Does the government force people to do things?

[Barney]

I want to examine this claim that the government forces people to do things.
Analysis of the word 'force'
First of all, let's ask what "force" means. It tends to mean "Someone has given me no choice but to do X." This is rarely, if ever, true strictly speaking (following the same analysis as the word 'need'). I guess someone could grab your arms and physically drive you to perform certain actions. But in most cases, there is always a choice. It might be that if I refuse, I am killed. But as Ondrej has pointed out elsewhere, we all die:

I assume you have in mind death (that is usually the direction one goes with such thoughts). And so? Who has not died in the end?

Indeed! So if I am told "you must do this or you die," then I am still presented with a choice, and that means I am not being forced.

Analysis of the word 'government'

When we think of "the government" we tend to think of a group of people over there, who are separate from me. But is that accurate? In Western democracies, the government is elected by people who vote. That means we have all participated in the choice of who the government is. Of course, when a government is elected, it does not mean that all their actions will be pleasing to all their citizens. If that was the criteria, then the government could practically never do anything. There will always be some people who thought the government made the wrong choice.

Let's pick an example. Suppose I am a pacifist who thinks the government should spend no money on the military. Because of this opinion, I claim that all my income tax which goes to the military is robbery. They have robbed me of my own money and used it for something I think is wrong. They are "forcing" me to support the military even though I don't believe there should be any military. We might say, "But you don't understand what would happen if we had no military. You are ignorant and foolish and don't realise that our country would be invaded." To be sure, I am ignorant and foolish. But I still have the right to spend my money how I choose, no?

The same example could be applied to anything else the government spends money on. I may dislike roads, and think everyone should buy all-terrain vehicles. I resent the government taking my money and using it to build roads for everyone. I may dislike the police, and resent the government "forcing" me to support the police force financially.

But in the bigger picture of things, I have a choice. If I don't like what my country's government is doing, I can leave the country. I can go to another country which more closely aligns with my views. Nobody is forcing me to stay in this country. By staying, I am consenting to what the government is doing. I am saying, in that time-honored phrase, "It is better than the alternative."

So I propose that it is not accurate to say that the government forces us to do things.

[Ondrej]

I think, I concede the point.

But then I need a new word. What do we call it when people with weapons will come to your door and take you away if you do not comply.

It is absolutely true, you do not have to comply. There is that option. So you are in fact not forced to do anything. You will decide it is worth it after all. This is roughly what I meant by 'force' but you are free to pick a new word if you like.

You could also go to another country, a freer country, our countries. This is in fact where everyone wants to go. What happens when they all become authoritarian? Then where will we go? Maybe we should set aside one or two on reserve that will remain the wild (free) west as a form of charity to the world. I volunteer mine as tribute.

[Barney]

What do we call it when people with weapons will come to your door and take you away if you do not comply.

I'm happy to agree to call this 'force' if we can also agree to call 'need' things that assure a human being's basic survival and dignity - food, clothes, shelter, the right to work, etc. It's always worth interrogating what lies underneath such words, but often we find that their common use is the most helpful one after all.

[Ondrej]

The trouble is, force is more well defined. Need is not. You've already slipped in dignity and the right to work. To me that is very slippery language where we can imply a person will die by the word "need" but really we are talking about something minor like a person "needing" a pair of glasses. People have always needed food (although we convince ourselves that we "need" to eat when in all likelihood we could eat 1/3 as often with only positive effects). People have not always needed glasses.

I am happy to drop the word force, though. You are correct, one is not forced, properly. One is coerced. That is more accurate. It is important that we are as precise as possible.

[Barney]

In another thread I accused you of using the term 'force' inconsistently. I don't mean to suggest you were still using it, and I don't mean to falsely accuse, so forgive me for that.

I have tried to diligently remove "force" from my vocabulary. It is unclear, as you previously specified. I initially said "force at gunpoint" to hammer home the idea that government is ultimately using a gun to ensure certain outcomes. I think that point was made. Then you made the point that the government doesn't really force you to do anything, you can always choose. I agreed. Now I try to use the word "coerce" to more accurately represent what happens. I'm not sure if I slipped up somewhere but if I said "force" I probably meant "coerce". I believe I have dropped all reference to "gunpoint" because I am assuming we are on the same page with that.

I'm not so concerned about whether we use the word 'force' or 'coerce'. I brought it up because it seemed that the violent language about 'gunpoint', if it's used, needs to be applied consistently to all cases where it happens. In reality, every law of every kind can be construed as a "coercion by gunpoint" with equal legitimacy. We can simply do a massive find/replace of the word "law" with the word "coercion by gunpoint."

Is that the point you were trying to make? Because if so, it seems obvious that laws, i.e. "coercions by gunpoint" are fundamental to all human politics and society, and are behind all government action of all kinds, both what we like and agree with, and what we dislike and don't agree with.

This means that the question is: what "coercions by gunpoint" are good, right, and valuable, including tax. Tax is simply a "coercion by gunpoint" that involves distributing money to the places where it needs to go. Do we agree that there are some taxes that are legitimate, and don't count as theft? I'm not sure we ever settled that.

