Tax
Day
by
Murray
N. Rothbard
by Murray N. Rothbard
DIGG THIS
This unsigned
editorial, written by Murray N. Rothbard, appeared in the April
15, 1969 issue of The Libertarian (soon to become The
Libertarian Forum).
April 15,
that dread Income Tax day, is around again, and gives us a chance
to ruminate on the nature of taxes and of the government itself.
The first great
lesson to learn about taxation is that taxation is simply robbery.
No more and no less. For what is "robbery"? Robbery is
the taking of a man's property by the use of violence or the threat
thereof, and therefore without the victim's consent. And yet what
else is taxation?
Those who claim
that taxation is, in some mystical sense, really "voluntary"
should then have no qualms about getting rid of that vital feature
of the law which says that failure to pay one's taxes is criminal
and subject to appropriate penalty.
But
does anyone seriously believe that if the payment of taxation were
really made voluntary, say in the sense of contributing to the American
Cancer Society, that any appreciable revenue would find itself into
the coffers of government? Then why don't we try it as an experiment
for a few years, or a few decades, and find out?
But if taxation
is robbery, then it follows as the night the day that those people
who engage in, and live off, robbery are a gang of thieves. Hence
the government is a group of thieves, and deserves, morally, aesthetically,
and philosophically, to be treated exactly as a group of less socially
respectable ruffians would be treated.
This
issue of The Libertarian is dedicated to that growing legion
of Americans who are engaging in various forms of that one weapon,
that one act of the public which our rulers fear the most: tax rebellion,
the cutting off the funds by which the host public is sapped to
maintain the parasitic ruling classes.
Here is a burning
issue which could appeal to everyone, young and old, poor and wealthy,
"working class" and middle class, regardless of race,
color, or creed. Here is an issue which everyone understands, only
too well. Taxation.
Murray
N. Rothbard (19261995) was the author of Man,
Economy, and State, Conceived
in Liberty, What
Has Government Done to Our Money, For
a New Liberty, The
Case Against the Fed, and many
other books and articles. He was
also the editor with Lew Rockwell of The
Rothbard-Rockwell Report.
Copyright
© 2007 Ludwig von Mises Institute
All rights reserved.
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