The LP's Conservative Drift

Discussion
1

As others on this list have noted, Natl and State LP appears to be

drifting toward Big Govt Conservative-Republicanism. The latest I've seen in
this trend is Brian Holtz's article, "A Taxation Taxonomy," in the Sept.
2006 California Freedom. There's much to criticize, the most egregious of
which is the statement: "In the following taxonomy I describe various kinds
of tax in decreasing order of desirability." <Mike

As you can see from my original blog posting
<Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos; , my fellow editors changed
my phrase "increasing order of undesirability". Do you deny that some taxes
are more undesirable than others? For example, do you deny that a 100%
inheritance tax is worse than a pollution tax designed to reflect the cost
of the negative externality?

1. Desirable for whom? A major lesson of libertarianism is we're all

unique individuals with our own values, preferences, and desires. What's
desirable for one is often not for another. <Mike

Yes, yes, we all have our own peculiar utility function, but let's not
repeat the Austrian mistake of thinking that because interpersonal
comparison of utility is not possible to arbitrary precision or in every
situation, it follows that in no class of situations is calculation possible
to a close enough approximation for a polity to to make order-of-magnitude
comparisons that apply to the overwhelming majority of citizens. For a
critique of the Austrian complaint about calculation, see Why I Am Not
<Bryan Caplan; an Austrian
Economist by GMU's anarchocapitalist Bryan Caplan.

2. Who decides what this order of desirability is? I assume Big Govt.

<Mike

The order of undesirability is decided by the same people who decide that
murder is wrong. Is that a decision of Big Government?

3. What is to be done with this "decreasing order of desirability"? I

imagine levy a "desirable tax" (an oxymoron). Forcibly imposing one person's
preferences on another (in the form of taxes, no less!) is anti-liberty.
<Mike

Allowing polluters to commit aggression -- and fantasizing that e.g.
tailpipe emissions can be managed by micro-torts -- is anti-liberty.
Resource usage fees and land value taxes are also quite consistent with even
extremist anarcholibertarian dogma. As I say in my article -- and as you
ignore -- "a libertarian polity would probably not need any form of taxation
beyond" these, and my discussion of taxes on consumption, income, and
property "is relevant mainly for transitional tax policy on the way to
Libertopia".

Despite all the article's short-comings, Brian's first sentence is

right on target: "Many Libertarians oppose all forms of coercive
taxation..." It's time Brian spoke out for "The Party of Principle," rather
than morph us into "The Party of Desirable Taxes." <Mike

If you think there is some bumper-sticker-sized axiom (like the Zero
Aggression Principle) that deterministically uncompresses into the One True
Libertarian Political Theory, then you should read about the half-dozen
<Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos; principled self-consistent
flavors of libertarianism that are prominent among the thousands of variants
that can be assembled from the 17 free variables
<Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos; in libertarian theory.
There are more things in the libertarian universe, Horatio, than are dreamt
of in your ZAP bumper sticker. :slight_smile:

Jeremy Linden wrote:

if it is possible to fund the police and military without having taxes,

that would be great. However, if that's not possible, ranking my priorities,
"having police" is higher up there than "absolutely no taxes, ever." I don't
see anything un-libertarian about this position. <JL

Indeed, I contend it is in fact more aggression-minimizing -- and thus more
libertarian -- to recognize that national defense and police protection for
the weak are textbook public goods
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods&gt; that free markets will
inevitably underproduce due to the free-rider
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem&gt; problem. Unfortunately,
this little bit of economic theory wasn't rigorously defined until
Samuelson's 1954 paper, but Rothbard had already sealed the
anarcholibertarian scriptures five years earlier -- dooming legions of his
acolytes to ignorance about such subsequent innovations in the theory of
political economy.

Any just taxes should be a true user fee, for a service from which

everyone benefits. Police and military protection, along with courts, are
one of those true public goods where you can't just "opt out" of in anything
other than a true anarchist situation, so they are the least undesirable
taxes. <JL

As I say in my article: "if the optimal amount of a product or service can
be financed by voluntary transactions, then the government should probably
not be involved in providing that product or service in the first place."

Note that police protection per se is not a public good, since the police
can decline to protect you if you don't pay. The public good here is police
protection for those unable to pay. We pretty much all want to see the
indigent have police protection, but we each can free-ride on the charity of
others to finance that protection, and so that protection will inevitably be
underproduced by a totally free market.

Brian Holtz
2006 California LP Platform Committee Rep
<http://marketliberal.org/FixLP.html&gt; Advice for the Libertarian Party
2004/6 Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley)
http://marketliberal.org/&gt;
blog: http://knowinghumans.net/&gt;
book: http://humanknowledge.net/&gt;

2

MessageBrian,

I appreciate your informed and informative response in which you asked:

Do you deny that some taxes are more undesirable than others?

I don't deny some taxes are more undesirable than others. What I deny is the state should and can determine this for every unique individual it rules, each with his own personal preferences, values, and goals.

However, the thrust of my initial email on this topic was not to debate forms of libertarianism (I'd be happy to do with you in SF over a meal), but rather to express that it appears to me (and others) in recent years the LP and LPC have been favoring increasing the advocacy of Govt intervention in our lives, citing your article as a recent instance.

