Rosie,

These are complex issues, and I agree that debate and discussion are useful both to raise awareness and tease out solutions.

Dealing with child labour will probably require a number of approaches including changing (and enforcing) legislation, addressing cultural issues and making real alternatives available.

Most importantly it requires addressing the kind of poverty that makes working in factories making goods for export the best option available for kids in some countries. This is why I’m concerned about measures such as trade boycotts, which can actually make things worse.

You are right that rich countries tend to have better public infrastructure and social services and more generous welfare safety nets than poor ones, but I wonder what is cause and what is effect. At earlier stages in their economic development, taxation and government spending relative to GDP were much lower in most now-rich countries, including Australia. I suspect that rich countries have these now thing because they can afford them; in poor countries workers cannot sustain the tax levels necessary to provide first-world benefits and services.

That said, appropriate public investment in productive infrastructure and human capital can raise productivity in poor countries as well as rich ones, and where countries are too poor to afford this investment loans or aid from rich countries can help to raise living standards. The key thing is to ensure the investment is actually productive – for a host of complex reasons, a large proportion of public spending may not be.

Thanks for that Rhian,

Out of curiosity, what do you think of campaigns such as Chain Store Reaction?
http://chainstorereaction.com/

It is touted as a better alternative to product boycott but it is hard for me to imagine that emails are going to change corporate behaviour. To my mind, the only thing that changes corporate behaviour is the purchasing behaviour of customers?

I am merely inquiring how the ethical basis of taxation can be distinguished from that of forced labour. I have found that as soon as you examine the reasoning, it crumbles.

Legality is not a sufficient answer for the morality. Slavery has been legal in most countries in most times where it has been practised. But that doesn’t make it ethical, that doesn’t make it okay by you, does it? A state can’t satisfy you that slavery is okay by merely legalising it, can it?

Surely we should say the legality of slavery is not an argument in favour of slavery, but against such legality?

What about legitimisation by democracy? Ultimately this pre-supposes legitimacy based on majority opinion. But majority opinion also will not suffice. If 12 men and one woman vote whether to have sex, and the men vote for, and the woman votes against, and they force her, that doesn’t mean
(a) it’s not a rape as a matter of fact, nor
(b) that it’s ethically okay.

The *ethical* position of majority rule is no different. It is only the *legality*, not the ethics of majority rule that distinguish taxation from forced labour.

What about utility? Suppose a state holds a third of its population in slavery, and uses the forced labour or the proceeds to provide a sewerage system, a water supply, and other public works. May the state argue: “This forced labour is necessary and desirable as the basis of a decent society. Without it, the state could not exist. And the people who benefit need these amenities and therefore have a right to them at the expense of the freedom of these slaves.”?

Surely not? Wouldn’t you say, people don’t have a “right” to live at the expense of others under coercion? And if people are not willing to pay for these services voluntarily, they have no right to have them provided by coercion? And if people are willing to pay for them voluntarily, then there is no justification for forced labour? And if an organisation could not exist without forced labour, that is an argument against such an organisation, not in favour of forced labour? And it is a contradiction in terms to say that a decent society requires slavery?

Yet we still have not arrived at an ethical distinction between slavery and taxation that can withstand critical scrutiny. They have in common that they involve the use of force or threats to violate the person’s right to self-ownership, and all the freedoms and dignity that derive therefrom. Their only difference is that one is legal and the other is not, but we have already seen that that does not establish a sufficient ethical difference.

Whether the slaver ‘provides something in return’ is not to the point, which is, whether the other party consents.

Modern states do not forcibly expropriate a hundred percent of the product of one third of the population, but they do forcibly expropriate forty percent of the product of the entire population. Many people face rates of taxation much higher. I have experienced a rate of taxation and other compulsory expropriation of 80 percent. But surely there is no issue that if it was 100 percent it would be slavery properly so-called?

The fact that these conclusions may be inconvenient or radical is no argument against them; any more than it was an argument against slavery being abolished. We may regard it as unthinkable to abolish taxation. So what? So did the slave-owners facing abolition. Surely we have an ethical obligation not to shrink from at least thinking about the issues?

Over to you. Can you provide an ethical distinction between slavery and taxation? And pray spare me the cheap shots

For those interested in human rights issues, the government is holding public consultations around the nation over coming months to hear the views of people who have registered to attend their 'community roundtables'.

"Key Consultation Questions

* Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?
* Are human rights sufficiently protected and promoted?
* How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?"

The public can make submissions and get further info here (by May 29, 2009):
http://www.humanrightsconsultation.gov.au/www/nhrcc/nhrcc.nsf/Page/Share_Your_Views

regards
Rosie Williams