Ask an anarchist. Taxation of X% means you’re forced to work for X% of the year without getting paid. Therefore, since slavery is “being forced to work without pay” taxation is slavery. Since slavery is bad, taxation is bad. Therefore government is bad and statists are no better than slavemasters.4
Nitpick: Under most current systems of taxation, you choose how much to work, and then lose a certain percentage of your income to taxes. A slave does not have the power to choose how much (or whether) to work. This is generally considered a relevant difference between taxation and slavery.
In general, “because that person is a minor” is one of the few remaining justifications for denying someone civil rights that people still consider valid. Try comparing the status of a 15-year-old in the United States today with that of a black man or white woman in the in the United States of 1790 and see if you come up with any interesting similarities.
So if the slave were allowed to choose his own level of effort, he would no longer be a slave?
I think you have a point with what you’re saying (and I’m predisposed against believing that the taxation/slavery analogy has meaning), but I don’t think being a slave is incompatible with some autonomy.
I think we’d better kill this discussion before it turns into an “is it a blegg or rube” debate. - the original anarchist’s argument falls into at least one of the fallacies on that page, and I suspect my nitpick might do so as well.
Nitpick: Under most current systems of taxation, you choose how much to work, and then lose a certain percentage of your income to taxes. A slave does not have the power to choose how much (or whether) to work. This is generally considered a relevant difference between taxation and slavery.
See the draft. See also the varied attempts to mandate ‘community service’ or ‘national service’ for high school students.
One who is not a slave is not necessarily a free man.
Indeed. One may be a woman. Or a turtle.
In general, “because that person is a minor” is one of the few remaining justifications for denying someone civil rights that people still consider valid. Try comparing the status of a 15-year-old in the United States today with that of a black man or white woman in the in the United States of 1790 and see if you come up with any interesting similarities.
So if the slave were allowed to choose his own level of effort, he would no longer be a slave?
I think you have a point with what you’re saying (and I’m predisposed against believing that the taxation/slavery analogy has meaning), but I don’t think being a slave is incompatible with some autonomy.
I think we’d better kill this discussion before it turns into an “is it a blegg or rube” debate. - the original anarchist’s argument falls into at least one of the fallacies on that page, and I suspect my nitpick might do so as well.