Taxation is Robbery

Mark R. Crovelli agrees with Lysander Spooner that taxation and robbery are the same thing, and is disheartened that something so obvious can be so blatantly ignored by those who study political "science." An excerpt from his article:

Is taxation morally justifiable?

What makes this question of paramount political and ethical importance, (and the neglect of this question so inexcusable in political science in particular), is the fact that the entire moral justification for the modern state rests upon the answer. If taxation is nothing more than the forceful expropriation of man’s justly-earned property, (i.e., robbery), then this calls into question the entire moral justification of the state and all of its myriad functions that are so uselessly (yet profitably) studied in political science today. The adoption of this position would force us into what Robert Paul Wolff and A. John Simmons have called "philosophical anarchism."

What is even more striking about the neglect of this question by political "scientists" and political philosophers is the fact that the argument that taxation is synonymous with robbery is about as simple and airtight as arguments ever get in the political realm. In fact, the argument can be stated with simple syllogistic precision:

A. Robbery is defined as seizing another man’s justly-owned property without his consent.
B. In taxation, the representatives of the state seize their subjects’ justly-owned property without their subjects’ consent – always under the threat of severe penalties if they refuse to obey.
C. Therefore, taxation is definitionally and morally synonymous with robbery.

Read the entire article