You Can Always Leave

Imagine you have a friend called George... This story was misleading. George isn't being threatened! He's just being asked to pay his fair share like the rest of us. If he doesn't like the arrangement, he can always leave.

Let's start with the question of whether or not the state threatens people. Imagine a desert island. Albin lives with a few other people on this island. One day he meets Jeff. Jeff says, "Give me your ball! Or you'll get a beating." Jeff's threatening Albin with violence, right? Yeah, of course. But taxpayers aren't being threatened like that. No one actually gets attacked for not paying taxes.

Okay. Let's have Jeff say something different. He says, "Give me your ball! If you don't, I'll have to ask you to hand over your ball and your shirt. If you still don't cooperate, you'll spend the night tied to that tree. And if you resist being tied, you'll get a beating." Now, Jeff's defenders could insist he'd never attack someone for something as trivial as refusing to hand over a ball. He'd only use violence as a last resort, as a penalty for breaking the rules and resisting the proper punishment. No matter how Jeff explains it though, he's still threatening Albin with violence, right?

Okay. Yes, Jeff's still threatening Albin with violence, even if the violence is a couple of steps removed. But this isn't a good analogy for taxation. For one thing, modern states use taxes to provide services that help people.

Okay, so what if you learned that Jeff just wanted to improve Albin's ball and give it back to him as a surprise? I guess I don't see Jeff as so much of a bad guy anymore, but he is still threatening Albin, which isn't okay.

There are more differences between Jeff and the state though. The state relies on taxation so that it can provide stuff that just wouldn't be possible otherwise, like roads... Private roads do exist, you know.

Alright then, essential services like firefighters? There are private fire services too. Well, what about a reliable social safety net? Charity alone isn't enough! Before the compulsory welfare state crowded them out, there used to be lots of mutual aid societies. Together with charities, they did a pretty good job of taking care of the needy.

Anyway, for the sake of discussion, let's assume that there are some important things that can only be provided using taxation. So Jeff isn't interested in Albin's ball anymore. Now he wants his gold coins.

He's collecting money to build a fish farm. There was a serious fish shortage last month and Albin agrees that a farm would be a good idea, but he doesn't trust Jeff with his money. He'd prefer to use it in other ways. Jeff says, "The farm will benefit everyone, and everyone else has paid their share. It just wouldn't be fair if you didn't chip in. That's why you'll get a beating if you don't hand over the money."

Jeff just wants to prevent Albin from free-riding on an improvement that will help everyone! But isn't he still threatening Albin with violence? Alright! But in a modern democracy it's the people who decide the law, through their representatives, that's very different from an island where there's no representation.

Okay, let's change things on the island to fix that. Some of the islanders decide that there should be a ruler with certain powers the other islanders don't have. This ruler is chosen by a vote, and Jeff was the first winner. Like before, Jeff is telling Albin to pay towards the improvements he has planned. If Albin doesn't surrender the money demanded, he'll be told to hand over even more.

If he consistently refuses, eventually the Island Guards will show up at his house, take him away, and lock him up. When his kidnappers arrive, Albin could try to get them to leave by shouting a warning and drawing a weapon. But he realizes it's far more likely that he'll be killed than succeed in escaping the state's chain of demands and punishments, at least while staying on the island.

Wait, wait, wait! Police officers aren't killers! They don't usually need to be. But think about it like this: What do you think would happen if there was no danger to Albin of being killed, no matter how far he went in his resistance? If the guards just left people alone who defended themselves powerfully enough, word would get out that you could safely ignore their demands.

I think a great many people would choose open resistance. I bet even those who liked the idea of a state would resist. They'd be asking themselves, "Why should I be the sucker paying a big chunk of my income for all these free-riders when there's a safe and easy way out?" The guards hardly ever use actual violence against people like Albin. As long as most people at least have the idea that resistance is futile, that's enough to keep the state functioning.

