As long as most people remain insensitive to the basic incompatibility of coercive means with humanitarian ends, societies will be hijacked by manipulative politicians and consumed by destructive power struggles between groups determined to impose their preferences and priorities on others through the force of law.
Having humanitarian aspirations does not make using force to achieve them any less inhumane. Put another way, caring deeply about the education of children or the health care needs of poor people doesn’t justify acting like a careless bully on their behalf.
Furthermore, labeling as “moral” any laws that authorize seizing people’s wealth or exerting control over people’s lives if and when lawmakers’ stated intentions seem sincere and idealistic and are well-received by a majority of citizens is nothing less than an attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
At a minimum, the morality of a law consists of its rejection of coercive uses of force. When laws themselves become instruments of coercion, when people are interfered with or penalized by laws merely for undertaking peaceful and voluntary behavior, when people’s earnings and property are treated by the law as a resource that can be seized or controlled without their consent, then those laws no longer have any moral justification.
This is not to say that humanitarian goals are not worthwhile. Of course, they are. But declaring a noble goal doesn’t result in a moral blank check! No matter how well a bottle of wine goes with a particular meal, you’re not justified in stealing it to make the match. Today’s political partisans typically resist criticisms of their favorite projects by trumpeting the heartlessness of their opponents— “So-and-so doesn’t care about ____, how insensitive so-and-so is!” But what of their own insensitivity to the dehumanizing havoc wrought by their policies in the service of those about whom they care?
What I’m hoping is that a critical mass of people will conclude in my lifetime that virtuous goals are simply unobtainable via coercive behavior or laws. One is as likely to arrive at a moral accomplishment via murder or rape as via a law that overlooks and undermines the humanity of a single person.
First and foremost and without exception, each and every law in a just society must preserve and uphold the equal claim of all individual human beings to the absolute and inalienable ownership of their bodies, their minds, and their property. Every law must implicitly or explicitly protect individuals as they exercise their free will in the peaceful and voluntary pursuits of their choosing.
Very many people disagree with me about this, profoundly. Their moral premise— “bullying is sometimes necessary”— is the predominant moral premise powering today’s laws. People who would never say that a crime is justified based on the perceived resilience of its victim will nonetheless muster the emotional distance and amorality required to argue that people who earn more should pay greater sums and additional fees and higher rates for no other reasons than that “they can afford it.” People who would never raise their voices to their neighbors will nonetheless vote to imprison neighbors who smoke a plant! People who would never ask to borrow money from their friends will nonetheless vote to increase the amount of their friends’ wealth that is seized under threat. People who would say, “two wrongs don’t make a right” to their children exercise political power in this delusional and hypocritical manner.
Many people tolerate the contradiction involved in helping (or serving) some by penalizing others. Based on their biases and preconceived notions, such people are apparently comfortable picking winners and losers, and using the brute force of law to enforce those preferences. There is a cost to this approach to politics that ought to be borne by those who perpetuate it, but which far too rarely is. That cost should be public shame. Shame not unlike that which tarnished the reputations of self-serving advocates of human slavery generations ago. To be clear, the moment a person supports threatening to fine or imprison people who do not comply with laws that compel them to support projects they would never voluntarily support, they’ve crossed a line that not only denies them the option of honestly claiming a moral high ground, but also should hurt their reputation.
Say what you will, Mr. and Ms. Advocate of Well-Intended, High-Minded Coercive Public Policy, about why you think taking from some to help others will achieve worthwhile goals. But don’t cloak your bullying behavior in some twisted dialect of morality. You surrendered the actual moral high ground as soon as you pulled out the “gun” you’re relying upon to impose your will.
I am sometimes frustrated by the alarming absence of a moral component to the typical libertarian’s critique of contemporary politics. Yes, absolutely, there are empirical data, economic insights, and historical references that support resistance to allowing the State to gain greater control of the economy or intrude in our personal lives. Yes, central planning and regulation and taxation are devastating practical failures for a variety of reasons worth examining and pointing out to others But they should be expressed in addition to a moral rebuttal, not instead of one.
There is something macabre about engaging in a conversation about the practical problems with government intervention without ever pointing out how morally outrageous it is in the first place. People who believe in the benevolence of increasingly powerful government often respond to technical critiques (“it’ll never work because…”) by falling back on their moral pretenses (“but it’s the right thing to do!”). No, actually, it isn’t. The moral option ain’t ever coercion. That epically mistaken presumption has to be abandoned and the laws derived from it must be abolished.
What other hope is there for a humane world than the widespread adoption, culturally and legally, of the moral premise that initiating force against anyone for any reason is unjustifiable?
democracy versus justice
Who would feel better about the political situation in Iran if the majority of voters had, in fact, expressed a preference for Ahmadinejad? That would be democracy-in-action, but would it be just?
If their purposes are to exercise State power to deprive people of freedoms, does it matter if “they” are a small team of thugs corrupting an election or a chorus of thousands enthusiastically participating in one? If you oppose tyranny ipso facto, then you should reject the coercive intents of majorities and minorities alike.
Peaceful, transparent elections do not confer moral legitimacy on their outcomes. Put another way, there is no such thing as a virtuous political process that results in elected officials successfully pursuing aggressive, coercive public policies.
individualism and liberty
Any ideological trend that dismisses individualism and liberty as the limited concepts of a bygone age wreaks havoc in voluntary, peaceful society. Oh Adam, somebody might say, you’re simply regurgitating your own antiquated ideological prejudices. That response is consistent with and typical of the prevailing, conventional wisdom of professional politicians.
As I write this, that special group of elected officials has undertaken several initiatives based first and foremost on the superiority of the State and, by extension, on thorough evasion of individualism and liberty. If they are correct, and individualism and liberty are merely obsolete ideas, then it would be possible that collectivism and coercion will produce the beneficial results they have promised.
