that the Government can give us property rights means it also has The Right & Power to take away those rights.

Bingo.

 

[Big Fitz]

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

That's pretty basic economics. Secure property rights, contract enforcement, and conflict resolution through an impartial system of courts are necessary for well-functioning free markets and require some form of governance to achieve (you can go further and also consider the correction of market failures, like monopolies, but that isn't even necessary here).

If the underground drug market in Mexico your idea of a well-functioning free market?

The Government doesn't Give us a those things - it can only protect our natural rights and enforce a rule of law. Saying that the Government can give us property rights means it also has The Right & Power to take away those rights.

Spot-diddilly-ot on!!!!!

Inalienable human rights. Of these are life, liberty and property... according to the original language. To this day I lament the choice of poetic language instead.

 

[Mike Mitrosky]

When in the US did we have no taxes?

Income taxes do not pay to fund our government. They dont pay for the military, roads, schools, congressmans' salaries, etc.. none of that.

Paying taxes is not patriotic.

Patriotism is better defined by holding your government's feet to the fire.

Paying taxes is a patriotic act, IMO. Just not the only one. So is voting, military service, etc. Even "holding the government's feet to the fire" is patriotic.

Your assertion that income taxes are not used to fund the government is just plain silly, unless you have some sort of fancy explanation to go along with it I am just not able to imagine.

Well this is why people need to educate themselves on an issue like this.. not one penny in income taxes is used to fund government. This is pretty much general knowledge by the ron paul sect of tea partiers. It goes back to a report done during Ronald Reagan's administration. the govt finances itself from buying money from the federal reserve and by robbing trust funds.. Of which theyve all been tapped for what they can even social security. Enter Obamacare as a new trust fund potential.

The real problem with the income tax is the federal reserve.. That is the belly of the beast and what needs to go bye bye if we're ever going to fix this country's finances...

The last president to get rid of the federal reserve of his day was Andrew Jackson.. also the last time we got our debt paid off..

Cant pay off the debt while we have this horrible central bank sucking us dry...

 

[loosecannon]

Some think that because we have a "representative" republic or democracy or whatever you want to call it that taxation is somehow voluntary or consensual. My question is do you think that taxation is voluntary? Now I'm not asking whether you think taxation is moral or immoral, just whether it's voluntary.

My opinion is that taxation is not voluntary because for something to be voluntary you have to be able to choose not to do it. Since you cannot choose not to pay taxes without being thrown in prison it is clearly not voluntary. loosecannon is of the opinion that because you sign a paper prior to employment that allows the government a portion of your income that you're consenting to being taxed, but I disagree. For one this doesn't cover all forms of taxation, and two you have no other choice but to sign this paper. The government has made it illegal to work without giving them a cut of your income so you are forced by law to sign this paper or you can't legally work. If you can't work you can't live so there's obviously no choice there.

Taxes are clearly coercive, not voluntary.

What do you think?

What our friend, Kennedy has failed to disclose is that whether or not taxes are voluntary wasn't the point he was arguing, at all. That's called a lie of omission.

What Kennedy actually was arguing is that in his opinion all taxes are theft. That was his argument.

The argument is analogous to saying that because you were born in a hospital or a seaside condo you have a god given right to live in that hospital, or condo, without ever paying for any of the services you consume.

We agree to pay taxers when we apply for a tax payer identification number and when we fill out and sign the application for our tax number our signature is an instrument of our legal consent to an obligation to be taxed on our income.

Kennedy argues that he should be able to live here, work here and benefit from all the blessings of citizenship within our nation but that he should still be able to choose not to assume any of the responsibilities included in that deal.

That is what he believes and I am sure he will be happy to say as much again.

If Kennedy doesn't want to honor the contract he signed with our government he is free to leave, move and work elsewhere, and he will be liberated from the responsibilities of US citizenship as well as the rewards.

You go girl!

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Some think that because we have a "representative" republic or democracy or whatever you want to call it that taxation is somehow voluntary or consensual. My question is do you think that taxation is voluntary? Now I'm not asking whether you think taxation is moral or immoral, just whether it's voluntary.

My opinion is that taxation is not voluntary because for something to be voluntary you have to be able to choose not to do it. Since you cannot choose not to pay taxes without being thrown in prison it is clearly not voluntary. loosecannon is of the opinion that because you sign a paper prior to employment that allows the government a portion of your income that you're consenting to being taxed, but I disagree. For one this doesn't cover all forms of taxation, and two you have no other choice but to sign this paper. The government has made it illegal to work without giving them a cut of your income so you are forced by law to sign this paper or you can't legally work. If you can't work you can't live so there's obviously no choice there.

Taxes are clearly coercive, not voluntary.

What do you think?

What our friend, Kennedy has failed to disclose is that whether or not taxes are voluntary wasn't the point he was arguing, at all. That's called a lie of omission.

What Kennedy actually was arguing is that in his opinion all taxes are theft. That was his argument.

The argument is analogous to saying that because you were born in a hospital or a seaside condo you have a god given right to live in that hospital, or condo, without ever paying for any of the services you consume.

We agree to pay taxers when we apply for a tax payer identification number and when we fill out and sign the application for our tax number our signature is an instrument of our legal consent to an obligation to be taxed on our income.

Kennedy argues that he should be able to live here, work here and benefit from all the blessings of citizenship within our nation but that he should still be able to choose not to assume any of the responsibilities included in that deal.

That is what he believes and I am sure he will be happy to say as much again.