Best, Michael

3

Michael Edelstein wrote:

I don't deny some taxes are more undesirable than others. What I deny

is the state should and can determine this for every unique individual it
rules, each with his own personal preferences, values, and goals. <MEd

The idea is that individuals determine it for the state, not the other way
around. And libertarians determine it for the LP. I'd be very surprised if
you could find a libertarian (including yourself) who would rank the taxes I
list in a radically different order of undesirability.

However, the thrust of my initial email on this topic was not to debate

forms of libertarianism (I'd be happy to do with you in SF over a meal) <MEd

I'm all for socializing, but I prefer debates to be in written form, so that
they can more easily re-use -- and generate -- prior art. For example, I
doubt you want me to read you my LP reform manifesto
<http://marketliberal.org/FixLP.html&gt; at a restaurant. :slight_smile:

in recent years the LP and LPC have been favoring increasing the

advocacy of Govt intervention in our lives, citing your article as a recent
instance. <MEd

If making room in the LP and LPC for non-anarchist libertarians counts as
"increasing advocacy of government intervention", then yes, that has been my
explicit goal since I joined in Nov 2000:
Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos, reposted at
Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos. I'm glad to hear
that progress toward this goal is noticeable, but I don't know if I can take
any credit for it.

4

MessageBrian,

Sounds like we agree on my basic point. We differ in that you see it as a positive trend, whereas I do not.

Best, Michael

5

Michael Edelstein wrote:

Sounds like we agree on my basic point. We differ in that you see it

as a positive trend, whereas I do not. <Med

No, I claimed that the trend is not toward conservativism but rather away
from anarchism, which is a thesis more consistent with the absence of any
systematic effort in the LP to make it advocate less civil liberty.

I also disputed that it is "anti-liberty" to advocate any of the three kinds
of taxation that my article actually defends -- viz., taxes on negative
externalities, resource usage, and land value. I illustrated this point by
asking you (without response) whether a 100% inheritance tax is worse than a
pollution tax..

I further denied the radical subjectivity of the ranking of forms of
taxation by their undesirability, especially to libertarians. I said I'd be
very surprised if you could find a libertarian (including yourself) who
would rank the taxes I list in a radically different order of
undesirability.

Finally, I denied that the ranking is ultimately determined by the state,
pointing out that in a republic it instead is -- like the rule against
murder -- determined by the citizens of the state. I said this is similar
how the LP's platform is decided by its members, rather than imposed on
them.

6

Brian,

  In a strictly non-political conversation, I doubt anyone would deny that some taxes are worse than others, just as some rapists are undeniably worse than others -- it's common sense.

  The problem comes when you try to get people to accept this idea in a political context where you've made it plain that your goal is to make some coercive taxation acceptable to libertarians. That's like having the conversation about rapists with the goal of getting people to accept some rape as OK.

  By the way, I notice you mention land value as an area where you feel taxes are not anti-liberty. Do you favor a Georgist system of land rents? I'm very sympathetic to such ideas myself. However as I envision such a system working, rent would be paid by those owning more than their share of land -- calculated by dividing the market value of all the land in the system by the number of people in the system -- into a pool to be divided proportionally among those owning less. Since I would not use such rents to fund government, I would not consider them a tax.

  Perhaps a similar system could be used for certain other resources, though I am skeptical. Unlike land, most natural resources require some kind of labor to convert them into something of much use. A land rents system would also appear to be easier to administer than a similar system for the use of other natural resources such as trees, water, or gold. Land just sits there and occupies a fixed spot on the map; you can't smuggle it, and it's hard to take it for private use without attracting notice.

  Negative externalities are a complicated issue, but I think things like pollution credits that can be bought and sold present a more market-friendly solution than coercive taxes. Perhaps you can provide some illustrations of why you think coercive taxation is the only viable solution here, if that's what you believe.

Love & liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>

7

Starchild wrote:

In a strictly non-political conversation, I doubt anyone would deny

that some taxes are worse than others, just as some rapists are undeniably
worse than others -- it's common sense. The problem comes when you try to
get people to accept this idea in a political context where you've made it
plain that your goal is to make some coercive taxation acceptable to
libertarians. That's like having the conversation about rapists with the
goal of getting people to accept some rape as OK. <SC

Rape by definition involves a very high threshold of the most brutal form of
aggression, whereas a tax can be as minimal as the smallest possible unit of
economic value. The intended force of your analogy vanishes when rape is
replaced in it with any form of aggression that like taxation can occur in
arbitrarily small amounts. The speciousness of your analogy becomes even
clearer when rape is replaced in it with a form of aggression like murder
involving just a slightly starker threshold.

This taxation-as-rape analogy is no better than your old taxation-is-slavery
hyperbole, which you seem to have abandoned around the time that I told
<Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos; you:

The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International,

American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being
"chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a
taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave,
and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise. <BH

If you really believe that the state coercing a nickel from you is so
horrific, then try arguing that actual belief, without invoking the specter
of rape or slavery. I take it back: feel free to continue preaching those
analogies, as they could never persuade anyone outside your choir. :slight_smile:

By the way, I notice you mention land value as an area where you feel

taxes are not anti-liberty. Do you favor a Georgist system of land rents?
<SC

Yes, although I oppose the extreme form of Georgism that denies title to
land and says anyone can be outbid to take over their lease. For details on
land value taxation, see
<http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/FoldvaryIntellectualTyrannyApril2005.pd

Geo-Rent: A Plea to public economists by Santa Clara University's Fred

Foldvary, who coined the term geolibertarian.

