Philosophy Discussion Forums

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 7:50 pm The theft (or tax) does not benefit the victim (taxpayer) if the "gift" returned to him is worth less to him than the money stolen.

Your statement above might be true, but I believe it is irrelevant.

Whether or not a transaction is consensual (or is violent robbery) is not affected by what the person who obtains the funds via the transaction spends the funds upon later.

What the proceeds or profits are spent on is irrelevant to whether or not the activity used to obtain those funds is consensual, meaning whether the funder gave the funds consensually (versus being coerced into non-consensually providing the funds via the threat of non-defensive violence).

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 7:50 pm Some non-consensual (forced) payments are morally justifiable, namely, those collected to prevent free-riding.

Whether what you say in the sentence above is true or not is irrelevant (to the titular question in this forum topic). The question/subject of this forum topics is whether or taxation by big non-local governments is consensual, not if it is "morally justifiable" (whatever that means).

Of course, you are free to make another separate forum topic to ask and discuss (1) the question of whether taxation is "morally justifiable" (whatever that means) or task and discuss the question of whether or not non-consensual transactions/interactions can be "morally justifiable" (whatever that means). But neither of those questions/topics are the question/subject of this forum topic. In this topic, they are irrelevant and off-topic.

In regard to this topic, I think we agree: taxation by big non-local governments is not consensual.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 8:43 am The U.S. constitution itself was ratified by the people of the states via directly elected representatives from the local cities and counties. So, the Constitution is an agreement between [missing qualifier] the citizens, you know, "We, The People".

Some of or all of?

Even if (1) it was "all of", and even if (2) big non-local governments only taxed "citizens" , and even if (3) all citizens in the taxed jurisdiction had the right to vote, it still does not follow that it is consensual. Just because the would-be victim in a would-be forced interaction is outnumbered by those doing the forcing or voting in favor of the forcing doesn't make it consensual.

If it was relevant, I would argue that the three numbered premises you may be working under listed above are all false, but that also seems to be irreverent because even if those premises were true the conclusion you draw blatantly does not follow. Even if the false premises were true, the logic is absurd and utterly and blatantly fallacious for the reasons already mentioned.

To illustrate what has already been proven with words above, I ask you this simple yes or no question: If 10 people live on an island, and 8 people convene together and decide to have sex with and kill the the other 2 even if the 8 have to force themselves upon the other 2 because the 2 physically resist and verbally say verbally they don't want it, does that make it consensual (i.e. not rape and not murder)? Does that mean the victims consented to it? Yes or no?

Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 8:43 am The U.S. constitution itself was ratified by the people of the states via directly elected representatives from the local cities and counties. So, the Constitution is an agreement between the citizens, you know, "We, The People".

That agreement specified the means of making amendments to itself by ratification of the state legislatures.

The income tax was added to the constitutional agreement via the 18th Amendment. It was ratified by the state legislatures as stipulated in the Constitution agreement.

Therefore, taxation by the Federal Government is consensual.

I don't think you understand the meaning of "consensual." If Alfie has not expressly consented to a tax, OR to an agreement by which he will be bound by a tax approved by a majority of some group, then taxing him will not be consensual. Many citizens --- perhaps most --- of modern societies have not consented by either means.

Scott wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 1:33 pm

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 7:50 pm The theft (or tax) does not benefit the victim (taxpayer) if the "gift" returned to him is worth less to him than the money stolen.

Your statement above might be true, but I believe it is irrelevant.

Whether or not a transaction is consensual (or is violent robbery) is not affected by what the person who obtains the funds via the transaction spends the funds upon later.

The error there is assuming "consensual" and "violent robbery" exhaust the alternatives. Some forced (non-consensual) payments are not robberies, e.g., forced restitution payments, and damage payments for torts committed.

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 7:50 pm Some non-consensual (forced) payments are morally justifiable, namely, those collected to prevent free-riding.