[Ondrej]

In reality, every law of every kind can be construed as a "coercion by gunpoint" with equal legitimacy.

Yes, exactly. It begs the question do we really think violence is justified in all of these cases? We certainly wouldn't treat our neighbors this way. If they decided not to get an electrical inspection when building their house, we do not think it justified for ourselves to march over there with a gun. One could make a good case that we do not have the "authority" to do so, it is "not our place" so to speak. Police officers acting on behalf of a governing body have public accountability and are, in principle, a neutral third party. It seems reasonable to argue that this is a better solution than random people taking it upon themselves to police things but it still doesn't justify violence.

One could argue that under a light touch government where the rules and regulations form the basis of operational civilization (theft, murder, littering, destruction of property etc), refusal to comply represents a basic refusal of the system itself. But when there are inane laws on the books in every direction with a threat of violence backing them (e.g. banning of 2 liter bottles of soda/soft drinks in New York*) it is hard to suggest that these are just to facilitate a functional society. It is more about controlling what other people are doing.

* This law did not pass but that it was even proposed is illustrative.

This means that the question is: what "coercions by gunpoint" are good, right, and valuable, including tax. Tax is simply a "coercion by gunpoint" that involves distributing money to the places where it needs to go. Do we agree that there are some taxes that are legitimate, and don't count as theft?

There is that word "need" again. Tax involves distributing money to the place some people think it should go. I know it is pedantic but it maintains the precision.

Can some taxes be legitimate and also be theft?

I don't see how one can take the straight forward definition of theft and not conclude that taxation falls under this definition. If we say it is basically the removal of someone's property from their possession without their consent, how do taxes not do this? Why do we need police and tax bureaus to enforce it?

I think I am in the position of this is morally wrong but we may have to allow it to prevent greater evils. But it bothers me that at the very foundation we are building in a violation of a basic ethical principle which we all agree nobody is allowed to do.

[Barney]

It begs the question do we really think violence is justified in all of these cases?

First, let's not confuse coercion with violence. After all, the vast majority of law is not enforced by physical brutality, but by fines or imprisonment or censure. "Gunpoint" rarely comes into it. Coercion simply means that your freedom is limited by other people. According to libertarians, the only valid limit to freedom is that you are not free to do what you want with someone else's property. Libertarians thus give the maximum possible freedom and allow coercion only in the one instance of private property. Everyone else (which is, let's face it, 99.999% of humanity around the world and throughout history) would suggest that there are other valid limits to freedom. Why wouldn't there be, anyway?

One could argue that under a light touch government where the rules and regulations form the basis of operational civilization (theft, murder, littering, destruction of property etc), refusal to comply represents a basic refusal of the system itself. But when there are inane laws on the books in every direction with a threat of violence backing them (e.g. banning of 2 liter bottles of soda/soft drinks in New York*) it is hard to suggest that these are just to facilitate a functional society. It is more about controlling what other people are doing.

Let's not jump to the scaremongering about the awful direction society is going in. Let's stick to the abstract theoretical principle. If there are legitimate rules and regulations that form the basis of operational civilization, do you expect everyone to agree unanimously on what those ought to be? One rule might seem necessary to you and to someone else as inane as banning 2 liter bottles of soda. And if there isn't unanimous agreement, how do we decide which rules to enact? Do you think you should get to decide, at the expense of other people's opinions?

There is that word "need" again. Tax involves distributing money to the place some people think it should go. I know it is pedantic but it maintains the precision.

Okay fair enough. Let's just remember that those "some people" are elected representatives of all the people. So tax involves a communal vote to distribute money. Obviously nobody expects the vote to be unanimous. The money will go to places some people didn't think it ought to. That's inevitable and can hardly be called immoral.

Can some taxes be legitimate and also be theft?

No. The Bible says not to steal. Therefore theft can never be legitimate.

I don't see how one can take the straight forward definition of theft and not conclude that taxation falls under this definition. If we say it is basically the removal of someone's property from their possession without their consent, how do taxes not do this? Why do we need police and tax bureaus to enforce it?

I think I am in the position of this is morally wrong but we may have to allow it to prevent greater evils. But it bothers me that at the very foundation we are building in a violation of a basic ethical principle which we all agree nobody is allowed to do.

I think this is the nub of the issue that we still have to resolve. We're going round and round it in our other conversations but we rarely hit the center.

It seems to me that you've got yourself in a pretty tight spot, if you can't even imagine how tax can be defined in a way that is not theft. Your position entails believing that every Western nation throughout its entire history has been blind to a gross immorality in its very heart, without which it could not function as it does. This is not the same as saying that there's always been immorality (that's not controversial). It is saying much more than that: it's saying that there's always been immorality that was perceived as not immoral. The poor fools over the centuries didn't realize that taxation was theft, so they carried on doing it in ignorance. Thankfully, you've seen the light, you understand much more and much better than all these people. In other words, your position is anti-traditional: it involves rejecting a pillar of Western society in favor of a new idea that a handful of people had a few decades ago. In that sense, your extreme version of libertarianism has a lot in common with critical theory.