Negative externalities are a complicated issue, but I think things like

pollution credits that can be bought and sold present a more market-friendly
solution than coercive taxes. Perhaps you can provide some illustrations of
why you think coercive taxation is the only viable solution here, if that's
what you believe. <SC

I consider it obvious that micro-torts cannot handle negative externalities.
No matter how well you tailor the negative externality tax, there will
always be someone who can accurately claim that he's being unjustly coerced
by the tax. My response to him is that there will exist more coercion (via
negative externalities) without the tax.

8

Starchild wrote:

> In a strictly non-political conversation, I doubt anyone would deny that some taxes are worse than others, just as some rapists are undeniably worse than others -- it's common sense. The problem comes when you try to get people to accept this idea in a political context where you've made it plain that your goal is to make some coercive taxation acceptable to libertarians. That's like having the conversation about rapists with the goal of getting people to accept some rape as OK. <SC

Rape by definition involves a very high threshold of the most brutal form of aggression, whereas a tax can be as minimal as the smallest possible unit of economic value.

  Not necessarily. If one accepts that a person has the right to say "stop!" at any point during sexual intercourse, and that the interaction becomes rape if that wish is not immediately complied with, then a several second delay of ceasing a penetrating activity is technically rape, but the threshold is not necessarily that high.

  However I was not attempting to say that taxation is rape -- theft and slavery are more accurate characterizations -- simply that talking about some taxes being worse than others is akin to talking about some rapes being worse than others. Technically true, but if the motive is to legitimize the activity in question, then it becomes objectionable.

The intended force of your analogy vanishes when rape is replaced in it with any form of aggression that like taxation can occur in arbitrarily small amounts. The speciousness of your analogy becomes even clearer when rape is replaced in it with a form of aggression like murder involving just a slightly starker threshold.

This taxation-as-rape analogy is no better than your old taxation-is-slavery hyperbole, which you seem to have abandoned around the time that I told you:

> The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International, American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being "chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave, and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

If you really believe that the state coercing a nickel from you is so horrific, then try arguing that actual belief, without invoking the specter of rape or slavery. I take it back: feel free to continue preaching those analogies, as they could never persuade anyone outside your choir. :slight_smile:

  Taxation is still a form of slavery -- your implication that I might no longer feel confident saying so is pure wishful thinking. If I don't repeat it every time we discuss the subject, that does not mean that my beliefs have changed.

  Sure, the loss of a nickel is not of itself a great loss. Nor, perhaps, is being enslaved for ten seconds. If the State was only talking about taking a nickel from each of us, with no possibility of more money ever being demanded, then your argument that a nickel tax is inconsequential would have some merit. In the real world however, it is the camel's nose in the tent, and should be opposed on principle.

> By the way, I notice you mention land value as an area where you feel taxes are not anti-liberty. Do you favor a Georgist system of land rents? <SC

Yes, although I oppose the extreme form of Georgism that denies title to land and says anyone can be outbid to take over their lease. For details on land value taxation, see Geo-Rent: A Plea to public economists by Santa Clara University's Fred Foldvary, who coined the term geolibertarian.

  I have no problem with land titles, as long as it is clear that in this case "title" does not mean absolute ownership in the sense that this is true for other types of property. I think that someone using a particular piece of land should be entitled to continue using it so long as he or she continues to pay land rent on its market value, to the extent that market value exceeds the community fair share to which each person is entitled to equal use of by birthright.

> Negative externalities are a complicated issue, but I think things like pollution credits that can be bought and sold present a more market-friendly solution than coercive taxes. Perhaps you can provide some illustrations of why you think coercive taxation is the only viable solution here, if that's what you believe. <SC

I consider it obvious that micro-torts cannot handle negative externalities.

  That statement really requires further development. By "handle," do you mean "eliminate any negative effects of?" What do you mean?

No matter how well you tailor the negative externality tax, there will always be someone who can accurately claim that he's being unjustly coerced by the tax. My response to him is that there will exist more coercion (via negative externalities) without the tax.

  I think negative externalities may require disincentives, but a tax is only one form of disincentive. Why assume that the only form of disincentive that will work is requiring the payment of money to a government?

Love & liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>

9

MessageBrian,

The law against murder is rooted in individual rights, not "determined by the citizens of the state."

Best, Michael

10

Michael Edelstein wrote:

The law against murder is rooted in individual rights, not "determined

by the citizens of the state." <MEd

It's of course both. It would be untenable to deny that the American law
against murder has no relationship to the intentions of America's citizens,
or that for the vast majority of those citizens don't base their intention
on a concept we'd recognize as individual rights. If you're going to
complain that the state should not "determine" or "decide" rules when you
disagree with them, you can't pretend that the state is not in the same
sense "determining" or "deciding" a rule just because you agree with it.

11

Starchild wrote:

Rape by definition involves a very high threshold of the most brutal

form of aggression, whereas a tax can be as minimal as the smallest possible
unit of economic value. <BH

Not necessarily. If one accepts that a person has the right to say

"stop!" at any point during sexual intercourse, and that the interaction
becomes rape if that wish is not immediately complied with, then a several
second delay of ceasing a penetrating activity is technically rape, but the
threshold is not necessarily that high. <SC

"He only raped me a little" makes about as much sense as "he only
impregnated me a little". If you're going to call it "technically rape"
every time consensual intercourse involves penetration that lasts several
seconds longer than the penetratee's vocalizations suggest is desired, then
you've just made rapists out of a whooooole lot of non-rapists. The intended
force of your analogy vanishes (as I predicted) if we accept your
redefinition of rape as able to occur in arbitrarily small amounts. Your
micro-rapes are indeed clearly less bad than real-world rapes, just as a 5%
sales tax is clearly less bad than a 100% inheritance tax.