Whether what you say in the sentence above is true or not is irrelevant (to the titular question in this forum topic). The question/subject of this forum topics is whether or taxation by big non-local governments is consensual, not if it is "morally justifiable" (whatever that means).

Taxation (by any government) is never consensual, by definition. If the payments were consensual they'd be called "donations," not "taxes." So whether a tax is consensual is not an open question. What can be questioned is whether some forced payment are morally justifiable --- meaning consistent with a sound moral theory.

Scott wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 1:38 pm To give an example of the three categories of government, take my situation: I live in Manchester, Connecticut, USA.

The USA federal government (which is in principle a federation of independent states similar to the UN) spends over $12,000 per person. If these aren't paid, one goes to prison, and one cannot avoid them even by moving to the woods or overseas. The total amount spent by the USA government is over $4 trillion per year. A trillion is one million millions. It's population is about 329 million people.

The Connecticut government spends over $5,000 per person. If these aren't paid, one goes to prison. The total amount spent by the Connecticut government is over $20 billion per year. A billion is one thousand millions. Connecticut's population is about 3.5 million people.

And the Manchester Municipal Corporation (i.e. town), incorporated in 1823, has no income tax at all but collects $3,400 per person on average via what are essentially condo fees on real estate/property that is built on or kept on the small land of the town, which are used to fund the local schools, local fire departments, and local police.

Your description would be recognisable to people from many countries. The details may differ, but the practice of having different levels of government is widespread.

I suggest that those who support this status quo have to argue for it against three distinct challenges:
- the challenge of anarchism, those who ask why there should be government at all
- the challenge of subsidiarity, those who ask of every government function why it cannot be carried out at a lower level
- the challenge of consumerism, those who ask why people cannot choose where they buy government services from.

The third is the least familiar. Consider, what would happen if the citizens of Manchester decided that they'd rather pay taxes to and receive services from Massachusetts rather than Connecticut ?

Because it seems to me that if you reject the notion that there shouldn't be government, and you reject the notion that making war should be a decision of federal government (rather than state government or world government, for example) and you reject the notion that you should be able to choose whether your national-level taxes are paid to the government in Washington DC or the government in Ottawa (just for example), then your "lack of consent" objection is not any objection to a principle of government but only to the particular policy that your government adopts.

Once you concede that the government in DC should exist and should have the power to make war and should be the government that all US citizens pay tax to, what is there left to object to ?

Scott wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 1:38 pm In my earlier topic, Is taxation by big non-local governments violent robbery?, I listed 5 premises upon which I believe the only logical conclusion to the question is in the affirmative.

However, the one (of five) premises that seemed to lead to the most discussion was the question of whether or taxation by big non-local governments is non-consensual.
...

The principle is the same regardless the size of the government. As I understand it, all of us are parties to two constitutions. One is the agreement to constitute the nation and the other is the agreement to constitute its individual states. Local governments are created legislatively according to the state they are in.

Scott wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 1:38 pm Are the taxes issued by big non-local governments such as the USA federal government consensual?

Yes. But keep in mind that the consent is not unanimous in either case. If you recall the Virginia example, 89 delegates voted to ratify the U.S. constitution while 79 voted against ratification. Nevertheless, the state as a whole ratified the U.S. constitution.

Scott wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 1:38 pm If they are consensual, how can you explain pacifists being in prison for refusing to pay some of the taxes under they claim they don't agree to them and do not consent neither the taxes nor being dragged into a cage against their will?

The same way we would explain a bank robber being arrested and imprisoned. The legal agreements must be enforced. We may assume that the bank robber found it financially beneficial to go about robbing banks, even though there was a consensus that everyone, including banks, had a right to be secure in their property. The bank robber clearly disagreed with the consensus of people who passed the law against robbery.

Scott wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 1:38 pm One might ask, why would a pacifist refuse to consent to pay taxes to the USA government? ...

