Tom Cerber’s recent points on the growing size and scope of Canadian government are worth thinking about, firstly, the problem that the growth of an inherently parasitic government at the expense of the private sector is unsustainable (as the example of the USSR should have demonstrated). A barrier to the solution of this problem is the way people think of the government. How many times have we seen TV or radio commercials on some new scheme or whatever, ending with the words “A message from the Government of Canada”? Take, for example, the extension of parental leave made a few years ago. People see this and think, is the government not generous to do that? Isn’t that nice, that they’re doing that for new parents?
No!
What these people believe is that the government has money and is giving it to worthy causes. To be generous, you need to give of your own resources. But government has no money and no resources. Everything it has, it takes by coercion. This is most visible in the field of taxation. The Income Tax Act demands that we pay what the government demands or risk a penalty of between 1 and 2 times the amount we tried to ‘evade’ (as if trying to keep your own property is evading anything) and up to 5 years in jail. But even where the government sells services, like Canada Post, healthcare or the water supply, these services are actually monopolies (it is a great irony that the greatest monopolist in society is charged with preventing monopoly and, worse, has a monopoly on pursuing monopolists), and the potential competition is driven out of the market with threats. It is a crime to compete with the services offered by the government.
It’s very easy to be generous with somebody else’s money. Just remember, when the government hands out largess, they aren’t giving out anything. You are. And you are going to give this largess whether you like it or not, unless the idea of being fined up to twice the amount and imprisoned for up to five years appeals to you. The real message from the Government of Canada is clear: your money or up to five years of your life (and your money). The donation of the governmental highwayman’s plunder to a good cause is not likely to be much of a consolation to his victims.
As to Tom’s second point, that a large government undermines democracy by giving a large segment of the population (up to 10% in the Canadian case) a vested, personal interest in returning the ruling party to power, remember Alexander Tytler’s warning: ” A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” This is effectively our situation here, for to be employed by the government is to receive largess out of the public treasury. It is to provide a service that the public does not want to buy at the price it costs, because if they did, there would be no need for government to provide it, so to be a government employee is to perform unnecessary and undesired labour for which a salary is exacted by force. As government grows and the tax burden gets heavier, more and more people will want out of the increasingly burdened private sector and into this world of money given for worthless work, and the best way to get that is to vote for a party of bigger government, and to support itself, that government must perform more legitimised robberies than ever before.
maria wrote:
Are there any more Libertarians out there?
Fantastic articles - sound like Libertarians.
Posted on 30-May-05 at 5:52 pm | Permalink
R.D. wrote:
I’d say this website is very similar in tone (libertarian) with http://www.beaglexp.com .
Posted on 31-May-05 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.� The question Hugo is skirting around (but does not quite hit) is how much do citizens really need to pay in order to have an acceptable level of civilisation? Or in other words, how much government spending is actually necessary and in which areas?
To answer this question, however, first we need to define what is meant by “civilized society.â€? In an informal sense, “civilization” simply means a modern society with conveniences, as opposed to life in the middle of the jungle. However, for the purpose of this posting, lets use an American example; “a civilization that centers on a stable system of governance that could protect life, liberty, and property, while providing due process of law for its citizens.â€?
As Hugo pointed out, not paying your taxes isn’t really an option. (Unless of course you wanted to either move out of the country or move into the mountains somewhere and grow your own vegetables and boil water from the stream on a stove you cut the wood down for on your own.) However, most people like roads, water, electricity, schools, police officers, fire departments, parks, student loans, airports, homeless shelters, swimming pools, libraries, child care, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. and do not mind paying for them.
I am going to take issue with a few of Hugo’s points:
1. “But even where the government sells services, like Canada Post, healthcare or the water supply, these services are actually monopolies (it is a great irony that the greatest monopolist in society is charged with preventing monopoly and, worse, has a monopoly on pursuing monopolists), and the potential competition is driven out of the market with threats.�
Not true. There are private medical clinics, courier companies that compete just fine and still turn huge profits, bottled water companies that also make huge profits, and I do not think the government hires brute squads to keep the private companies “off their turf.�
2. “It is a crime to compete with the services offered by the government.�
If you are going to make this claim, show us the legislation that makes it a crime. It isn’t a crime, most of us just do not have the capital to compete.