The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International,

American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being
"chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a
taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave,
and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

Taxation is still a form of slavery <SC

Argument by assertion. My point from July stands unrebutted.

> Sure, the loss of a nickel is not of itself a great loss. Nor, perhaps,
is being enslaved for ten seconds. <SC

American history has many examples of policies of very low taxation, but no
examples of policies of very short-term enslavement.

If the State was only talking about taking a nickel from each of us,

with no possibility of more money ever being demanded, then your argument
that a nickel tax is inconsequential would have some merit. In the real
world however, it is the camel's nose in the tent, and should be opposed on
principle. <SC

You're lecturing me about "the real world" after talking about micro-rapes
and 10-second enslavement?

Note that by now you've conceded pretty much all I need to make my argument
work. You've effectively conceded that forms and levels of taxation lie on a
continuum that reaches down to inconsequentiality, and all you're left with
is a slippery-slope argument that we dare not trade low levels of taxation
for the benefits that they might enable. All I need now is an example of a
significant polity that has a multi-generation track record of providing
public goods through levels of taxation that never became so confiscatory as
to enable wealth (as opposed to income) redistribution or prevent
world-class economic growth. Hmm, it's on the tip of my tongue...

I consider it obvious that micro-torts cannot handle negative

externalities. <BH

That statement really requires further development. By "handle," do you

mean "eliminate any negative effects of?" <SC

I mean "cannot mitigate or deter to an acceptable extent".

I think negative externalities may require disincentives, but a tax is

only one form of disincentive. Why assume that the only form of disincentive
that will work is requiring the payment of money to a government? <SC

I assume the disincentive is mandated by that institution or hierarchy of
institutions that maintains a monopoly on force initiation, or else you
slide back into the land of micro-torts as the polluters and victims and
disincenting institutions fight it out. I further assume that for efficiency
reasons the disincentives are in units of currency-denominated economic
value, as opposed to (say) hours of community service. If you've invented a
system of disincentives for negative externalities that is better than
either micro-torts or taxes, I'm all ears.
Thomas L. Knapp wrote:

I consider it obvious that micro-torts cannot handle negative

externalities. No matter how well you tailor the negative externality tax,
there will always be someone who can accurately claim that he's being
unjustly coerced by the tax. <BH

Saying that "micro-torts" aren't the answer to negative externalities is

like saying that meter maids aren't the answer to interstate highway
speeding. Of course they aren't -- but their cousins, class action suits,
could be. <TK

Like an externality tax, a class action ruling either 1) magically balances
state force against each polluter in the same way that a huge set of
micro-tort rulings would, or 2) leaves some polluters unjustly
over-penalized and others unjustly under-penalized. Magic is not an option,
and if you can tolerate (2), then you haven't much argument against the
externality tax.

In cases where area source pollution causes fractional damage to the

body politic, large class action suits are appropriate. <TK

They will be either as imprecise and unjust as a law, or as inefficient as
the micro-torts enabled by all the people who could opt out of the lawsuit
as either plaintiffs or defendants. Note that since so many externalities
have many victims and many victimizers, these class action suits would have
to be "bilateral" ones, which are even clumsier than regular class actions.
Micro-polluters like tailpipe emitters could just opt out of every defendant
class, and force plaintiff classes to target each of them with millions of
individual non-bilateral class actions. I know of nothing in current law
that stops environmental groups from today attempting the sort of bilateral
class actions that you think could handle negative externalities. And yet
the court system doesn't produce the outcomes you advertise -- just as mafia
families do not behave like anarchocapitalist protection agencies.

I don't see torts or class actions for externalities discussed in Rothbard
or Foldvary. David Friedman in The Machinery of Freedom mentions class
action in a single sentence as the "simplest" method of handling
externalities, but then goes on to essentially endorse externality taxes,
without comparing the two approaches.

12

Starchild wrote:

> Rape by definition involves a very high threshold of the most brutal form of aggression, whereas a tax can be as minimal as the smallest possible unit of economic value. <BH

> Not necessarily. If one accepts that a person has the right to say "stop!" at any point during sexual intercourse, and that the interaction becomes rape if that wish is not immediately complied with, then a several second delay of ceasing a penetrating activity is technically rape, but the threshold is not necessarily that high. <SC

"He only raped me a little" makes about as much sense as "he only impregnated me a little".If you're going to call it "technically rape" every time consensual intercourse involves penetration that lasts several seconds longer than the penetratee's vocalizations suggest is desired, then you've just made rapists out of a whooooole lot of non-rapists.

  You can substitute "several minutes" for "several seconds" and it fits my argument just as well -- the point being that rape is not like shooting someone dead, which either happens or it does not, with no middle ground. You may argue that continuing intercourse for a few seconds after being told to stop is not rape; frankly I can see both sides of that one and would probably say it depends on the circumstances. But I think you'd agree that continuing for a few minutes after being told to stop would definitely constitute rape. So where do you draw the line? At thirty seconds? One minute? It's pretty arbitrary, therefore no high threshold.

