Trotter writes that the money you earn is not yours.
To concede that everything the citizenry receives by way of wages, revenues, interest, rents and dividends belongs to them and to them alone is to accept the Right's assertion that "all taxation is theft".
According to this argument, people only put up with paying tax because, by allowing the state to transform their hard-earned cash into publicly-provided health care, education and other essential services, their individual interests are better served than if they attempted to acquire all these things out of their own pockets.
But, even this refinement of the "taxation is theft" argument leaves the sovereign individual at the centre of the fiscal equation. The money taken in tax is still his money.
But is it his money?
The social-democrat would say "no, it isn't".
Money is simply the mechanism advanced societies have developed to enable their citizens to enjoy a more varied and expansive life. In this respect, money is no more individual property than the language we use to communicate with our neighbours. It is a crucial adjunct to our social existence, whose value just like language manifests itself in the processes of exchange.
While they remain unspent, the notes we carry in our wallets are no more than pieces of paper. We can't eat them.
If you doubt the truth of this argument, then I'd invite you read up on the history of the Weimar Republic. There you will discover what happens to people when the state pretends that money can be separated from its social function.
You will also understand exactly what the US Supreme Court Judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes, meant when he said: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilisation."
So as taxation has risen, we have become more civilised. What bull.
'Civil society' (a nebulous term I loathe) is the sum of individual VOLUNTARY effort and exchange. When compassion becomes something that government forces out of us through taxation it is no longer a virtue (thank you Michael Tanner). Civil society turns on virtues and constructive values. People act through mutual self-interest. People treat each other the way they want to be treated.
Does that sound like present day New Zealand?
People like Trotter have a very dark view of the world. They think so little of their fellow citizens that they cannot believe anything charitable or philanthropic will emanate from them by choice, so government must extract it through compulsion. And why do they think that way? It must be because they judge others by their own standards and impulses.
OK. The money the government takes off me is effectively not my own because to withhold it would be to break the law. But the social democrat is saying more than this. He is saying it belongs to the public as of right. The state can nationalise third of my effort and transfer it to someone making no effort. That is what it does. Is either party incentivised by the transaction? No.
Not only does Trotter ignore the damaging effects of redistributing effort, he would like to step up the pace. If taxation is the price we pay for civilisation, why not take two thirds of the fruits of people's effort? We could be even more socially advanced.
No wonder people are leaving in their droves.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Is it me and my effort being rewarded?
Is it my trust in the dollar as the symbol of that reward?
If not, then you can take our dollars away- thus confiscating our virtue, our effort, and our cooperative trust with others.
He's not just advocating taking paper off us. He's talking about taking little bits of our life away, unit by unit.
But isn't this already happening. I wonder if anyone who has the knowledge could point out how in the last three terms of Labour the redistribution has grown and what the effect is. Examples I can think of are WFF, education funding according to decile rating, the 39 for rich Pricks" tax.
In this respect, money is no more individual property than the language we use to communicate with our neighbours.
Well, at least he's consistent: They're starting to limit what people can say with their own words in exactly the same way as they're limiting what people can do with their own money. In both cases, its "Nanny (state) knows best".
Trotter is a deluded fool who clearly doesn't understand the most basic function of money - to be a medium of exchange of property. Voluntary exchange of private property. To make the leap to nationalising that is simply ludicrous. Perhaps he has been fooled by the fact that the state has arrogated the control of (what now constitutes 'money') to itself, giving the impression that it is somehow the true property of the state.
Leaving that aside, the rest of the article is simply staggering in it's disrespect for the individual and willful refusal to look at historical fact. For example:
"people only put up with paying tax because, by allowing the state to transform their hard-earned cash into publicly-provided health care, education and other essential services, their individual interests are better served than if they attempted to acquire all these things out of their own pockets."
History has clearly shown that people *are* better served when they acquire all these things out of their own pockets rather than relying on inefficient and wasteful state attempts at provision.
But I agree Lindsay - one of the most important points of the article is the assumption that state cocercion is moral. Where there is coercion there can be no morality - the ends do not justify the means.
I thought the Weimar Republic's problems were caused by a Government having to destory it's citizens wealth by paying heavy repartations to the WW1 Allies - in the end they gave up and printed the money the owed.
As a result, hyperinflation wiped out everyones savings, and some bloke came along and said German's would be taken care of first and Germany would be a great power again under him.
He didn;t just say that the money taken in tax wasn't yours to begin with but that all your money is in fact not really yours in the first place. Does anyoen know where Trotter lives? I wonder how he would react if went around to his place and redistributed some of the stuff he has that isn't really his in the first place.
Brian Smaller
Thw worst comment he made was that money NZders don't spend is wasted and a hinderance to the NZ economy.
Hello Chris, people save and invest their money to produce growth and increased wealth for themsevles and others.
Chris seems to argue that all that money should be returned to the state that people don't need.
money is no more individual property than the language we use to communicate with our neighbours.
Gives a new meaning to "talk's cheap", doesn't it. Perhaps in his ideal world, monetary value can be willed into existence as easily as words. Of course in that fantasy world, chatterers like him would be richer than anybody else.
Post a Comment