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Comment by phaemon | Hacker News Reader

I am not a member of the mafia, nor have I used any of their services. I do not owe them any money, therefore it would be wrong for them to demand any money from me.

I am a member of a society which has a representative government which acts on its behalf. I have used their services and therefore I owe them money. Therefore, it is legitimate for them to demand that money from me.

And both these entities can do so legally. It would be entirely legal for the mafia to use the legal system to demand money from you in the same way the government would (or that any business or organisation you used services from would). The very fact they choose not to, suggests their claim is illegitimate.

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>"And both these entities can do so legally. It would be entirely legal for the mafia to use the legal system to demand money from you in the same way the government would (or that any business or organisation you used services from would). The very fact they choose not to, suggests their claim is illegitimate."

Hate to be the guy that uses a contrived example, but how about this: "I'll just come with a bunch of my worker-buddies, and we'll mow your lawn, trim your bushes and clean your pool. Every day, 7 times more than you'd like per week. Come next Monday, we'll be expecting your dues for our services. And if you don't pay up, well we'll just legally get your employer to withhold it from you. I mean, it's not like we're holding a gun to your head to make you pay, or breaking your windows or anything to intimidate you. Right?

The whole concept of government, social contract, and "the consent of the public", along with the example you used as an argument all constitute a form of circular reasoning to me. None of it derives from base, irreducible principles, so are completely arbitrary. That's why this whole "not all immoral things are illegal" argument arose, because people can't even agree on that, nor can they accept that the majority has spoken with respect to legality representing overall morals.

If I lived in a housing scheme that had such an arrangement ("we have a gardener that comes around every week"), then Yes, if I'd bought that house with that arrangement, I don't get to dodge the fees, just because I think he should only come around once a fortnight.

The base principle is that society is made up of people and those people then choose the rules for that society. If you don't like that, you can often vote to change those rules, or you can choose another society.

Most societies have fees to be a member (known as taxes) and frankly, it's a bit late to complain about these fees when you've already used the privileges of that society to make a ton of money. It's like eating at a restaurant and complaining, after you've had 6 courses, that the food is inedible and you don't want to pay.

Or you can use the rules for your own benefit.

If the rules of the aforementioned society make it possible to reduce your tax burden, it's not a moral issue if you choose to avail yourself of them.

If your tax burden can be X or Y depending on your choices and Y < X, it's not a moral shortcoming if you choose to pay Y instead of X.

Our society uses tax policy to shape behavior. We all know this. That's why student loan and mortgage interest are deductible. It's disingenuous for people to complain when they discover that tax policy is shaping behavior.

We see this from the middle-class family who donates old clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army instead of throwing them away all the way up through the billionaire who makes sure that he spends at least 182 days per year outside of New York.

Actually, they're fundamentally different.

But that has nothing to do with the original post I replied to. You've changed the topic.

Are you conceding that your argument that taxes are equivalent to a protection racket is wrong?

My point is the same. Neither circumstance is more moral than the other. They are both inherently amoral.

Of course, taxation is legal. Using the tax code to minimize one's tax liability is legal and also amoral.

Let's be clear here: you're saying that forcing someone to pay you money they don't owe you (e.g. mafia protection racket) is amoral and just the same as forcing someone to pay money they do owe you (e.g. taxes)?

Are you sure about this?

My primary point is that it's not wrong to pay the minimum necessary tax bill because taxation isn't a moral enterprise. It happens without regard to morality. It's amoral.

To address your direct question, it's my position that using force or the threat of force to compel someone to pay you money -that you say they owe you- is no more moral when the government does it than when the Gambinos did it. Obviously, it's legal when the government does it but the government is not a moral entity.

So if I owe you money for some work, and simply refuse to pay it, you should have no legal recourse? How would that work in society? Would everyone just have to trust each other and if they were ripped off, too bad?

That's a strawman.

That's a useless reply. I was kind of hoping you'd expand on how you thought such a system would work (you could imagine something with a trust network of third party escrow, for example).

Try thinking more about your own arguments and how they might practically be applied.

It's a strawman.

Debt currently works that way in the vast majority of cases.

If you don't pay Comcast or Verizon (or whomever) for your internet service, they'll stop providing service to you. They'll also report you to Equifax, Trans Union and Experian so that other people will know that you can't be trusted to pay your debts and they'll require a security deposit before they'll provide you with service.

If you overdraw your bank account and close it without settling the debt, they'll report you so that other banks know about the issue and those other banks will refuse to allow you to open a new account until the original matter is resolved.

If you don't pay your Visa bill, again, they will stop extending credit to you and you'll be reported to Equifax, Trans Union and Experian. Other credit card companies will know about your history and they will refuse to extend any credit to you.

In none of those cases is force or the threat of force used to collect a debt.

Not in the UK. I guess you don't have debt collection agencies where you are or anything like bailiffs.

EDIT: Oh, and you're misusing the term "strawman". I was asking questions about your post, not positing an argument for you.

Your question presupposes that there would be no recourse.

I never advocated such a position.

It was a strawman.

One method I've seen proposed to answer your hypothetical is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispute_resolution_organization

your analogy collapses by equating the demand for yardwork with the demand for services that ensure our collective survival: clean water, emergency services, safe travel, reasonable freedom from foreign invasion and anarchy, and mostly-safe economic system. You can't "opt-out" of those services, and even if you could, it's predicable you'd immediately opt-in for them the moment your life was in danger (say, in the case of a medical emergency, your survival instinct will inexorably override your passion to be free from the big-bad "gub'ment" ).

Can you opt out of receiving the government's "services"?

We're only obliged to follow the letter of the law. If there is no law against making profits where they are beyond the reach of local taxation, there's nothing objectively wrong about it.

Even using your own reasoning, if the profit is made elsewhere, the only moral obligation is to pay the legal taxes that apply in that locale.

> Can you opt out of receiving the government's "services"?

Yes. I don't pay any taxes to the US government, for example, because I don't use any of their services.

I laughed out loud at this.

In no other developed country (in the sense of a competitive GDP, somewhat large and somewhat well educated population) have I seen the same disdain and mistrust for government. Why is it amoral for a government to take taxes if you are - born in a hospital funded by taxes, given vaccines and medication partly funded by taxes, drive to/from home on roads built by taxes, so on and so forth. The people who thing it's unfair they have to pay taxes - what would you prefer? Living in an "AT&T country" where every single service is "privately" owned and you'd be charged fees for it? Sounds like a dream.

Comparatively, in countries such as Sweden and Norway, everyone pays taxes (much moreso than in the good old US of A), and yet the tax agency is rated the most trusted government entity in the government. Strangely enough, this "amorality" also leads to some of the best standards of living and social mobility in the world?

Why is it amoral for a government to take taxes

Is it possible that you're conflating the definitions of immoral and amoral?

born in a hospital funded by taxes

This is an assumption. There are many private hospitals.

given vaccines and medication partly funded by taxes

Vaccines are mandated. It's circular reasoning to say that the costs of someone taking vaccines are justification for taking their money when you forced them to take the vaccine.

drive to/from home on roads built by taxes

We had roads before direct taxation. The fact that we pay for them with tax money doesn't mean that they wouldn't exist without them.

I don't know anything of the political situation in Sweden or Norway. Does their tax collecting branch of government ever get used as a political weapon, the way the IRS does?

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