On today’s Op/Ed Page, University of Richmond professor and sometime blogger Thad Williamson has a challenging and thoughtful guest column arguing that people have no moral claim to their pre-tax earnings.

You should read it for yourself, but the gist of it is that the view of the market as a wealth-creator and government as a wealth-consumer is erroneous. Without the government’s protection of property and without government services such as roads, the market couldn’t operate as well as it does. In fact, government makes our participation in the economy possible. Therefore, while it’s reasonable to debate the appropriate level of taxation, we have no right to claim the government is “taking our money.“

There are two substantial problems with this argument.

The first, somewhat lesser, problem is empirical. While it’s certainly true that some government activities are necessary for society to function—cops and courts, first and foremost—those make up a minute fraction of most government spending. It’s not clear whether the economy would grow or shrink if government abandoned most of the other activities it engages in, and it’s pretty hard to test. (Were it not for the trillions spent on creating a culture of dependency through welfare, for instance, we might be even richer than we are now. Who’s to say for certain?) Williamson’s argument relies, to a considerable extent, on an untestable factual thesis.

The second big problem—and the more serious one—is that his argument applies to non-economic rights, too. For instance, if it were not for government, people could not enjoy the right to free speech to the extent they do. But from this fact, it does not follow that people have no right to free speech other than what the government allots them. Williamson seems to be making the case that rights do not exist ab initio and that government is instituted to protect them. Rather, he makes it seem as if government exists ab initio, and society determines collectively what privileges should be granted to individuals. Yikes!

P.S.—Thad has added some ripostes to this rebuttal in the comment section. Read those, too!

R.Smith, when we formed an alliance in the form of a government, we acknowledged that we needed structure and each other to survive and fend off enemies. Yes, we owe our blood, per agreement in becoming a member of this pact, to this alliance. Otherwise, we are breaking the contract with the rest of the members, taking the good, feeling no personal responsibility for its defense. I think the structure has grown so large and unwieldy, it feels remote and removed from our control these days, thus the attitude,‘the government’ versus the ‘citizen’ as though they were not one and the same.

Hi Rick, Regarding my pitch for continued for social services: I wasn’t making a slanted reference to something you posted. Rather, I was responding to Margie’s “No one likes their tax dollars to go to social services.“

But now that I’m on here…you just touched on a related topic which Bart ocassionally likes to use. The gist of it goes something like this:  ‘Stop complaining about how we treat our poor or the victimized. Instead, get out there and volunteer in the effort.‘ (Bart used that theme after Hurrican Katrina, for example, and continues to embed the thought in his columns on “compassionate conservatism”). The presumption seems to be that civic volunteerism will free-up government resources from having to handle those types of responsibilities.

But let’s be real about that: A bunch of on-and-off-again part-timers volunteering when and if they feel like it are NOT reliable providers of any service. It does the soul good—the volunteer’s soul that is—but it really doesn’t make a huge difference in tangible outcome.

We can set our set our expectation levels higher with paid professionals (govt. workers or other) and also get some kind of guarantee in the process. To me its worth the money spent.

Margie said,Qoute: [“I’m recusing myself from this one. Blood pressure problems, you know.“]

I am honored to be the one who motivated you to rejoin the conversation.HEHEHE!

I hope your blood pressure is OK, and that your comments were just a figure of speech.

Margie, I didnt get into what should be done [if anything] about the poor in this country.
And just because I didnt mention any fixs for our social problems, doesnt mean I dont have any to offer.
There isnt enough room on this board to type everything that should/could be done for the under privileged.
Also, I dont think anyone would read my rantings if I were to print them all. LOL!

Suprisingly I agree with most of your suggestions.
I would only add that if our government didnt take away 40 to 50 percent of Mom and Pops earnings, then maybe they could afford to pay more and offer better benefits.
Also labor unions wouldnt be in such dire straits if our government didnt force companys to do what labor unions negotiated.
Government labor laws have rendered unions useless.

Also it would help, if everyone would just volunteer to work shelters, soup lines, etc. 

There is nothing moral or redeeming about a person who cares about the poor, but only enough to get big brother to use someone elses resources to do something about it, and then criticize religious and non profit organitzations who do try.

To me they are the lowest of low, in our society.

By definition a “staunch liberal” or a “religious hypocrite”.

Margie, I feel we have more in common than differences.
I think you are more a moderate than a liberal, I feel that I am too, rather than conservative.

I once took a political test, and the results said I was a moderate.
Yes I was suprised too!  LOL…

And Larry,

Why go to the extreme with my comments.

I mentioned that taxs are too high and there is too much gov waste.

I never said to take away “all” social services and eliminate all taxs, as you seem to imply in your post.

Is this how stereo types about conservatives get started?

Social programs should be a temporary safety net, not a career choice!

I would say that we had the correct mixture of taxs and social services in the mid 60’s.
Since then is grown to overwhelming proportions, to the point social services offer more benfits than the average employer can.

I will take your comments about conservatives as tongue in cheek humor.

Smile…

One more thing. If the government is entitled to a share of our labor in order to support itself and the common good, is it also entitled to our blood, in the form of military service, to protect the same?

Sure, there are moral implications to be drawn from any stance you take on any subject, just about it. But if some basic structure, such as the Bill of Rights, isn’t set in stone, you get chaos. Yet I just backed myself into a verbal corner. I am a firm believer in social evolution, progressive enlightment that should and sometimes does change laws and social mores. The Founders foresaw that or they would not have put the mechanisms in place for admendments. What a confusing mess! Thus an amendment took away the right to discrimanate, and awarded to or recognized the right of blacks to be treated equally. That was an evolving moral judgement. Did it exist before it was aknowledged and implemented? I would have to say ‘yes’. Shucks, I just agreed with you. How does that keep happening to me?

One thing I find odd in this discussion is the ‘us’ ‘them’ thing. WE ARE the government. It isn’t some separate, alien thing over which we have no control. We get the government we vote into power.

Abortion is a pretty big can of worms—maybe for another day. But if I might be permitted to make a general observation: the fact that people seem to disagree on this subject is not really good evidence for relativism. In fact, it seems that the kinds of opinions that most people hold on the subject actually presuppose that relativism is false. I don’t know what your stance on abortion is, but suppose it is pro-choice: that means you believe that it is true that government _should not_ (in a moral sense) coerce a women into not performing an abortion. Or, if you are pro-life: you believe it is true that government _should_ intervene to prevent women from having abortions. Either way, you are making a positive, universal moral claim about what the government should do.

(Don’t let moral ambiguity be confused for moral relativism. It seems like a reasonable position to say that “it is difficult to know when to draw the the line between when a fetus is merely a fetus and when it is a person. Therefore, within certain reasonable limits, we will let women decide.“ This view supposes, first of all that it _actually_ would be morally wrong to kill a person, but that there is a fuzzy line between “person” and “non-person.“ A person holding this view would be committed to working out a practical agreement about a reasonable place to draw that line—somewhere within the “fuzz.“)

Our rights are those we’re willing to fight to keep at the polls and on the battlefield. We’ve seen an erosion over the past few years, but the scales always tilt back with our form of government. I don’t think we need worry until people stop feeling a personal responsibility to preserve them. They have already been secured for us. We just have to be vigilant in hanging on to them.

Our rights are only what other people say they are. So really none of us have any.

I suppose I hesitate to place rights, as enumerated in the Bill of Rights in the ‘moral’ catagory, because it is such a relative thing. I don’t want them re-defined according to someone else’s standards. For instance, legislating women the right to an abortion may seem like a moral, unquestionable, inherent right to control ones own body to one person, but despicably immoral to another.

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