3. “It is to provide a service that the public does not want to buy at the price it costs, because if they did, there would be no need for government to provide it, so to be a government employee is to perform unnecessary and undesired labour for which a salary is exacted by force.�
Are you really advocating anarchy here? You and I both take advantage of and use government services happily each day. It is evident from your posting that you do not like paying taxes; but paying taxes is like going to the dentist, no one likes it, but you need to do it so your teeth do not fall out.
4. “As government grows and the tax burden gets heavier, more and more people will want out of the increasingly burdened private sector and into this world of money given for worthless work.â€?
What? Worthless work? Isn’t that a bit exaggerated? I believe the example you used as “worthless� was extending parental leave from six months to a year “on your dime.� However, we know that children develop better if they are at home with their mothers during the formative years. What is wrong with giving mothers that option? Not all women live in families where they can afford to stay at home with thier children. This policy gives them more time at home to recover from child birth, and to provide a healthy environment to grow in. From an economic perspective, a relatively small investments early on in a child’s development usually translate into government savings over the long term (i.e. less taxes). This is commonly accepted OECD practice and common sense.
In other words, would you rather make a relatively small initial investment early on and save money later? (e.g. buy a good watch that will last 20 years); or pay less now and dish out more money later on (e.g. buy a cheap digital watch each year for 20 years and spend triple on watches over your life time)?
So, if your real issue is with ensuring that your tax dollars are spent well and efficiently, then talk about that. If your issue is about ensuring that Canadians share the tax burden fairly, then talk about that. However, it is a waste of time to speak in platitudes about not wanting to pay taxes at all or about being forced to pay for things you don’t want to pay for by an oppressive regeim (give me a break), knowing very well that you use many government services (that you need) every day.
Let’s have a real discussion on tax reform on this website and start some real citizen engagement on the topic. Here are a few good questions to kick something off:
1. What should / should not the government spend money on?
2. How much is the right amount of government spending? Is there room for private partnership?
3. What is the appropriate share of the tax burden between citizens and business?
4. Should the tax system be flat or progressive?
If we are not willing to do this, then we are wasting our time.
Posted on 01-Jun-05 at 9:07 am | Permalink
Hugo Chesshire wrote:
Lyndon, I’ll address your comments.
“Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.�
Do you think it’s civilized to extort money from people on pain of fine, imprisonment or death without their consent? Doesn’t this meet the definition of robbery? To be ethically consistent, the existence of taxes destroys civilized society.
“Most people like roads, water, electricity, schools, police officers, fire departments, parks, student loans, airports, homeless shelters, swimming pools, libraries, child care, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. and do not mind paying for them.”
Most people like food, too. Should the government provide all our food? Or is it possible that the government does not need to provide all or any of these services?
“There are private medical clinics, courier companies that compete just fine and still turn huge profits, bottled water companies that also make huge profits”
Medical clinics can only offer services to people outside the Canada Health Act. Courier companies can only deliver packages, not mail. Bottled water companies can’t deliver water through pipes to houses.
“If you are going to make this claim, show us the legislation that makes it a crime. It isn’t a crime, most of us just do not have the capital to compete.”
Read the Canada Post Corporation Act, Sections 14 and 15. For instance, Section 14 Subsection 1: “Subject to section 15, the Corporation has the sole and exclusive privilege of collecting, transmitting and delivering letters to the addressee thereof within Canada.” Section 56: “Every person who, in violation of the exclusive privilege of the Corporation under section 14, collects, transmits or delivers to the addressee thereof, or undertakes to collect, transmit or deliver to the addressee thereof, any letter within Canada, or receives or has in his possession within Canada any letter for the purpose of so transmitting or delivering it, commits an offence in respect of each such letter.”
Sounds like enforced monopoly to me.
“Are you really advocating anarchy here? You and I both take advantage of and use government services happily each day. It is evident from your posting that you do not like paying taxes; but paying taxes is like going to the dentist, no one likes it, but you need to do it so your teeth do not fall out.”
You can read Murray Rothbard’s Libertarian Manifesto to explode this myth. Government isn’t actually necessary for anything. Ireland had no government at all for a thousand years and was the most advanced, peaceful and learned society in Europe.