One might also ask, why would anyone rob a bank? But let's consider what the bank robber could have done instead. He could have lobbied to eliminate the law against stealing and worked to elect representatives who would vote to eradicate that law. But, he didn't. He just went around robbing banks. He did not win over the majority of people.

And neither did the pacifist. In principle, the pacifist was more like the robber than the government was less like the robber.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 6:07 pm
Yes. But keep in mind that the consent is not unanimous in either case. If you recall the Virginia example, 89 delegates voted to ratify the U.S. constitution while 79 voted against ratification. Nevertheless, the state as a whole ratified the U.S. constitution.

That is self-contradictory. If 100% of the population of a state did not vote for a particular tax or other policy then "the state as a whole" most certainly did not. 89 is not "the whole" of 168.

Now, perhaps everyone in the state earlier consented to an agreement that in certain future matters the decision of a majority would bind them all. Then you could say the "state as a whole" consented to a decision. But such an agreement was never unanimously approved either.

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 7:59 pm

Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 6:07 pm
Yes. But keep in mind that the consent is not unanimous in either case. If you recall the Virginia example, 89 delegates voted to ratify the U.S. constitution while 79 voted against ratification. Nevertheless, the state as a whole ratified the U.S. constitution.

That is self-contradictory. If 100% of the population of a state did not vote for a particular tax or other policy then "the state as a whole" most certainly did not. 89 is not "the whole" of 168.

Now, perhaps everyone in the state earlier consented to an agreement that in certain future matters the decision of a majority would bind them all. Then you could say the "state as a whole" consented to a decision. But such an agreement was never unanimously approved either.

There is no expectation of unanimous (100%) consent in a democracy. Such a requirement would make democracy impossible.

Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 8:47 pm
There is no expectation of unanimous (100%) consent in a democracy. Such a requirement would make democracy impossible.

Yes, it would. But you can't claim that taxes imposed by democratic governments are "consensual." They certainly are not. If you wish to justify them you'll need different grounds.

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 8:57 pm

Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 8:47 pm
There is no expectation of unanimous (100%) consent in a democracy. Such a requirement would make democracy impossible.

Yes, it would. But you can't claim that taxes imposed by democratic governments are "consensual." They certainly are not. If you wish to justify them you'll need different grounds.

Democratic governments are us. We constitute such governments to serve public needs that private interests are unable or unwilling or inappropriate to serve. This requires work. Work costs money. Thus, taxes are justified.

Scott wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 3:32 pm

Scott wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 1:38 pm
A big non-local government would be one that meets all of the following criteria:

- jurisdictions span more than 10,000 square miles
- jurisdiction covers more than 10 million people
- annual budget is greater than $100,000,000,000 USD ($100 billion).


A small local government (or pseudo-government) would be one that meets all of the following criteria:

- jurisdiction spans less than 100 square miles
- width from border to border is no greater than 20 miles in any direction (meaning no matter where you are inside of it you would only need to walk about 10 miles at most to escape its borders, and only 20 miles at most to escape its borders in your preferred direction)
- jurisdiction covers less than 100,000 people
- annual budget is less than $1,000,000,000 USD ($1 billion)


A medium-sized government and/or semi-local government would be any government that doesn't fall into one of the above two categories (i.e. any government that's size and/or locality is between the two categories above).

LuckyR wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 6:37 pm I don't get the difference between sizes of governments

Sorry, I don't know how to explain the difference any better than I did in the OP, as quoted above.

Since this topic is only about what I have labeled big non-local governments as defined above, if the above definitions are unclear to you, then I politely ask you to not participate in this particular forum topic.

Sorry, what I meant is "I don't get the importance of the difference between the sizes of government as pertains to the issues you identified".

Should I take your nonresponse to the rest of my initial post as agreement?

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 7:50 pm The theft (or tax) does not benefit the victim (taxpayer) if the "gift" returned to him is worth less to him than the money stolen.

Scott wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 1:33 pm Your statement above might be true, but I believe it is irrelevant.