The intended force of your analogy vanishes (as I predicted) if we accept your redefinition of rape as able to occur in arbitrarily small amounts. Your micro-rapes are indeed clearly less bad than real-world rapes, just as a 5% sales tax is clearly less bad than a 100% inheritance tax.

  I have already acknowledged in my last message that the difference technically exists. The problem, as I said, comes when you seek to use this difference in order to justify behavior that you admit is rape (whatever that may be), or that you admit is coercive taxation, which as shown below, meets the definition of being a type of slavery. If you want to assert that something isn't rape, or isn't coercive taxation, and justify it on that basis, that's a different argument and one for which I'm willing to consider the evidence.

> The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International, American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being "chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave, and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

  You're acting as if I claimed that taxation is the main or primary type of slavery, and I never claimed that. But the definitions of "slavery" are definitely broad enough to technically include taxation. Since you refer to the dictionary, I looked up "slavery" on Dictionary.com, which uses Random House Unabridged and the American Heritage dictionaries. Their primary definition (Random House) is:

the condition of a slave; bondage.

  Next looking up "bondage," I found the primary definition (Random House):

"slavery or involuntary servitude; serfdom"

  Next looking up "servitude," I found the primary definition (American Heritage):

a) "A state of subjection to an owner or master."
b) "Lack of personal freedom, as to act as one chooses."

  Finally looking up "master, I found the primary definition (Random House):

"a person with the ability or power to use, control, or dispose of something."

  Now obviously government has the power to control -- to "govern" something is to control it. And clearly persons under the jurisdiction of a particular government and compelled to obey its dictates are in a state of subjugation (see below) to it, and lack the personal freedom to act as they choose. Therefore they are in a state of servitude. And since the servitude is involuntary, it meets the definition of slavery according to this site (which I believe is the top online dictionary).

subjugate - "to make (submissive or) subservient; enslave" secondary definition (Random House and American Heritage*) after primary definition (American Heritage) "to bring under complete control; conquer" *American Heritage definition includes material in parenthesis

> Taxation is still a form of slavery <SC

Argument by assertion. My point from July stands unrebutted.

  If you're referring to the dictionary evidence you presented, then it no longer stands unrebutted.

> Sure, the loss of a nickel is not of itself a great loss. Nor, perhaps, is being enslaved for ten seconds. <SC

American history has many examples of policies of very low taxation, but no examples of policies of very short-term enslavement.

  That's only true if you use a circular argument in which you define slavery as being a long-term condition. The way the law stands today, if a police officer tells you to back off from the scene of an arrest, for example,

> If the State was only talking about taking a nickel from each of us, with no possibility of more money ever being demanded, then your argument that a nickel tax is inconsequential would have some merit. In the real world however, it is the camel's nose in the tent, and should be opposed on principle. <SC

You're lecturing me about "the real world" after talking about micro-rapes and 10-second enslavement?

Note that by now you've conceded pretty much all I need to make my argument work. You've effectively conceded that forms and levels of taxation lie on a continuum that reaches down to inconsequentiality, and all you're left with is a slippery-slope argument that we dare not trade low levels of taxation for the benefits that they might enable. All I need now is an example of a significant polity that has a multi-generation track record of providing public goods through levels of taxation that never became so confiscatory as to enable wealth (as opposed to income) redistribution or prevent world-class economic growth. Hmm, it's on the tip of my tongue...

  I don't think so. Forms and levels of sticking a knife into someone also "lie on a continuum that reaches down to inconsequentiality," so clearly (according to your reasoning above) all you're left with is that we dare not allow someone to stick a knife to someone else's throat even if it only just touches the skin.

  Of course you will argue that putting knives to peoples' throats does not produce any benefits. But that's not true -- many people doing it may find the action very emotionally satisfying in cases where someone has really pissed them off. Naturally you would respond that this is not a sufficient benefit to justify the aggression being committed. Well, I would say the same about coercive taxation.

  For one thing, initiation of force arguments aside, you have not proven that low levels of coercive taxation are beneficial. For another, you have not shown that these same benefits could not be achieved without the use of aggression.

>I consider it obvious that micro-torts cannot handle negative externalities. <BH

>That statement really requires further development. By "handle," do you mean "eliminate any negative effects of?" <SC

I mean "cannot mitigate or deter to an acceptable extent".

  The obvious rejoinder -- who decides what is "acceptable?"

> I think negative externalities may require disincentives, but a tax is only one form of disincentive. Why assume that the only form of disincentive that will work is requiring the payment of money to a government? <SC

I assume the disincentive is mandated by that institution or hierarchy of institutions that maintains a monopoly on force initiation, or else you slide back into the land of micro-torts as the polluters and victims and disincenting institutions fight it out.

  Not every disincentive need be established by government, nor must every disincentive established by government constitute an initiation of force.

I further assume that for efficiency reasons the disincentives are in units of currency-denominated economic value, as opposed to (say) hours of community service.