“What? Worthless work? Isn’t that a bit exaggerated? I believe the example you used as “worthlessâ€? was extending parental leave from six months to a year “on your dime.â€?”
It’s worthless because people don’t want to buy the work at the price it costs. If they did, there’d be no need for government to do it, since they’d just buy it on the free market anyway. Your comparison to investment in quality goods is fraudulent, because I make such investments of my own free will according to my individual time-preference, whereas these services we are discussing are coerced out of me with no regard to my aspirations for the future or my desires and needs as a person.
Posted on 01-Jun-05 at 9:52 am | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
I am sorry you feel that way about paying your taxes. I do not feel like I am being extorted; I feel like I am contributing to a greater good where I am more free to make other choices (like which book to read, where I will go on vacation, what type of education I want, etc.), rather than worrying about roads, water, my mail, personal health, and who is going to take advantage of my resources by force because there are no police to protect me, or firemen to come put the fire out.
If you do not want to participate in this society, you do have choices. As I mentioned above, you could move to the mountains or to a country without income taxes. Just like, if you really wanted, you can dig a well and purify your own water (my parents do that on the farm), it is a choice they made. If you want to send a letter through a courier, you can, no one is going to fine you for doing so. It is cheaper to go to the post-office though because of the monopoly. I am fine with that, so are almost all other citizens. It is a pretty good way to ensure my letter gets to grandma at Chirstmas. However, as you pointed out, you will be fined if you set up a box that looks like a post office box, and try to deliver other people’s mail. Again, I think most Canadians are ok with that. We all have choices, my friend, and if you want to live in a city where you have water that comes through your taps, and mail that comes to your door, then you have to pay for it. Fair is fair.
If you are not fine with it, then start a political movement and a new political party. Preston Manning did it, and look at the fruit of his labours. If lots of Canadians feel the same way, and want to dig their own wells, and deliver their own packages privately, then democracy wins.
As for not wanting to be forced to pay for services you do not agree with, well, that is what a discussion on tax reform would be useful for. The rest, I am afraid, is just fluff.
Posted on 01-Jun-05 at 11:05 am | Permalink
Hugo Chesshire wrote:
“I do not feel like I am being extorted; I feel like I am contributing to a greater good”
But you aren’t contributing anything. The money would be taken from you whether you liked it or not. A “moral” act committed under duress isn’t moral at all. If you are robbed and the robber gives his plunder to charity, have you made a charitable donation? Have you done a good act?
“If you are not fine with it, then start a political movement and a new political party.”
So if I find government tyrannical and reprehensible, I should try and form a government and tyrannise people into my way of thinking?
“If you want to send a letter through a courier, you can, no one is going to fine you for doing so. It is cheaper to go to the post-office though because of the monopoly.”
It would be even cheaper if we did not have the monopoly. That’s the problem. Because it has no incentive to deliver good service for low prices, government basically fleeces us all. You can see this in the bizarre way it treats its customers: people want to use the government’s roads, so instead of making provision for the new customers as free enterprises would, it chastises us for driving too much. People want to use lots of water, so instead of supplying more water, they institute sprinkler bans. People want to use power, so instead of generating more, they produce rolling blackouts. No business treats its customers so badly. If it did, it’d go out of business.
“Again, I think most Canadians are ok with that.”
All governments must rule with the consent of the people. Even Hitler and Stalin could not have survived without the consent (not the support, mind, even grudging resignation qualifies as consent) of their people. I know you’re a homosexual, for instance, and that is none of my business. However, government, the majority and democracy once made this a criminal offence. Would you have been “ok with that” when it was the case?
“If you do not want to participate in this society, you do have choices.”
Who grants government the right to demand that I conform to its rules or get out? The majority? If the majority decided they wanted to execute Lyndon Simmons for no good reason, would you skip happily to the gallows?
Posted on 01-Jun-05 at 1:17 pm | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
My sexuality has nothing to do with this conversation and I will be sending an email to the administrators of this website to have your last posting removed. I also will be requesting a formal written appology.
Posted on 01-Jun-05 at 8:33 pm | Permalink