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!

I’ve got no beef with how I’m taxed, federally or state, considering all I get out of the deal.

People calling for almost-nil taxation (i.e. little or no reliance on govt. services) seem to think that all they need to get by is maybe Just a Little Help from Their Friends. All I can say is that they must have some incredibly talented, ultra-reliable friends.

Well, I don’t know of anyone who doesen’t agree that taxation is nessasary to provide for the common good. The question is, who defines the common good. Roads, schools, military, police, utilities ect….I don’t think it’s the spending on these things that so infuriates people. 

One point that Dr. Professor got bassackwards is this…taxation didn’t provide the means required for a thriving society. The thriving society provided the means to make excessive taxation possible. The same applies to health care. The rise in health care costs coincides directly with the depth of gov’t involvement. Even the lawyers who exploit the system do so because the gov’t has allowed them to rig the process.

In the end it’s all academic. These conversations always neglect to consider the irrepressible nature of the human animal seeking to better their condition. Vindictive, redistributionist policies will always fail because they are unsustainable, as even the europeans are starting to realize.

100 percent taxation equals slavery!

We are 50 precent there!

Demacrats say we arent paying enough taxs.
There has been a vocal tax revolt going on since 1980.

The big question!

At what percentage does the armed revolt begin?

Gee, glad we have that all settled.

When is anyone going to take up the water utility rates?

The City of Richmond may actually have the most regressive minimum water rates IN THE COUNTRY. City Council and the Mayor are mumbling about changing them, but only in the context of connection fees and big picture city services.

This is a PUBLIC utility that also sells water to the counties, where their residents pay substantially less in minimum water fees.

Again, this is a conservation as well as a social justice issue. Why are we punishing those that save water and awarding those that waste water?

Shucks, I’m just a country boy from little old Richmond. Born back in 1924.

It just seems that some folks are missing the point about the US of A.

We declared our independence from the King of England, who was charged with a fistful of grievances.

We held these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty,and the Pursuit of Happiness. ( Capitalization Thos. Jefferson )

Now, since we are no longer hunters and gatherers, the money we make is essential to the Rights listed above.

If we have no moral right to our pre-tax income, it is conceivable that the government could raise our taxes to a confiscatory level, and we would have no say.

I believe that we all know that.

In this country, the private and government sectors have a symbiotic relationship. The liberals want more control, and the conservatives want less control.

Taxation without representation was bad. Taxation with representation aint so hot either.

After reading several responses from Thad, I think his treatise generates a moot point. It is a given that the government/political culture provides/enables the rights of citizens. Whether facist, socialist, repressive, capitalistic, democracy, etc.—the result is whatever the government allows the citizen to do. PolSci 101.

Relative to taxation, he misses the point that financing of the US government has become an overbearing confiscation of assets to redistribute income and enable exhorbinant spending. It matters not that Denmark, or whomever, has higher taxation. The relevant issue is US society.

Thad never addresses the fairness of the progressive tax or the welfare state. He seems to accept that this is as it should be and we, the citizen, should simply shut up and count our blessings. But then isn’t this the common attitude of liberals today? For all their talk about personal rights and freedoms, they are quick to take away, give away and spend someone else’s money.

Mr. Williamson’s statement of “Because we cannot assume that individual would continue to earn $75,000 in pre-tax income if government were forced to substantially scale back its activities due to lower tax revenue” is full of assumptions that need clarification. For example:

1. Tax revenues continue to increase although income tax rates have decreased.

2. Is it the tax revenue or the spending that causes a deficit? I maintain that local, state and federal governments spend more than necessary because of all the extra “considerations” in new laws which are a result of compromise between political parties. Do we really need to pay spinach farmers for losses or provide for new peanut containers (just to name a few)?

3. Just because our two main political parties agree to “fund” such activities as national political debates to the tune of over $200 million, doesn’t make it fair because they also control the type of questions and who is invited to debate. Our government bodies decide what “needs” to be funded and self-serving politics all to often increase the need for more funds.

4. What about all the foreign support that our country provides? It might put us in a bad light if we scaled back some of our foreign supplements, but it would be fiscally responsible. If most of the world truly hates us, what do we have to lose?

I could give more examples, but I contend that scaling back some of our government activities would be fiscally responsible, would not reduce any core services provided, and thus not affect the pre-tax income of Americans.

The idea that wealth earned by citizens is simply that which the government has allowed us to earn and subsequently keep is absurd.  As is the idea that rights, like free speech, only exist because the government has not taken them from us.

This flies in the face of the spirit of independence our founders, well, founded this country upon.

Our founders intended the government to be an institution entirely beholden to the people.  That’s why they described the rights in the constitution as given by an authority higher than the government (who or what that authority is is a discussion for another time and place) and then gave the people the power to protect those rights with various protections for representative government in the Constitution culminating in a last-ditch defense against tyranny in the 2nd amendment.

Our government does not exist without the people.  The wealth we create does not belong to the government.  It belongs to us, and we decide what amount of it goes to the government by acting through our representative political process.

To try and claim that this is not so is to claim that our government is not controlled by the people, but instead that we are controlled by the government.

Hi Bart,

1. One correction to my post: I obviously meant to say free speech rights in our sense was NOT a part of Roman political culture circa 2000 years ago.

2. Yes, making rights claims does help change political culture over time. But not all rights claims are accepted, nor should they be. Which claims get accepted and which are not is ultimately a result of the political process.

best,
Thad

We could go back to the good old days of the Depression when capitalism had no regulation. The government through policy and enforcement agencies has a lot
positive economic input,: wages and hours, monetary funds,money supply, intrest rates, the whole Keynesian package of New Deal reforms. I just see libertarians as wanting a free ride. No taxes, no regulation of cars, no EPA, no nothing. I guess even Pell grants for education kicked to the curb. No GI Bill benefits, No VA for veterans, all that stuff costs too much. Yep. Unbridled capitalism is the way to go. No govt. guaranteed loans for the housing sector, either. Maybe even a host of private, start up venture capitalist Armies for defense…

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