Libertarians hold that taxes are simply a substitute for the direct confiscation of property that governments used to impose. Taxation, even with representation is a fig leaf for that.
This is relevant to the Chartalist and MMT view that taxes drive state money by creating a demand for it, allowing governments to transfer private resources to public use, and that the tax power is coercive, enforced by state power.
Libertarianism is based on freedom from coercion.
The radical right libertarian position — anarcho-capitalism — is to end coercion by making private property rights absolute. Governance is through natural spontaneous order.
The radical left libertarian position — anarcho-socialism — is to abolish private property rights and return to the commons. Governance is by consensus.
Both see their view as the fair way to deal with this issue.
Econospeak
The Strange Cult of Henry George
Econospeak
The Strange Cult of Henry George
Sandwichman
9 comments:
Sandwichman in his comments: "The core issue here is that so-called private property is a creature of the State."
Right. There would be no private property without state "violence vouchers," as Matt Bruenig puts it.
The bottom line is that taxes are necessary in a capitalist economy and especially in a fiat capitalist. We must tax something or somebody, though I personally am not impressed with a Georgist LVT-only.
Unless you are Bob Roddis, most of us accept violence or the implicit threat of violence is a cornerstone of any social order. No society has ever existing in which human relations are not shaped by the relative capacity to use violence on each other.
Can left and right libertarian viewpoints be expressed as:
Right libertarian utopian: We can all (somehow) agree not to use violence against each other. Life is (somehow) a fair competition on merit. If the better man wins I will happily accept it and work to improve myself. We can all be winners if we pray hard enough.
Right libertarian realist. Life should be a free for all (unfair) competition, with lots of guns of course. I'm fairly sure I will win most of the fights and all will be dandy if the judicial state enforces my property ownership claims in court. I don't think about, don't care about losers.
Left libertarian utopian: If there are no rules we will all figure out sharing and cooperating is best and live happily ever after.
Left libertarian realist: Human relationships and abilities are fundamentally unbalanced. To give everyone a reasonable opportunity to participate, compete and share resources equitably and peacefully some strong (and accountable) institutions will arbitrate and enforce sane and agreeable regulations that mesh with our real common needs and interests.
I dunno it all looks bizzare and unachievable to me. I just want a reasonable go at life with a fair crack at the goodies. I certainly don't want any dictator, war lord, pyscopath, gang leader, special ops or secret agent renditioning me to some far away place attaching electrodes to my scrotum.
You have put your finger on it, Carlos. Both left and right libertarian extremes are utopian. They are only workable given a sufficiently high level of collective consciousness, in which case they would be identical since self-interest would be universal. That is an ideal that is only realizable on a small scale at present and not on a societal level.
The basic difference between right and left libertarian realists is that the slogan of the left is, We're all in this together, and of the right, It's every man for himself.
That itself is a reflection of the level of the collective consciousness of the two groups.
"end coercion by making private property rights absolute"
Don't be silly.
Private property is based on coercion.
Tom,
I suspect the right wing libertarian thing is fairly unique to the USA. It's the heavily marketed cult of individualism and the fantasy of yahooing cowboys winning the Wild West.
The right libertarians are possibly more communal in their actions, than their thoughts and words imply. It's a kind of mental gymnastics, I don't know how they do it.
In that context "coercion" means involuntary taxation. It's synonymous with "confiscation."
That is to say, in that context it is used normatively.
@ Carlos
Right. Individualism is a particularly American phenomenon and one that many if not most other cultures cannot grok, since humans are obviously social animals, much more akin to other social species than lone hunters like felines. Humans have been successful to the degree that they can organize and cooperate much more than the degree to which they can compete individually. Human enterprise is a shared phenomenon rather than an individualistic one.
History is quite clear that a smaller well-organized group can easily out-perform a larger unorganized one. Hittite chariots rolled over large groups of foot soldiers and Roman phalanxes also cut down groups used to hand to hand combat. Hierarchical organizations triumphed based on both organization and command and control. Firm took over the military model because it is the most efficient and effective one yet developed.
People that study this kind of thing — sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and historians — have speculated about it. There seems to be two factors involved. The first is that many early settlers came to the New World to escape repression in the Old World, e.g., the Puritans in England. The other factor advanced is the frontier and the mentality that it generated. American culture is often characterized as "cowboy culture," although the rugged individualist is conceived of as the pioneers and homesteader.
Probably the unifying factor of the theories is the fact that America is not a traditional culture that was either inherently tribal or an outgrowth of tribal cultures like modern Europe.
Being free of the boundaries of tradition, Americans can be more creative, innovative and entrepreneurial than most other cultures allow for.
But there are also tradeoffs. Individualism is a mixed blessing and if taken to extremes ignores the interdependence of all things in a network of networks that forms the ecological basis for the environment that produced and sustains humanity. when individualism is prioritized over organization, organization wins. And the most efficient and effective system of governance is hierarchical command and control.
So libertarians of the left and right are at a disadvantage in arguing for greater individual freedom in world that is based largely on hierarchical social organization. This is a reason that extremes in libertarian thinking on the left and right are utopian at this stage of historical development.
This is a reason I keep coming back to the level of collective consciousness. History has a liberal bias of sorts, but liberalism is still experimental and is fraught with paradoxes.
"That is to say, in that context it is used normatively"
'deceitfully' would be more accurate.
Thanks Tom,
You've also explained why Americans are so easily divided, controlled and exploited compared to some other cultures.
Despite my misleading moniker. I was born in Britain, definitely 100% Celtic. We have our own weaknesses: Like undue reverence for imperial pomp and ceremony.
Even though there is still plenty of the "doff cap at the squire" mentality. Some of us still feel a kind of loyalty to our clan, we feel deep down we are being subjugated by an ever present cabal of imported elites, I sometimes imagine the power to rise up is not so far from the surface.
Then I see some pin striped South East banker or hooded teenager bending over his smartphone and the fantasy dies. In modern Britain politics is actually all about the values of housewives in countryside market towns.
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