But that sentence is even more "true" in our current capitalistic society. How often do you hear something on the lines of
"If they don't work, they should not get anything from our tax money".
That definitely isn't a fault only of those rules. In fact it comes from christian work ethic "those who do not work should not eat".
Maybe we should identify this with protestant work ethic. In fact taxes are are theft and after being robbed you have to be thankful becoming something back. So do not become ungrateful, this would force the authorities to stop giving you anything back.
I do not agree.
This is simply not true.
First, the whole planet is occupied by nation states. The only choice you could have, would be to choose a new master. This would not change anything substantial.
Second, the nation states have designed rules - similar to the slaveholders in northern America not too long ago - and established them on a nearly global scale.
You are not allowed to live or work in a freely choosen part of this planet. Even not if you are able to prove that you are self-sustained. It is Slavery, it is Serfdom, it is Exploitation.
No, taxes are not theft, neither legal nor moral, but I am really fed up with that topic.
For your fun and education, I will just copy a part of my post on governments.
Your Choice!
In real democracies you always have the option to no longer be a subject of the government, and as such you don’t need to pay those taxes. You can always leave, most people just don’t do it because it is too much of a hassle.
This is often rebuked as “the old jungle argument” and declared invalid, but hell, it is true!
pic CC0
You are living in a society, and every society has rules. The ideological libertarian society is “there is only private property and you cannot force anybody”. But you are not living in this society. You are living in a society that basically says:
1.) You are living in a certain area, where this society rules. 2.) You benefit from the society. 3.) You do your duties towards the society (or face the consequences). 4.) Those three come in a package. Either all of them or none.It is up to you to either agree with that society or to or use all your options to change the rules of the society you live in. And all options does include your choice of changing the society you belong to to a different one. (Which gives you an advantage, since one rule of today’s democratic societies is that the societies cannot change your belonging to a society without your consent.)
If you don’t go for that choice (“going into the jungle”), then you aren’t using all available choices. If you aren’t using all your (morally good) choices, then you are implicitly agreeing to the society you live in and have to abide the rules (with the restriction above, that you could change the rules peacefully).
Or to use more libertarian lingo: You are in a contract with a society by being born in it. But it is opt-out. You are free to leave that contract at any time after you grow up to be mentally able to. If you don’t cancel the contract, you of course have to uphold it’s terms (like paying taxes).
Yes you can opt out. What I am fighting for is to make that easier. Currently rich people have it simple to opt out. For this reason there are tax-heavens etc.
But the poor, they are essentially trapped. If they want to leave, they first have to find some new land, but all of it is already government owned. Then they have to subscribe to a new government before they are able to rebuke their old citizenship. In addition they have to leave their home, family and friends.
So it we own land, why cant we opt out and stay on that land. Why do we need to be citizens of another recognised country before we can opt out? Why are we forced to organised into localised states and not borderless decentralised systems?
We know that the option to opt-out is a fundamental part of a free society. So I think we should make that as easy as possible and not force people into rules just because they were born in a certain geographical part of this planet.
It is a street gang. As soon as they have control on a block they do only accept other street gangs as nearly equal. You're not fighting against our oppression ? Then we have the right to oppress you.
I cant tell you about christian work ethic, but yes the current system is also deeply flawed.