I want to dwell on that point before we start to explore how we can escape from this rather extreme position. I have dwelt on it because it makes it more likely that there is another way of looking at tax, even if you haven't yet found it. It encourages you to look for it, to re-unite yourself with the rest of humanity. Once you are thus encouraged, we can discuss how tax might fall into a different category.

My own suggestion as to a route out is to spend some time thinking about what ownership really means. We have discussed at length the meaning of the word 'need' and the meaning of the word 'coerce'. We now need to discuss at length the meaning of the word 'property'. What is property? By what right does someone truly claim to possess an object? You have said before that it was "agreed upon" but agreed upon by whom? And what happens if there is a dispute? Who gets to decide?

[Ondrej]

First, let's not confuse coercion with violence.

Yes, fair point.

would suggest that there are other valid limits to freedom.

Yes, probably so. But certainly there are some things like the freedom of speech, assembly etc that we also deem so fundamental that we put these things out of reach of our elected leadership.

Let's not jump to the scaremongering about the awful direction society is going in. Let's stick to the abstract theoretical principle.

I was not scaremongering. I was using an actual example. And it was to illustrate an abstract theoretical principle. That rules like banning 2 liter bottles of soda are not intended to facilitate the basic functioning of government but rather an attempt to curtail the freedom of people "for their own good". This type of rule adopts the attitude that people cannot be trusted to make proper decisions for themselves and that some governing body knows better what decisions the people should make.

That you call it scaremongering suggests that you are well aware that such things can be taken too far. Venezuela voted in their socialist leaders. China pretends to put things to a vote. Just because leaders are voted for does not mean freedoms are preserved.

if you can't even imagine how tax can be defined in a way that is not theft.

The first part is that this seems the wrong way around, trying to define tax in such a way that you can make the case it is not theft. This sounds an awful lot like playing mind/word games to justify something that is wrong. Instead of starting at the plain definition of theft and seeing if taxes do that, you play definitional games with taxes to try to slip them out of the category of theft.

In any case, I CAN see how taxes can not fall under the category of theft. If there is a way to refuse them. I have many subscriptions that offer me something for my money. These are not taxes and they are not theft. The reason they are not theft is that I can refuse to pay them if I choose (of course I have to do without the subscription).

It is interesting that a business that pays "slave wages" you consider highly immoral but the employees are in fact free to leave. But when it comes to taxes, which nobody is free to refuse to pay, you take a much more favorable position.

[Barney]

The first part is that this seems the wrong way around, trying to define tax in such a way that you can make the case it is not theft. This sounds an awful lot like playing mind/word games to justify something that is wrong. Instead of starting at the plain definition of theft and seeing if taxes do that, you play definitional games with taxes to try to slip them out of the category of theft.

The goal is not to justify something that is wrong. The goal is humbler than that. If my definition of taxation implies that the entire history of the Western world has been blind to a gravely immoral practice (one that I can clearly see), then, if I am humble (i.e., if I do not assume that I understand reality better than everyone else in history), I am led to wonder whether my definition is the right one. I am led to seek a definition that contains no such damning implications.

In any case, I CAN see how taxes can not fall under the category of theft. If there is a way to refuse them. I have many subscriptions that offer me something for my money. These are not taxes and they are not theft. The reason they are not theft is that I can refuse to pay them if I choose (of course I have to do without the subscription).

This is very interesting. So do you think people should, in principle, have the option not to contribute towards the military, prisons, police, etc.? I can just choose to pay no taxes and leave support of those services to other people, even while I benefit enormously from them? Imagine if it was a choice, how many people would opt out?

It is interesting that a business that pays "slave wages" you consider highly immoral but the employees are in fact free to leave. But when it comes to taxes, which nobody is free to refuse to pay, you take a much more favorable position.

This is an important point and deserves its own thread, which is here.

[Ondrej]

The goal is not to justify something that is wrong. The goal is humbler than that. If my definition of taxation implies that the entire history of the Western world has been blind to a gravely immoral practice (one that I can clearly see), then, if I am humble (i.e., if I do not assume that I understand reality better than everyone else in history), I am led to wonder whether my definition is the right one. I am led to seek a definition that contains no such damning implications.

Well, I think you see my point. The implications are indeed damning. So you start with a conclusion and try to justify it. This is no different from just taking it on faith. What has happened in history must be right.

This is very interesting. So do you think people should, in principle, have the option not to contribute towards the military, prisons, police, etc.? I can just choose to pay no taxes and leave support of those services to other people, even while I benefit enormously from them? Imagine if it was a choice, how many people would opt out?

I don't know. I think, ideally, yes. Imagine the amount of wasteful government spending that would evaporate. The government would have to actually produce tangible results for the people it governs so that the people feel that it is worth the money. The government would basically dwindle toward nothing until the people felt it was worth it to pitch in and maintain it. The people would actually have a choice and would be far more concerned with their local affairs and local government that directly impacts their own community than federal government that tries to rule everyone with the same rules.

The government is increasingly not represented by the people no matter who you vote for. Charles Murray goes into detail in "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".