OT(?)
Tax vs. Draft Dodging
Both Have Merits
by Tibor R. Machan
A favorite public ideal for those on the political Left is taxation. They love it. They aren't really ashamed when considered to be “tax and spend” liberals, not really, even if they might hide from the fact for purposes of making voters send them into the corridors of power.
And as a corollary, most of those on the Left despise tax dodgers. These are, of course, the rich — for anyone who would wish to escape paying a bunch of taxes must be rich, right? Tax havens, too, are deemed to be complicit in helping the rich escape paying their “fair share” of taxes (meaning, as much as the government can possibly get away with taking from them and everyone else). The idea of a duty free purchase makes these folks quiver with dismay and righteous indignation — how dare these folks try to escape what Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. called “the price we pay for civilization!” (Au contraire: There are other ways to get civilization beside extorting people's resources from them!)
Of course, when some project doesn't suit the ideological tastes of the Left, dodging paying for it, let alone serving to bring it about, curiously turns out to be heroic. I recall back during the Viet Nam war members of the New Left, especially the young ones, were proudly escaping the military draft any way they could. And tax dodging, so as not to fund the war, was widely approved by Left Wing political champions.
Yet, if you come to think of it carefully, why protest tax dodging but not draft dodging? Or tax dodging so as to retain more of what belongs to oneself but not tax dodging to refuse to spend for something one disapproves? One's life should be one's own, not to be taken for projects one finds morally contemptible. Fine. But why is it OK to tax people for other projects they, too, find a waste and immoral?
Of course, the answer is that for many people it is wrong to do something if the goal for which it is done doesn't meet with their approval but quite OK to do it if they approve of the goal. So conservatives — you thought I'd forgotten about them, didn't you? — do not mind taxing and spending, so long the spending is on their pet projects — like a beefed up military, fighting gambling and other vices, faith based assistance projects, or proper educational reform. And, of course, liberals have no objection taking people's money for funding the arts and parks and whatever else suits their fancy. Neither would mind it much if people were conscripted for universal national service.
The bottom line is, sadly, that be it one or another kind of statist, violating the rights of individuals is just fine so long as the end is desirable. Robbing people for such goals is not only acceptable in certain rare circumstances — those standard desert island cases brought up in ethics texts that haven't yet heard about the uselessness of hard cases for coming up with general principles of conduct for human living. It should, the statist holds, be made routine.
The main reason is that the statist on neither the Right nor the Left values individual rights and sovereignty. For the sake of traditional objectives or for the revolution it is fine and dandy to sacrifice the lives and resources of individuals who may have other goals to support than those being foisted upon them.
Frankly, if you can dodge taxes, I say, so much power to you — indeed, I would argue it is your responsibility, just as it is to lock your doors and windows when you leave your home and your car so as to keep out the burglars. Certainly, if it is OK to try to escape the draft — via signing up for a college one is not really all that interested in attending (which is what used to go on when the draft was still the law), it is just as proper to take one's wealth off shore or hide it some other way so the government cannot steal it.
I should make it clear, as I have before, that there are plenty of good ideas for funding the legal system so that taxation, which is in any case a relic of the feudal era, is not necessary. This should be common sense: this is no different from there being far better ways to feed oneself than to steal food from others. If governments do something of value, they will be well paid for their services and will not need to extort the funds. But while extortion is the way they choose to lay their hands on funds, those of us who see an escape should use it — it is our responsibility to do so.
I hasten to say I am not advocating breaking the law — that is warranted in very special cases. But dodging taxes, like the military draft, via legal means is everyone's moral responsibility.
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Machan, who teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California, advises Freedom Communications, Inc., on public policy matters. His most recent book is Initiative — Human Agency and Society (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). His email address is Tibor_R._Machan@link.freedom.com .
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