What 'rights' does the state have?

More particularly, taxation. Is it morally right?

Obviously nobody likes paying taxes, but do the ends justify the means?

When answering, make sure to make logically sound arguments. (Try your best to avoid fallacies and such).

I'll start off -


The (rapid) advancement of the human species is a fundamentally "good" thing - something that we should strive to accomplish. Historically, there have been two main ingredients to this advancement: a large middle class, and education. Why does this matter? Well, the more evenly distributed wealth is, the larger the middle class will be. (I'll get to the education part later). Taxes re-distribute wealth, so taxes create a larger middle class. One might argue that the state has no right to take and move wealth around, but the state is not taking any wealth that would have been gained without it. (Nobody is taxing your vegetables that you grow in your garden, nobody is taxing you on the wood you cut from trees in your backyard).

Furthermore, the state needs money to run its education system. (To refute Sythe's argument that there had been schooling before the state, I present a different argument: Schooling can either be given by one's parents individually, or it can be given professionally. Obviously, having a select group of teachers is better for the student, as people who dedicate their lives to teaching will be better, on average, than parents. Sure, we can have our little schoolhouses in the meadow, but how is the teacher expected to live? Is he expected to do this voluntarily? No -- the students who he teaches would each pay a small fee, taxes, if you may.)

In addition, the government spends tax money to fund research. US spending per capita on research was about $500 per year (if I remember correctly). We all agree that it is a good thing that this research actually happens. But if the government did not collect money to fund the research, how many households would actually donate $500*# of family members to research with no immediate benefit , and possibly no benefit at all to them? Not many.

A subtlety: Yes, some research does not yield results, but we can't justify cutting research just because some of it is useless.

 

I'm not huge on debates, but if I'm correct, wasn't the emergence of the middle class a more recent event? There has usually been a huge gap between the lower class and upper class.

Also regarding taxes, a person joins a state in order to have access to the states support (education, land, groceries, etc). If a person has a right to leave or enter a state, which may not always be the case, the state has full right to tax the people and collect its due to pay for public services/buildings/etc.

 

Broadly, exercising the law and taxing for protection and services (provided they actually provide protection and services....) Without the state, no one would be accountable for anything, e.g., imagine Sythe if there was no one to ban scammers.

You mentioned taxes and creating a larger middle class, however, I completely disagree with any state function in wealth redistribution, because it makes people worse off in the long run. I don't feel that anyone has the right to having wealth redistributed to themselves, and I feel it is a violation of someones rights to take money they earn to compensate for others' lack of adaptation/survival of the fittest etc, because it is a battle that can't be won.

 

Yes, the emergence of the middle class is a relatively recent event. But at the same time, human progress has been speeding up recently. A huge gap would make it difficult for society to progress because 1). the poor were too busy trying to survive, and 2). the rich were already happy enough with life as it was. Why would they risk it?

As far as joining a state: Nobody really 'joins' a state. You're just born into it. It is a product of what has happened, and at this point, it is beyond anybodies control. If someone voluntarily joins a state, it is a given that they can be taxed. But I'm arguing that just living in a community is enough justification to be taxed. (My argument about the state only taxing what it 'helped' create -- there would be no stock market, no capitalism -- nothing like this, without the state. Especially capitalism, monopolies would exist everywhere, etc.)

Okay, I agree here.

Wealth is redistributed, but not in the sense of "you have too much money, I'll take some and give it to this other person". It's much more of "You have a bunch of money, more than you'll ever need, so I'll take some, and build something that everybody can benefit from".

(I'm going to use some of Marx' views to answer this)

How did they earn this money? By chance? (Lottery, stock market, so and so?) Are they really the fittest? No, they're the luckiest. By building a business? In which case they employed other people? Oh wait... why should that person keep the wealth, if it was really his workers who generated it? Is this person not stealing from his worker's efforts? Shouldn't their generate income be theirs?

The point is that the current system favors those who lie, cheat, abuse others, and are dishonest. Are those really the fittest people? Do we want to promote a lack of morals? Do we want to have the next generation stab each other in the back every chance they get?