However, there’s a reason why collectivism and coercion have never produced more than misery and death, and that has to do with the very nature of human beings. Individuality is an observable phenomenon. Liberty is the political idea that acknowledges our nature as individuals, and because it is consistent with our most essential trait, it is the rule that has enabled human civilization to flourish, enhanced and extended healthy human life in every dimension. That is a statement of historical fact, not an ideological assertion. Collectivism and coercion contradict human nature. Of course humans live longer and healthier lives out of the reach of these artificial and lethal ideas.
Anybody willing to accept that each of us is an individual, as a matter of scientific fact, must not object, on a scientific basis, to the basic principle of individualism, which merely states that the natural state of being an individual should be respected by other people and should be protected by the Law.
Yes, we’re social animals, too. But the basis for our social interactions, the foundation that makes it possible for us to live together peacefully, cannot be that one or a group of us may treat some individuals as if they aren’t! As a matter of fact, it is the idea that each individual is entitled not to be interfered with, not to be deprived of life or the exercise of free will, that produces the most diverse, prosperous, and peaceful societies.
Building a public policy based on an evasion of the natural significance of human individuality is as devastatingly idiotic and doomed as building a bridge based on an evasion of rules of nature. And you know this in your bones, because when you imagine what your life would be like if you were deprived of the exercise of your free will, you know immediately, without hesitation, that your life would cease to be meaningful to you. [... Read on...]
Most people have so effectively compartmentalized their moral sensibilities that they themselves are unaware of their contradictory stands regarding coercion. On the one hand, most people absolutely do not tolerate, excuse, or justify threatening and bullying behavior in their personal and professional experiences; on the other hand, most of those same people also acquiesce to and even express unabashed enthusiasm for public policies based on that same coercive behavior.
Where is this moral event horizon through which ‘threatening’ and ‘bullying’ pass and emerge as righteous conduct, worthy of encouragement, and mysteriously now immune from the customary requirements of justice? Under what conditions does this transformation of aggressive force from vice to virtue take effect? Does the moral defense of private property cease to matter if seizures of wealth are sanctioned by a government of elected representatives as opposed to a monarchy? Does merely being outnumbered eventually undermine an individual’s claim that her consent is needed to use her earnings? A single robber holding you up at gunpoint— “Your money or your life!”— is unjustifiable; however, many bureaucrats, working nine-to-five, dressed in suits, sending you a well-written officially sealed notification that requires you to pay them a certain amount of money by a certain date to avoid further financial penalties or (gulp) incarceration are justifiable? How do we acquire the knowledge that a community’s “yes” vote trumps my “no” vote about the disposition of my body or property or earnings?
If an individual is coerced by a group of people in a forest so far from you that you cannot hear the echoes of his or her objections, has something immoral happened? Perhaps the more physically distant people are from instances of coercion the less urgently they feel the need to take a moral stand against them. Perhaps people have grown so accustomed to the threats underlying taxation that they see them the same way I see spiders, as terrifying natural phenomena, aspects of the world in which we live that are better dealt with by evasion than by confrontation. Perhaps most people are so intimidated by the risks they associate with resisting taxation that they would rather comply with it.
Perhaps most people simply don’t see taxation as that big of a problem.
For such cases of hysterical moral blindness, I prescribe calm, focused reflection on the principles of peace underlying people’s everyday social lives. Let yourself think about the realistic, influential presence of those principles in your personal relationships with friends and loved ones and in your professional relationships with coworkers and clients and employers and vendors. It is significant that you and I deal with people as individuals whose consent matters and who must demonstrate consistent respect for our voluntary consent, too. Mutual consent is a moral rule that provides the peaceful basis for all human relationships.
Imagine what would happen to your everyday life experience if laws suddenly enabled people with whom you transact to behave as if your consent were irrelevant, as if they were entitled to some arbitrary amount of your wealth before you had agreed to trade with them, even irrespective of your desire to have anything to do with them. You would immediately view yourself as living in a state of constant conflict with people. You would feel righteously defensive and take measures to protect your body, wealth, and property. Before too long, you would clamor for legal reforms that consistently protect your private property rights and that uphold mutual consent. Why would you stop short of requiring government to restrain itself in accordance with these same moral limitations?
Taxation perverts people’s sense of justice by enticing them to imagine all that might be accomplished by treating people as common resources instead of as individual human beings. On a daily basis, you avoid bumping into people on the street, you exercise the freedom to enter and exit relationships as you see fit, you honor contracts, you respond to changing circumstances and competition by learning, experimenting, and adapting.
All of this you do in accordance with the core principle of justice, specifically, that you are entitled to no more value from people than they are voluntarily willing to trade, or, in other words, that an individual cannot be used as a means to an end without his or her explicit, freely granted consent. If it is not limited by Justice, then government will be unlimited.
Therefore, proposals granting a taxing authority should be dismissed as foolishly naive or criminally negligent or fiendishly treasonous. Regardless of its originators’ intentions, as soon as a government gains the authority to tax, its growth into a parasitic, belligerent social structure is only a matter of time. This would not be the case were taxation merely the authority to raise money. (As I will discuss in an upcoming post, there are plenty of peaceful ways for a just government to raise funds.)
Government with the legal authority to tax will develop the coercive Power necessary to enforce the threats underlying its wealth transfer requirements, and will do so vigorously. With the Power to tax, government expands the scope of its operations and severity of its interventionist behavior, as it inexorably abandons its original function (and, by the way, its sole moral justification) as a guarantor of individual liberty and private property rights and a bulwark against coercion.
***
More analysis and commentary regarding the essence of taxation, its myriad dangers and practical problems, and alternatives to it will be featured in a series of upcoming posts.