  Disincentives could include all kinds of things, from being denied the ability to bid on government contracts or buy government land, to the company's executives not being invited to play golf or attend dinner parties, to a company being officially and publicly labeled as a "gross polluter," to having people waving picket signs outside the company's facilities and a fat rude guy in a baseball cap following the CEO around with a video camera. 8)

Love & liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>

13

Starchild wrote:

You can substitute "several minutes" for "several seconds" and it fits

my argument just as well -- the point being that rape is not like shooting
someone dead, which either happens or it does not, with no middle ground.
<SC

I'm simply going to have to call "bullshit" on this one. I'll be happy to
resume this part of our debate when you can name a native speaker of English
who has actually described such an event by saying she was only raped a
little. Until you do, I'm going to assume that no reader of ours finds your
micro-rape analogy persuasive.

Your micro-rapes are indeed clearly less bad than real-world rapes, just

as a 5% sales tax is clearly less bad than a 100% inheritance tax. <BH

I have already acknowledged in my last message that the difference

technically exists. The problem, as I said, comes when you seek to use this
difference in order to justify behavior that you admit is rape (whatever
that may be), or that you admit is coercive taxation <SC

I've never admitted that Starchild-brand micro-rape is rape, so the first
limb of your "or" here is meaningless, and your rape analogy has deserted
you.

The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International,

American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being
"chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a
taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave,
and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

You're acting as if I claimed that taxation is the main or primary type

of slavery, and I never claimed that. <SC

No, I'm acting as if you claim that taxation qualifies as the actual crime
of slavery. If instead you're just claiming that slavery is a metaphor, like
"killing me softly with his song", then we're done.

But the definitions of "slavery" are definitely broad enough to

technically include taxation <SC

That's simply false, as native speakers of English know. "Slave" is not a
technical term. Try giving Americans a two-question poll: "1. Are you
currently a taxpayer? 2. Are you currently a slave?". I'll bet you that
over 95% of those who answer "yes" to the first question will answer "no" to
the second.

The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International,

American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being
"chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a
taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave,
and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

I looked up "slavery" on Dictionary.com, which uses Random House

Unabridged and the American Heritage dictionaries. Their primary definition
(Random House) is: the condition of a slave; bondage. <SC

And as I said, for "slave" they include in their primary definition "a
person who is the property of and wholly subject to another".

Now obviously government has the power to control -- to "govern"

something is to control it. And clearly persons under the jurisdiction of a
particular government and compelled to obey its dictates are in a state of
subjugation (see below) to it, and lack the personal freedom to act as they
choose. subjugate - "to bring under complete control; conquer" <SC

It's a laughable fallacy of the excluded middle to claim that being subject
to any rules whatsoever means that one is "wholly subject" to another or
"under their complete control". My kids are involuntarily subject to some
rules I make for them, but they are not my slaves.

If you're referring to the dictionary evidence you presented, then it no

longer stands unrebutted. <SC

It stands exposed as a textbook example of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent:

1) All slaves are subject to rules.
2) All taxpayers are subject to rules.
3) Therefore all taxpayers are slaves.

American history has many examples of policies of very low taxation,

but no examples of policies of very short-term enslavement. <BH

That's only true if you use a circular argument in which you define

slavery as being a long-term condition. The way the law stands today, if a
police officer tells you to back off from the scene of an arrest, for
example, [sic] <SC

Restating lexicographic facts does not constitute a circular argument. No
native speaker of English would recognize a policeman's order to "back off"
as temporary "enslavement". The more desperately you cling to this "taxation
is slavery" argument, the clearer it becomes that your arguments against
non-zero taxation are so weak that you have to bait-and-switch.

Forms and levels of sticking a knife into someone also "lie on a

continuum that reaches down to inconsequentiality," so clearly (according to
your reasoning above) all you're left with is that we dare not allow someone
to stick a knife to someone else's throat even if it only just touches the
skin. <SC

When a knife is merely touching your skin, it hasn't been stuck "into" you.
Touching a knife to someone's throat is clearly a threat and/or reckless
endangerment, both of which are far from inconsequential. A continuum here
would have to do with distance between the knife and the throat, but that
does no harm to my argument.

Of course you will argue that putting knives to peoples' throats does

not produce any benefits. <SC

No, I'll argue that touching knives to people's throats is always above a
certain threshold of threat or reckless endangerment.

initiation of force arguments aside, you have not proven that low

levels of coercive taxation are beneficial. For another, you have not shown
that these same benefits could not be achieved without the use of
aggression. <SC

You here 1) change the subject from rape/slavery and 2) invoke an
unreasonable standard of proof. I've presented detailed arguments, the most
recent unrebutted ones of which I posted on July
<Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos; 23.

I mean "cannot mitigate or deter to an acceptable extent". <BH

The obvious rejoinder -- who decides what is "acceptable?" <SC

The people I'm trying to persuade. If our audience here in the Bay Area
think that an acceptable level of aggression is taking place when they see
the haze of pollution over Santa Clara Valley produced by the tailpipes of a
million commuters, then I've lost this argument.

Not every disincentive need be established by government, nor must every

disincentive established by government constitute an initiation of force.
<SC

Any disincentive system would either 1) magically balance incentives
against each polluter in the same way that a huge set of micro-tort rulings
would, or 2) leaves some polluters unjustly over-penalized and others
unjustly under-penalized. Even Mr. Knapp conceded this point.

Disincentives could include all kinds of things, from being denied the

ability to bid on government contracts or buy government land, to the
company's executives not being invited to play golf or attend dinner
parties, to a company being officially and publicly labeled as a "gross
polluter," to having people waving picket signs outside the company's
facilities <SC

These disincentives obviously won't work on a million commuters.