Take a look at Harvard admissions, for example. It is over twice as easy to get in if your parents are Harvard graduates than if they aren't. Not only because Harvard admits based on legacy, but because having parents who went to Harvard generally means that your parents will put more focus on your education, which means that you will put more effort in, and so on. And you'll end up going to Harvard, which will leave you in a much better place than you would have been had you gone to your local community college.

But not even for education. Connections are crucial. To land a job at a financial firm, connections are almost a necessity to even land an interview. Also, do you think George Bush became president just on pure chance? Of course not. He became president because his party nominated him -- after his father had been president. He already had all of these connections in place. He was used to politics.

Essentially, I'm trying to point out that it is very difficult to move up the chain, especially with no help. Sure, some people do it, but class mobility is not as fluid as everybody likes to believe.

 

I disagree here. Even if they have more money than they could ever use, it is still money they earned. The state doesn't have the right to take property from someone just because they can't/won't use it the way the state feels is appropriate.

In a very, very, very small amount of cases, someone will earn their money through change, e.g., winning the lottery. However, the negligible amount of people who do this is not a counterargument to the fact that those who have more desirable skills will flourish more in their environment. Sure, the McDonalds CEO makes more money than his average employee, and his success does depend on having employees. However, there are two hundred million people in the US who are able to flip burgers, and only a handful who would be able to manage a multi billion dollar business. It isn't blind luck that this person makes 100,000X more money than the pregnant lady on the grill, he earned it through decades of climbing the corporate ladder, hard work, and being the elite group who earns the elite amount of money. It is fair that those who possess desirable qualities make more money than those who do not.

Not everyone who makes a good living makes it from lying, cheating, and abusing others. There are laws put in place to prevent these sorts of things. Hard work, focus, and sacrifice are much more likely to make you more money than abusing others, which is much more likely to put you in prison. Of course there are some people who get away with making obscene amounts of money through crime, e.g. a drug lord, but it isn't like those types are paying taxes anyway, so it doesn't apply to the wealth redistribution argument.

Life isn't fair. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but no matter how even you try to make everything, someone will still end up on top. I literally can't fathom how anyone can consider it fair that the state strip resources and opportunities from those who earned it to give it to those who didn't.

 

See the end of this post for a reply to this.

Laws. Ah... who makes these laws? Who enforces them? Most importantly: how are they paid? They're certainly not volunteers, so you just made my point - taxation is necessary, at least to some degree.

See the bottom of my post, but I'm not saying that life has to be 100% fair. I'm just saying that everybody needs to be given a chance to move up in the world. (Obviously those who are wealthier will get more than one, but do we really want to throw away talent that could exist in a lower class just because they don't have the means to do anything about their talent?)

Okay, I'm going to write a hypothetical story here.

Suppose a teacher has a kindergarden class. One day, this teacher decides to bake cookies in class as an activity for everybody, so she goes to buy flour, eggs, sugar, etc. She comes in the next day with these ingredients, and gives each student enough to make a few cookies for themselves. Now, obviously some students have never made cookies before, so she goes around helping everybody. One kid, however, brought in his gameboy that day, and doesn't want to make any actual cookies. So he gets together a few of his friends, and tells each of them "You'll mix the dough", "You'll put them on the baking sheet", "You'll take them out of the oven", and "I'll count them and split them evenly".

The government provides some basic research for companies to make products, and facilitates trade, makes sure that nobody just flat out destroys other businesses by having laws and enforcing them.

So the kids go on their way, and while everybody else is baking the cookies, the leader just tells them "You don't have enough chocolate chips", or "They're too small", and such, while playing his gameboy. After a while, the cookies come out, and the leader goes to count them. But he believes he's entitled to more cookies since he organized everybody to do this, so he gives everybody else 5 cookies, but takes 15 for himself.

Management makes demands of their workers, and then take money they shouldn't be entitled to. The kids would have been better off had they just made the cookies by themselves.

Now, other classes made pizza and lemonade, and the teacher recognizes that nobody should be eating five of these giant cookies for lunch. So she goes around, taking 2 cookies from each kid when she gets to the guy with 15 cookies. This guy has already eaten 3 cookies, so he looks like he has 12, so the teacher decides to take 4 cookies from him. The teacher then takes these cookies, and goes to trade with the other classes so that everybody can eat pizza and lemonade, and puts some of them away for another day, but eats a couple of the cookies on the way. Anyways, she comes back with pizza and lemonade, and of course, there are some people that don't like lemonade, and some people that don't like pizza, but they're all hungry so they end up eating.