If Kennedy doesn't want to honor the contract he signed with our government he is free to leave, move and work elsewhere, and he will be liberated from the responsibilities of US citizenship as well as the rewards.

You go girl!

Well I very clearly stated in this thread that I wasn't discussing the morality or immorality of taxes, so no lie of omission.

 

[JBeukema]

That's not what I said. I said people who cannot afford to raise their children shouldn't have them.

They are equivalent statements

No they are not.

My having an opinion regarding the irresponsibility of parents who choose to bring children into the world which they are unable to support is not the same as forcing them to be sterilized.

a=b

b=a

a=/=c

b=/=c

 

[JBeukema]

I think because we didn't like taxes and did our best to limit government. I agree the founding fathers wanted limited government. But as a society evolves, it needs to protect its citizens. Having laws without enforcement is completely useless. So with the increase of enforcement means increase in government.

Look everybody cries their is too much government, but without the government, we would have no opportunity for a free market. Thats right I said it, no free market. Why? Remember company towns? You know where you worked for a company and they pay you in company dollars that you spend at their own store meaning you have no money to save yourself and become rich yourself. Or we would have monopolies that could do whatever they want, and charge whatever they wanted because they knew you couldn't get it anywhere else. Government helps protects its citizens but it can't without money.

That is why I believe we went from barely any taxes to the income tax, that plus the sheer size of our country.

This is what liberals always get backward. Government does not exist to protect its citizens, it exists to allow them to protect themselves and each other.

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market. A free market is one without any government involvement at all, like the black market that thrived in the West Bank while Israel and Egypt blockaded almost everything. The second the government gets involved in a market it is no longer a free market.

This is what people always get messed up. As soon as we begin thinking of the government as distinct from the People, we're in trouble..

 

[JBeukema]

Free people choose what constraints they have on them, and are free to ignore those constraints at will.

Are you of the opinion that no human being who has ever lived has been free?

Only those who refused to accept gravity and the need for food

 

[elvis]

I think because we didn't like taxes and did our best to limit government. I agree the founding fathers wanted limited government. But as a society evolves, it needs to protect its citizens. Having laws without enforcement is completely useless. So with the increase of enforcement means increase in government.

Look everybody cries their is too much government, but without the government, we would have no opportunity for a free market. Thats right I said it, no free market. Why? Remember company towns? You know where you worked for a company and they pay you in company dollars that you spend at their own store meaning you have no money to save yourself and become rich yourself. Or we would have monopolies that could do whatever they want, and charge whatever they wanted because they knew you couldn't get it anywhere else. Government helps protects its citizens but it can't without money.

That is why I believe we went from barely any taxes to the income tax, that plus the sheer size of our country.

This is what liberals always get backward. Government does not exist to protect its citizens, it exists to allow them to protect themselves and each other.

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market. A free market is one without any government involvement at all, like the black market that thrived in the West Bank while Israel and Egypt blockaded almost everything. The second the government gets involved in a market it is no longer a free market.

This is what people always get messed up. As soon as we begin thinking of the government as distinct from the People, we're in trouble..

You don't think of them as distinct?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I think because we didn't like taxes and did our best to limit government. I agree the founding fathers wanted limited government. But as a society evolves, it needs to protect its citizens. Having laws without enforcement is completely useless. So with the increase of enforcement means increase in government.

Look everybody cries their is too much government, but without the government, we would have no opportunity for a free market. Thats right I said it, no free market. Why? Remember company towns? You know where you worked for a company and they pay you in company dollars that you spend at their own store meaning you have no money to save yourself and become rich yourself. Or we would have monopolies that could do whatever they want, and charge whatever they wanted because they knew you couldn't get it anywhere else. Government helps protects its citizens but it can't without money.

That is why I believe we went from barely any taxes to the income tax, that plus the sheer size of our country.

This is what liberals always get backward. Government does not exist to protect its citizens, it exists to allow them to protect themselves and each other.

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market. A free market is one without any government involvement at all, like the black market that thrived in the West Bank while Israel and Egypt blockaded almost everything. The second the government gets involved in a market it is no longer a free market.

This is what people always get messed up. As soon as we begin thinking of the government as distinct from the People, we're in trouble..

You think the government of China and the people of China are the same? Or the government of Iran and the people of Iran.

 

[snjmom]

Like I said in the OP, this thread isn't necessarily trying to distinguish whether we think taxation is moral or immoral just whether it's voluntary.

Think of it this way, taxes are the market-price of actions. If you wish to avoid income taxes, don't earn taxable income. If you wish to avoid property tax, move to a state or locality without one. If you wish to avoid sales tax, barter. Many people live off the grid. The lifestyle you have chosen for yourself currently involves the payment of various taxes. To insist that your lifestyle is not a choice is disingenuous. How has the government coerced you into participating in taxable activities?

The market price of government without taxation is outside the curve. Like full employment without inflation.

Free people choose what constraints they have on them, and are free to ignore those constraints at will.

Free people or free individuals? Individuals may not choose which constraints are a part of their social fabric though they are free to ignore those constraints while suffering the consequences of their choice. Individuals may band together and if of sufficient power may alter the constraints imposed on individuals.

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

By making it possible to enforce contracts and collect damages or inflict punishment for fraud. A black market is not a free market.

 

[shintao]

I am little confused about how you can believe that government gives us a free market.

By making it possible to enforce contracts and collect damages or inflict punishment for fraud. A black market is not a free market.

A black market is an underground market, correct? So wouldn't it be free, beyond government control?