Because the guards very rarely need to use violence, people might even forget that the state is ultimately ready to use deadly force to secure obedience. Yes, yes, okay! So maybe taxation does depend on threats of violence, but that doesn't mean that taxation is theft. Every citizen is bound by the social contract. You live in a country knowing what's expected of you, and what the punishments are if you don't follow the rules.

If you really don't like the terms, most states do allow you to leave. And I know what you're going to say: "I never signed a social contract!" But that doesn't matter. When the bill arrives in a restaurant, you have an obligation to pay even though you didn't sign anything. It's the same kind of thing with the social contract.

By staying in a country, at least after you're old enough to leave, you're agreeing to abide by the rules, and you're granting permission to have certain kinds of force used against you if you don't stick to those rules. Hang on a second. The restaurant boss gets to set the rules because he owns the restaurant.

It's being the owner of a thing that gives you the right to say who gets to use it, and how. Some people say that a social contract exists between the state and the citizen. Okay. But how did the state come to be the owner of the land it imposes its laws on? It's important to know because if it's not the owner, then the state has no authority to set the terms of use of that land and it's actually aggressing against the people it taxes.

Some people don't believe that the state is the rightful owner of the land it claims. To understand why, think back to the island as it was right at the beginning, before we made all the changes. In some remote corner of the island, Albin finds some wood lying on the ground and uses it to build a hut there. Do you think that Albin owns the hut, meaning: does Albin have the right to say how other people may or may not use the hut?

Yeah, sure, Albin's the owner. Does Jeff have the right to demand that Albin follow a set of rules in order to continue using the hut? No, of course not. Jeff doesn't have the right to impose conditions on Albin because it's not his hut. If Jeff physically removes Albin, does he then become the rightful owner of the hut? No. Jeff would be in the wrong. The hut still belongs to Albin. He built it!

What if Jeff announced one day that he owned the uninhabited northern hills, even though he'd never visited them himself? And then attacked anyone who tried to use that land without his permission. Would that mean that the northern hills were his property? No. That would just make him a bully. He wouldn't really own the hills.

That's what I think too. It sounds like you agree with me about the two ways a person can acquire property. First of all, you can homestead a thing. That means creating or improving something that wasn't previously owned. Building a shelter using unowned materials on unowned land is an example of homesteading. The second way you can become an owner is if a thing's previous owner voluntarily gives it to you. This happens in trade, with a giving happening in both directions.

There may be disagreements about exactly how you have to homestead something to become its owner, or how long you're allowed to leave a thing unused before someone else can claim it, but I think most people agree about the basics: Jeff doesn't own Albin's shelter or the hills. If voluntary transfer and original homesteading are the two ways to become an owner of a thing, then most of the state's claims to land ownership are suspect.

That's because most of the land was already owned when the state took it by force. Or the land was unowned and instead of homesteading it, the state threatened to punish users who didn't seek its permission. So the state behaves like Jeff, stealing Albin's shelter or announcing that he owns the hills. But we don't believe ownership works that way.

If we want to be consistent, I think we have to admit that the state doesn't own most of the land and that there is no legitimate agreement between the state and most of the people it taxes. There is no real social contract, just threats of violence.

But if we go back far enough, there are many pieces of land that were taken by force from someone. I live on land that was stolen less than two hundred years ago. Does that mean I don't have a right to live there? It's a good question. A descendant of the person the land was stolen from could show up and demonstrate that they have a better claim on the land than you do.

But if no surviving descendants are interested, then it might qualify as abandoned land. Abandoned land is treated like land that was never owned. It can be homesteaded and passed on through voluntary exchange afterwards.

Okay. That does sort of make sense. But I'm not completely convinced yet. Let me think about it some more. Whatever it's used for, and however it's justified, taxation depends on a chain of increasingly unpleasant demands and punishments ultimately backed by deadly force. Some people believe the state maintains mass threats of violence against peaceful people, that it illegitimately claims ownership of the land we live on, and that it is an aggressive institution incompatible with a truly civil society. Do a web search for some of these terms if you're interested in learning more.