Professor Foldvary made better arguments against Tom than I was going to
make, so I'll just respond to the parts where Thomas L. Knapp wrote:

Like an externality tax, a class action ruling either 1) magically

balances state force against each polluter in the same way that a huge set
of micro-tort rulings would, or 2) leaves some polluters unjustly
over-penalized and others unjustly under-penalized. <BH

I have no doubt that (2) would be the result. [...] my gut feeling

(which I'll be happy to work toward building a factual case for if you like)
disposing this particular power into the tort system via the courts carries
less danger with respect to human freedom that disposing it into the tax and
regulatory system via the legislature and executive departments. <TK

I'm confident I won't be persuaded by any argument that the courts would be
more efficient than a legislature and an executive. Courts would in effect
be acting as legislatures and executives, with the primary differences being
1) they're not as well equipped for writing and enforcing laws, and 2) any
polluter or pollutee could opt out of the class action's law and sue to have
his own custom law. So I'm happy just to note that you don't claim to have
a discussion-ending moral argument against a negative externality tax by
virtue of it inevitably over-penalizing and under-penalizing various
aggressors.

an "externality tax" would suffer the same defects due to evasion <TK

Neither externality taxes nor class action rulings would be un-evadable, but
the latter would be clearly more so, since polluters have the right to opt
out of them.

14

Starchild wrote:

> You can substitute "several minutes" for "several seconds" and it fits my argument just as well -- the point being that rape is not like shooting someone dead, which either happens or it does not, with no middle ground. <SC

I'm simply going to have to call "bullshit" on this one. I'll be happy to resume this part of our debate when you can name a native speaker of English who has actually described such an event by saying she was only raped a little. Until you do, I'm going to assume that no reader of ours finds your micro-rape analogy persuasive.

  Just because people don't usually think of it in terms of being "raped a little" does not make what I said above invalid. Show me where the facts are wrong.

"The publication of Koss' findings in the popular Ms. magazine in 1985 informed millions of the scope and severity of the problem. By debunking the belief that unwanted sexual advances and intercourse were not rape if they occurred with an acquaintance or while on a date, Koss compelled women to reexamine their own experiences. Many women were thus able to reframe what had happened to them as acquaintance rape and became better able to legitimize their perceptions that they were indeed victims of a crime."

  The ability of these women to "reframe what had happened... as acquaintance rape" upon being given a new definition of rape, suggests a low threshold, where the same event could be (and often is) interpreted in different ways by reasonable people.

  The article lists several "myths" and "realities" about acquaintance rape, including:

Myth: Intimate kissing or certain kinds of touching mean that intercourse is inevitable.
Reality: Everyone's right to say "no" should be honored, regardless of the activity which preceded it.

( http://www.aaets.org/arts/art13.htm )

> Your micro-rapes are indeed clearly less bad than real-world rapes, just as a 5% sales tax is clearly less bad than a 100% inheritance tax. <BH

> I have already acknowledged in my last message that the difference technically exists. The problem, as I said, comes when you seek to use this difference in order to justify behavior that you admit is rape (whatever that may be), or that you admit is coercive taxation <SC

I've never admitted that Starchild-brand micro-rape is rape, so the first limb of your "or" here is meaningless, and your rape analogy has deserted you.

  So when do you believe a rape becomes a rape then? If a couple starts to have sex, and she says, "Wait, stop!" as if she means it, and he continues thrusting for several minutes against her further protests until ejaculating, is that rape? Where do you draw the line and why?

> The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International, American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being "chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave, and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

> You're acting as if I claimed that taxation is the main or primary type of slavery, and I never claimed that. <SC

No, I'm acting as if you claim that taxation qualifies as the actual crime of slavery. If instead you're just claiming that slavery is a metaphor, like "killing me softly with his song", then we're done.

  There is more than one type of slavery.

> But the definitions of "slavery" are definitely broad enough to technically include taxation <SC

That's simply false, as native speakers of English know. "Slave" is not a technical term. Try giving Americans a two-question poll: "1. Are you currently a taxpayer? 2. Are you currently a slave?". I'll bet you that over 95% of those who answer "yes" to the first question will answer "no" to the second.

  Appealing to popular conceptions is pointless here. We all know that most taxpayers do not conceive of themselves as slaves, just as most serfs in the Middle Ages did not necessarily see themselves as exploited -- they were just fulfilling their proper and natural role in life, even as kings and nobles were fulfilling theirs. This does not mean they were not oppressed, or did not feel the weight of their oppression -- they just didn't necessarily conceive it in those terms. Same goes for the enslavement of taxpayers.

> The Merriam-Webster, Columbia, Compact OED, Cambridge International, American Heritage, Infoplease, and Encarta dictionaries ALL include being "chattel" or "property" in their primary definition of "slave". Being a taxpayer plainly does not satisfy the English definition of being a slave, and it's laughably hyperbolic to claim otherwise.<BH

> I looked up "slavery" on Dictionary.com, which uses Random House Unabridged and the American Heritage dictionaries. Their primary definition (Random House) is: the condition of a slave; bondage. <SC

And as I said, for "slave" they include in their primary definition "a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another".

> Now obviously government has the power to control -- to "govern" something is to control it. And clearly persons under the jurisdiction of a particular government and compelled to obey its dictates are in a state of subjugation (see below) to it, and lack the personal freedom to act as they choose. subjugate - "to bring under complete control; conquer" <SC

It's a laughable fallacy of the excluded middle to claim that being subject to any rules whatsoever means that one is "wholly subject" to another or "under their complete control". My kids are involuntarily subject to some rules I make for them, but they are not my slaves.

