The moral case for taxation

I met with my friend Jackie yesterday to give her copy of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries, so she could get started watching one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. We sat and talked for a couple hours, and in the course of conversation about her blog, we briefly chewed over the moral argument for taxation. Libertarians, most of them, believe that taxation is the moral equivalent of mugging. I can see the case for that but I don't quite agree. Jackie sees a pragmatic utility in taxation but not much of a moral case for it (insofar as I can characterize someone else's views on a complex issue that simply - any misreprentation of her views is my fault). I couldn't sleep last night, and when I can't sleep this is the kind of problem I like to kick around in my head like a philosophical soccer ball.

I like to think of governments beginning as a group of people banding together for common protection. In my head, I imagine an anarchic Wild West town, like Deadwood, where the residents get together and hire a sheriff in order to protect themselves from the predations of the world's most successful predator (Man). Of course, the fictional Deadwood formed a government and hired a sheriff out of external pressure instead of internal pressure, but I think the internal pressures would have required a real government nonetheless.

So, we have the model of a Wild West town that has banded together and hired a sheriff, trading the periodic loss of income inherent in taxation for the unpredictable and larger losses of income from theft and murder. For now, let's assume the vote is unanimous.

In this case, so far the tax is morally just and necessary as payment for services rendered. All of the citizens are subject to the protection of the Sheriff and are morally obligated to carry a share of that burden. Like any financial transaction, as long as the deal is fair (services rendered are worth the payment received) everything should be fine.

Now, what happens if we introduce a new person, someone who moves into town from the outside? They were not present when the Sheriff was elected. Yet they receive the same protection from the Sheriff's work. Can they morally consider themselves exempt from the tax?

In this case, I would say 'no'. Any grown person is responsible for their share of a group expense; no adult can morally recant their share of a bar bill, for example. As long as they acknowledge the value of what they've asked for, they are morally obligated to pay. In moving to a town with a Sheriff, any rational person should expect to bear part of the burden of maintaining the office.

Let's suppose they don't acknowledge the value of a Sheriff - they would rather protect themselves. Are they then exempt from the tax? Is it morally acceptable to impose the tax on someone who gains the benefit of the tax but doesn't believe in it?

I would say Yes, and this where I part ways with Libertarianism. It is a fundamental requirement of group dynamics that the group be able to set norms of behavior. Without norms, a group simply does not function. And no group larger than two people is going to always agree on the correct course of action (and those two would have to be identical twins). To disallow the setting of norms, to insist on anarchy in any sphere where unanimity is unavailable, is simply not 'good'. Bad things happen, and the whole is diminished. For the greater good, for the prosperity and survival of the group, individuals must sometimes submit to the group wisdom. While this decreases individual liberty, this increases group liberty, and the liberty of the group is more important than the liberty of the individual. The victory of Democracy is not that it makes each man a seperate entity; the victory of Democracy is that it puts the liberty of the group in the hands of the group, instead of the hands of small sets of people. And any participant in a Democracy has to be prepared for the fact that unanimity is not always possible, and that some threshold must be set for decision-making. Just as anyone who brings a suit in court has to be prepared for the fact that they might not win - it's part of what you've signed up for at the outset.

Coming back to the Sheriff analogy, the group has already decided what the Sheriff is worth, and that the Sheriff provides a value that the group needs. Anyone who joins the group needs to be prepared to accept that judgement. They need the right to argue and vote against it, but not the right to opt-out of group policies they simply don't like, like a child who threatens to take his baseball and bat home when a game doesn't go his way.

Whenever I look at the end-result of Libertarianism, I see the world of Snow Crash; a world of people who make group alliances in a vast number of spheres, by paying for or otherwise gaining entree into groups who provide individual services like protection, incarceration, etc. Everything is privatized, disjointed, and chaotic. And people are woefully unable to deal with external threats, and waste as much energy warring as collaborating. Snow Crash's world is not a world I want to live in (I just want their technology).

When I turned 18, I joined this system. I still retain my freedom to join another system anywhere else in the world, as long as they'll have me. Until then, I'm obligated to go along with those decisions made (and taxes levied) by the group for the good of the group. I can disagree and work to change the decisions, and I have the protection of the Constitution against those group decisions that would deny my fundamental rights as a citizen.

I'm all for using privatization to enhance the group in the 90 percent of cases where it works; in the 10 percent where it doesn't, I fully expect the government to work to provide those benefits - even if it means taxing Libertarians.