Taxation. Some people disagree with it, or don't even support all of the government's spending. But it is generally for the greater good. The kid eating 3 cookies is hiding money in offshore accounts. The teacher trading for pizza and lemonade, and storing cookies for another day plays the role of the federal reserve. They have to make decisions, (such as running austerity) that may make some people unhappy, but it ends up benefiting everybody in the long run. Then they all end up eating -- even those that originally did not support the trade end up utilizing it. Was that so bad?

Was it morally wrong for the teacher to take the cookies? (Even if she eats some of them?)

 

I never claimed taxation wasn't necessary, read my first post. My point is that the state should not have any say in wealth redistribution.

Everyone does have the opportunity to move up, at least in western countries. In fact, social mobility is currently easier than it has ever been in civilized history. Not only is it not the state's right to redistribute wealth, it is ultimately futile, because if you collected all of the world's wealth and split it evenly between everyone, within a generation, those who were poor before would once again be be poor, those who were rich would once again be rich. That is because it isn't chance that determines if someone becomes wealthy.

 

Taxation is, by nature, wealth redistribution.

Social mobility is by no means easy. Why do you think top US universities try to accept minorities, and people from less privileged backgrounds, even if their grades and extracurriculars would not have even been considered had the person been white middle class? To help social mobility. To give everybody a chance.

About taking everybody's wealth and redistributing it -- I completely agree, but not because of the reasons you list. The previously wealthy would become wealthy again - not because they could use the same skills that made them wealthy in the first place, but because they formed the connections -- because people would trust them, and because they would have experience. (If you think that connections play no role, just look at what happened with the Soviet companies following the collapse of the soviet union.)

To make it truly fair you'd have to start EVERYBODY over. Everybody starts as a baby, and makes it through the education system. But I'm not saying this is a good idea. I'm not saying the wealth should be completely redistributed. I'm just saying that there should, to some extent, be a way for the poor to be helped. And money doesn't come out of thin air, so it must come from somewhere.

As an example: I know several people who live in really rough neighborhoods. Their parents have very little cash. But a few of them are incredibly intelligent. If they were left to their own devices, there is no way they would be able to attend university. But thanks to financial aid (partially sponsored by the government), they can study and go do research that benefits all of us.

Note that throughout my argument, I have not said once that the money should just change hands. I've said that the money should go to fund projects that benefit everybody. If you were stranded on an island with 10 other people, and you were the only one who knew how to hunt (or generally gather food for everybody), would you hunt just for yourself? Or would you try to gather food so that everybody could survive? (Even if they themselves could not immediately give you anything of value)

 

Who decides when the children are under consent of their parents? When do they stop being under their consent? The fact is that the children are not there because they want to be.

To further the model, the 'leader' child would not have taken 15 cookies. The child would have taken 500. (At least). Furthermore, some of the children would have tried to put sand in their cookies, and without the teacher stopping them, half of the cookies would have been inedible.

And I don't agree that the government makes nothing. Basic science research is almost exclusively funded by the government. Quality control (to ensure that harmful drugs and food doesn't enter the market) is handled by the government. Yeah, I get it. You'll say that this is really funded by taxpayers because they gave money to the government. But this is a necessary 'evil'. Without the government funding basic research, nobody would fund it (as it provides no direct commercial uses). Drug companies would be able to release drugs without clinical trials. And so on. In addition, redistribution of wealth is inherently a good thing. (It creates a larger middle class, which in turn leads to more progress).

No. I just put that in as a symbol for government spending. Healthcare, and so on. It may not have been the best example. Trading is fine as it is. (But again, would not be possible with a government. Insider trading and such would dominate)

Food production is heavily subsidized by the government. Like so heavy subsidized, that many farmers grow extra corn that they know they won't be able to sell just to get the government subsidies. Furthermore, the United States government has a similar program to the healthcare program they are trying to implement -- food stamps. Those who cannot afford to get food (healthcare) are given food stamps (a healthcare program) so that they may eat (get medical attention).

I'm not nearly old enough to go job-hunting yet at a university yet. And even when I do go job hunting, I really, really doubt I'll stay in academia.