  So you focus on a different dictionary definition, by looking at the word "slave" instead of the word "bondage" under a definition of "slavery" that uses both terms. I never claimed you couldn't find a definition of slavery that restricts its meaning to chattel type slavery. It is you who apparently claimed there is no definition of slavery that fits paying taxes. This has now been shown to be incorrect.

> If you're referring to the dictionary evidence you presented, then it no longer stands unrebutted. <SC

It stands exposed as a textbook example of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent:

1) All slaves are subject to rules.
2) All taxpayers are subject to rules.
3) Therefore all taxpayers are slaves.

  Uh, no. That is not the form of the dictionary examples I presented.

> American history has many examples of policies of very low taxation, but no examples of policies of very short-term enslavement. <BH

> That's only true if you use a circular argument in which you define slavery as being a long-term condition. The way the law stands today, if a police officer tells you to back off from the scene of an arrest, for example, [sic] <SC

Restating lexicographic facts does not constitute a circular argument. No native speaker of English would recognize a policeman's order to "back off" as temporary "enslavement". The more desperately you cling to this "taxation is slavery" argument, the clearer it becomes that your arguments against non-zero taxation are so weak that you have to bait-and-switch.

  I think you're just desperate not to have to acknowledge that something you favor amounts to a form of slavery.

>Forms and levels of sticking a knife into someone also "lie on a continuum that reaches down to inconsequentiality," so clearly (according to your reasoning above) all you're left with is that we dare not allow someone to stick a knife to someone else's throat even if it only just touches the skin. <SC

When a knife is merely touching your skin, it hasn't been stuck "into" you. Touching a knife to someone's throat is clearly a threat and/or reckless endangerment, both of which are far from inconsequential. A continuum here would have to do with distance between the knife and the throat, but that does no harm to my argument.

  The point of the knife can depress the surface of the skin and in some cases perhaps even penetrate it without drawing blood. And touching a knife to someone's throat isn't necessarily "a threat or reckless endangerment." It all depends on the context, just as sexual intercourse is not necessarily rape.

> Of course you will argue that putting knives to peoples' throats does not produce any benefits. <SC

No, I'll argue that touching knives to people's throats is always above a certain threshold of threat or reckless endangerment.

  False. "Knife play" is a well known form of BDSM. I invite you to google the term.

> initiation of force arguments aside, you have not proven that low levels of coercive taxation are beneficial. For another, you have not shown that these same benefits could not be achieved without the use of aggression. <SC

You here 1) change the subject from rape/slavery and 2) invoke an unreasonable standard of proof. I've presented detailed arguments, the most recent unrebutted ones of which I posted on July 23.

  When you said "All I need now is an example of a significant polity that has a multi-generation track record of providing public goods through levels of taxation that never became so confiscatory as to enable wealth (as opposed to income) redistribution," it sounded like you were presuming that coercive taxation can be beneficial. I was taking issue with that, not trying to change the subject.

  Your "July 23" link above directs to a page with a whole bunch of stuff on it. Please tell me specifically what you think constitutes an unrebutted argument that coercive taxation is beneficial. And I'm talking net beneficial, not just beneficial to some.

  I don't think it's an unreasonable standard of proof. Aggression should need to overcome a strong burden of proof in order to be justified.

* BH>I consider it obvious that micro-torts cannot handle negative externalities. <BH

* SC>That statement really requires further development. By "handle," do you mean "eliminate any negative effects of?" <SC

> I mean "cannot mitigate or deter to an acceptable extent". <BH

> The obvious rejoinder -- who decides what is "acceptable?" <SC

The people I'm trying to persuade. If our audience here in the Bay Area think that an acceptable level of aggression is taking place when they see the haze of pollution over Santa Clara Valley produced by the tailpipes of a million commuters, then I've lost this argument.

  Please do try to leave the relevant text intact when replying. When you post responses minus their context (replaced above in the lines preceded by asterisks), it makes the thread of the conversation harder to follow.

  So you're saying that "micro-torts" cannot mitigate the problem of auto exhaust pollution in the Bay Area to a degree that (most?) (nearly all?) (all?) residents feel the level of pollution is acceptable?

> Not every disincentive need be established by government, nor must every disincentive established by government constitute an initiation of force. <SC

Any disincentive system would either 1) magically balance incentives against each polluter in the same way that a huge set of micro-tort rulings would, or 2) leaves some polluters unjustly over-penalized and others unjustly under-penalized. Even Mr. Knapp conceded this point.

  So in your view, it's better to have aggression than to allow a situation where there is inequality of outcomes?

> Disincentives could include all kinds of things, from being denied the ability to bid on government contracts or buy government land, to the company's executives not being invited to play golf or attend dinner parties, to a company being officially and publicly labeled as a "gross polluter," to having people waving picket signs outside the company's facilities <SC

These disincentives obviously won't work on a million commuters.

  True. So the solutions mentioned above would not work in that case. But my point was that coercive taxation is not the only way to address negative externalities. In the case of pollution caused by auto commuters, one could probably get most people to buy newer and less polluting cars by eliminating taxes on such purchases and eliminating the regulations that make new cars expensive.

Love & liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>