RE: Ronald Reagan Was the Worst President: Why Tax Cuts For the Wealthy Destroy Economies

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Ronald Reagan Was the Worst President: Why Tax Cuts For the Wealthy Destroy Economies

in conservatism •  7 years ago  (edited)

No shit, but property rights are equally predicated on violence. Land is free to all by nature. People build fences and enclosures and use violence and the threat of violence to drive other people off "their" land and enforce their exclusive right—actually, States enforce those rights. My point is, don't complain about taxation being theft unless you are equally opposed to private property...because both are predicated on the threat of violence. Both are ways of extracting wealth from other people through violence or the threat of violence. By monopolizing land and natural resources (means of production), owners of those resources exclude others. Consequently, the dispossessed end up having to work for the owners of land and resources in exchange for wages in order to survive. Wage-slavery is predicated on theft, enforced by private property privileges enforced by the State. If taxation, then, is used to steal from the original thieves (those with private property allowing them to accumulate unearned income) and redistribute some of their wealth into the hands of the dispossessed, then taxation is no longer theft but rather justice.

Personally, I think private property makes society better off, so it is a necessary evil, and consequently I think we ought to embrace the institution of private property but also use fiscal policy to mitigate the negative effects of it. (Cf. Thomas Paine's "Agrarian Justice")

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"Free to all by nature". How so? I took some of my wages (from being a "wage slave" I guess though I never really thought of learning a skill I enjoy and making money employing it as "slavery") and I purchased a house. No violence was used. It is impractical for someone else to use my home as their home (they same applies to a business). To attempt to do so would be initiating force, not the other way around. There are millions of landowners, I don't think land ownership is monopolized.

I know what you mean about necessary evils though. I think government and taxes are necessary evils which is why I think they should be minimized. If you really want free land you can still homestead though these days you have to go to Alaska to do it.

Naturally, money doesn't exist, neither do property rights, law enforcement, and courts to resolve disputes and enforce contracts. Naturally, land is free to all by nature. Exclusive land rights are an artificial product of social relations, created by society and its government(s).

The concept of natural law would say that property rights exist. Rights, as a concept, are a human concept but it doesn't make them not natural. Natural rights are more of a recognition than an invention. Even in nature, many animals are territorial and stake a claim to a certain area. If there is anything "unnatural" about it, it is the fact that humans typically handle the concept LESS violently than animals would. Social relations are natural among both animals and humans.

Naturally, land typically cannot be used by "all" at the same time. If I'm running a business and using a piece of land in the process (or using it for a home), someone else cannot practically come along and use the same piece of land for their business at the same time without displacing the first person. Exclusive land rights can only be natural, it's just a matter of how you enforce it. Every man for himself (which perhaps would be more "natural") or a system of laws to protect those rights.