Whether or not a transaction is consensual (or is violent robbery) is not affected by what the person who obtains the funds via the transaction spends the funds upon later.

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 2:16 pm The error there is assuming "consensual" and "violent robbery" exhaust the alternatives. Some forced (non-consensual) payments are not robberies...

Such an assumption would be an error, but I certianly didn't make such an assumption.

To be clear, the topic of this thread is not about robbery. The topic is: Is taxation by big non-local governments non-consensual or consensual?

GE Morton wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 2:16 pm Taxation (by any government) is never consensual, by definition. If the payments were consensual they'd be called "donations," not "taxes."

I agree.

Good_Egg wrote: ↑October 21st, 2022, 5:52 pm Once you concede that the government in DC should exist and should have the power to make war and should be the government that all US citizens pay tax to, what is there left to object to ?

I am not sure if this question is directed at me, or others, or is rhetorical, but in any case I couldn't answer it because I don't believe in 'shoulds' or 'oughts'. I don't use the word 'should' and when others do my first guess it's meaningless or refers to something that doesn't exist (e.g. some kind of superstition or such).

I do agree much of the rest of what you said in your post.

I didn't catch your answer to the titular question, if you provided it. For easy reference, here's the titular question: Is taxation by big non-local governments non-consensual or consensual?

LuckyR wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 6:37 pm I don't get the difference between sizes of governments

Scott wrote: ↑October 20th, 2022, 3:32 pm Sorry, I don't know how to explain the difference any better than I did in the OP, as quoted above.

Since this topic is only about what I have labeled big non-local governments as defined above, if the above definitions are unclear to you, then I politely ask you to not participate in this particular forum topic.

LuckyR wrote: ↑October 22nd, 2022, 2:39 pm Sorry, what I meant is "I don't get the importance of the difference between the sizes of government as pertains to the issues you identified".

I'm not sure anyone alleged that the difference you mention is important (to/for something specific since importance of any kind is always relative to or to something else). Whether that thing to which or for which it would be allegedly important, and whether it's important for that thing, or what things it might important for is presumably all irrelevant to the actual topic, which is the question, "Is taxation by big non-local governments non-consensual or consensual?"

LuckyR wrote: ↑October 19th, 2022, 6:37 pm Should I take your nonresponse to the rest of my initial post as agreement?

I'm not sure what you mean by "should".

I don't use the word, and find the way others use it is very equivocal and/or utterly meaningless at best. I wrote about it in 2007: The Clarity of Amorality

Scott wrote: ↑October 22nd, 2022, 5:01 pm I didn't catch your answer to the titular question, if you provided it. For easy reference, here's the titular question: Is taxation by big non-local governments non-consensual or consensual?

I'm saying it depends. I'm identifying 4 different varieties of non-consent:
A) not consenting to be governed at all
B) not consenting to a function of government being exercised at a high level (in a big city far away) if it could be exercised at a more local level
C) not consenting to a lack of choice in who one buys government services from
D) consenting to being governed as long as government does what you want but withdrawing that consent if they adopt policies you don't like.

I suspect that in sense A), central government is by consent in western countries. That is, if you gave people a free choice between central government existing or not existing, the general consensus would be for it to exist. Anarchists are few.

In sense B), and C) I think it's sort-of non-consensual. That where practical, the consensus would be for decisions taken more locally and for choice to exist, but people are conditioned to accept that in most cases it isn't practical (because it's always been done that way).

Government is always non-consensual in sense D).

I take taxation being non-consensual to mean that people only submit to it under duress (e.g. under threat of imprisonment or worse).

So the question amounts to whether people would pay tax if that threat were removed.

And that boils down to seeing the connection between the taxes they pay and the benefits they receive.

If a small town only gets a policeman if they raise enough money to pay his wages, many people would willingly pay their share. But if all the money goes into a big pot, and a bunch of politicians in a big city far away decide whether the town warrants a policeman or not, regardless of who does or doesn't pay, then wanting to "free ride" seems entirely rational.