Therefore your argument is factually wrong, your train of reasoning collapses into confusion and fallacies, and you have lost the argument – again.

Your argument about spongers is absurd. If you don’t want spongers, stop bullying people into providing services to people who haven’t paid for them!

Saltpetre
I think you need to deal with the issues on their merits.

“In your perfect world …
We’re not talking about “my perfect world”, any more than we are about yours.

I have asked whether anyone can show an *ethical* distinction between the coerced expropriation of someone’s efforts that is slavery, and the coerced expropriation of someone’s efforts that is taxation, and no-one, including you, has been able to do it.

“… the populace as a whole would determine the kind of world they would like to have, and how it should be paid for.””

No, that’s not what I’m saying and I never said that.

I’m saying that states are intrinsically compromised and incompetent to determine what is and is not a human right. And I said there is no reason, either as a matter of ethics or pragmatics, why voluntary relations should not be preferred to coerced relations (except force needed to repel aggression).

Nothing you have said has addressed either issue.

“You could have pay as you go … but these would still be established and run from the public purse.”

That seems confused. Tax is obtained by threatening to lock you in a cage. If social relations were voluntary, what do you mean by “public” transport, purse etc.?

“Alternatively, you could rely on the private sector, in which case those in the bush would have very little.”

How do you know they would?
If it’s true, why shouldn’t they?
Is that your main objection to voluntary relations?
How do you know they wouldn’t have more?
If that’s true, why shouldn’t they?

It’s no use saying “contributions” are necessary, because that’s not in issue. The issue is whether they should be coerced or voluntary.

It’s no use saying slavery is illegal. It’s only illegal because - after long ages in which it was considered necessary and normal – people realized it’s immoral to take the fruits of someone’s labour by threatening them with physical violence. So how is that different from taxation? Until you can show how you distinguish them, you’re only assuming what is in issue, which is, whether any services should be provided by tax and why?

“Your world of non-tax is a pipe-dream”

You are confusing the ethical with the practical issues. Even if a world without murder or robbery were only a pipe dream, that doesn’t provide an ethical justification of them, does it?

There was a time, not so long ago, when people said a world without slavery is a pipe-dream. If a world without tax is a pipe-dream, it’s only because of the prevalence of the *idea* that tax is morally and practically good. I’m asking you to show how and why. And you’re not doing it. When you can’t provide an ethical or rational defence of your ideas, the ethical and rational thing to do is RE-THINK them.

If your idea is true that the private sector represents gouging and exploitation, and the coercive sector represents caring and sharing, then why not just make everyone’s tax rate 100% and have government provide all services whatsoever?

No? Then by what rational *principle* do you decide that a particular service should be provided by government, and what by private?

We have a Department of Industrial Relations to administer employment relations. Why not a Department of Social Relations to administer friendships – make sure there’s no exploitation or inequality going on. And why not a Department of Sexual Relations to administer all those girlfriend/boyfriend relationships? They could be exploitative and unequal too, couldn’t they? Government supplies water – why not food?

It’s a reductio ad absurdum, but the absurdity is in your line of reasoning, not mine.

(cont.)

All your argument amounts to, is re-asserting fallacies I have just disproved with Hazza, namely that just because government does provide a service, therefore
a) it should
b) it provides it better than anyone else could
c) the service could not or would not be provided without government even if people wanted it
d) if people don’t want it, they should be forced to pay for it anyway
e) the use of coercion as a means to an end is ethically justified.

All these are false.

If you had said to the ancient Romans perhaps slavery should be done away with, they would have said “What? Are you mad? Don’t you understand that slaves supply us with public utilities necessary to a civilized society! Do you expect us all to die of thirst?”

And that is really no different to your argument about tax, is it?

Meg
Notice how any discussion of the validity of state determination of the existence of human rights, cannot but descend into a discussion of the validity, in human rights terms, of the existence of states themselves?

There is no way around it. Any intellectually honest attempt to resolve the problem must critically examine the validity of the claims of the state in its own terms, as to which, I pray you will consider reflecting on:
"The State" by Oppenheimer: http://mises.org/books/the_state_oppenheimer.pdf
and
"The Ethics and Economics of Private Property" by Hoppe:
http://mises.org/books/economicsethics.pdf

Peter Hume, you have convinced me that by virtue of taxation we are all in effect "slaves" of the state, in that we are required to contribute a portion of the fruits of our labours to the state machine, for the state to use as it sees fit, hopefully in the common interest. The rather limited influence we have over the use to which those tax funds are put, is via the ballot box. Imperfect, but not necessarily unreasonable.

The first assumption is the necessity of having a "state" in the first place, and this is based on the need for human communities to have an effective means to maintain order, whether this is via tribal elders, potentates or some form of elected or hereditary rulers or "government". Democracy is the model we have embraced as the best available so far.

The human animal being as it is, without effective order we find ourselves at best muddling along and being heavily reliant on relatives or wontoks whenever we have a problem, and at worst preyed upon by bandits, militia, invaders or oppressors. The strong will always take advantage of the weak, unless there is imposed control and restraint. Haven't you realised the human animal is an inherently nasty critter?

Also, without cooperation and the organisation of labour, innovation and development becomes almost impossible, and without order and established reliability and integrity, cross border trade becomes risky and difficult. Order means control by some authority, elected or otherwise.

Experience has shown that cooperation and sharing provides the best means for societies to gain advancement and "civilisation", and all that this entails. Experience has also shown that when development and services are controlled by a ruling class, the wealthy or aristocracy (ie Capital), the lot of the working class and the poor is pretty terrible. Hence the need for a public sector.
TBC>

Cont'd:
You proposed: "c) the service could not or would not be provided without government even if people wanted it"

How many examples of just such situations do you need? You question whether those in the bush would be worse off without the provision of public funded or subsidised services. Are you for real? More generally, how would you compare our health services provision with that in the U.S.?

Private Capital vs Public Institutions? Have you noticed the widening gap betweeen the 1% and the 99%? What do you think accounts for this, and what do you think would happen if everything was controlled by private equity?

I think we should be happy to pay reasonable taxes, as long as we are getting reasonable value for money.

The big difference between slaves and the rest of us is that slaves are locked up all the time, and without any rights, but we are locked up only if convicted of a crime, and we have the benefit of legal rights to enable us even to get away with it. Is that enough of a difference? Coercion = without rights or redress.

Hi Meg,

The question of human rights is exposed when juxtaposed with the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. Religious laws extend only to all believers with the intention that the religion will be extended by followers. Worshiping the same gods at one time would have been a way to provide unifying guidelines beyond the boundaries of ethnic or tribal groups without understanding a finite relevance for some of those guidelines. Human rights are supposed to apply equally to all who are human, demanding that those who adhere to "Human Rights" as a recognised legal construct, recognise the common humanity of those they share this world with.
Using religion or geography to provide context for "Human rights" only divides people saying that this law applies only to these people, having the same effects as the religious law that it preserves. By appropriating the language of human rights to excuse the social stasis of an overtly religious society, no progress is made in the areas that the UN charter on human rights seeks to address.