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Where 'Mx' denotes "x has a moral claim to pretax income" and 'Jp' denotes "the political settlement is justified," the argument you outline is (for all x):
(1) Mx --> Jp
(2) ~Jp
_________
(3) ~Mx
It's not clear from how you lay out the argument whether Dworkin wants to claim that not-Jp because not-Mx. ('Mx --> Jp' is consistent with '~Mx & Jp.') If it is, I think your argument is pretty sound. But if not, then it might be the case, for example, that not-Jp only because p doesn't implement X scheme of income redistribution. So if that's right, and if not-Mx, and if legitimacy is a matter of degree, then there's no reason to suppose a priori that such degree of legitimacy as p does enjoy would be insufficient to justify coercive taxation (which by hypothesis does not invade any right) in order to implement X (which by hypothesis is required by right).
Sorry, I just interpreted your puzzlement as grounded on the libertarian assumption that it makes sense that there is some discrete answer to what is rightfully mine, and what the government can rightfully confiscate. Libertarians often assert this as if it makes sense. Maybe it does, but it's by no means obvious, and I'd argue highly questionable.
As for improving the lot of society on the whole, have I got a deal for you!
I suppose if a few are getting the rewards of "society" then that would be a problem. But you can only be talking about genuinely common goods. The fruits of labour and intellect (and thrift) are not the rewards of society unless you posit that one can sell a good because society and therefore the good is in fact owned by society.
In a market economy (and subject to government interventions) rewards are distributed on the basis of market valuations, which means the valuations of us. some people argue that the market valuations are unjust because of the differing rewards received and opportunities enjoyed, but that is an assertion.
I agree that the government is justified in raising taxes to support the fundamental institutions of society, but that is not a moral justification for redistribution, on the contrary, I believe that argument justifies a poll tax. so, if you want to justify redistribution you need to find another argument.
Hegel argues that the power of taxation derives from the consent of the people:
"The attitude of the government to the classes must not be in its essence hostile. The belief in the necessity of this hostile relation is a sad mistake. The government is not one party which stands over against another, in such a way that each is seeking to wrest something from the other. If the state should find itself in such a situation, it must be regarded as a misfortune and not as a sign of health. Further, the taxes, to which the classes give their consent, are not to be looked upon as a gift to the state, but are contributed for the interest of the contributors. The peculiar significance of the classes or estates is this, that through them the state enters into and begins to share in the subjective consciousness of the people." (section 301)
So that's pretty clear. No taxation without consent, and taxes are paid to support the interests of the people. The government has no inherent "right" to tax without consideration of the people. But Hegel argues we should in general support government and so consent to taxation.
Why does Hegel think we should be happy to support the government ("the universal")? Individuals achieve their true happiness in the context of civil society, with other people. But actualizing and securing that happiness requires the function of an external state. Forgive the long quote:
"Yet without coming into relation with others he cannot realize his ends. Hence to each particular person others are a means to the attainment of his end. But the particular purpose gives itself through reference to others the form of universality, and in satisfying itself accomplishes at the same time the well-being of others. Since particularity is bound up with the conditioning universal, the joint whole is the ground of adjustment or mediation, upon which all individualities, all talents, all accidents of birth or fortune disport themselves. Here the fountains of all the passions are let loose, being merely governed by the sun of reason. Particularity limited by universality is the only standard to which the particular person conforms in promoting his well-being.
The self-seeking end is conditioned in its realization by the universal. Hence is formed a system of mutual dependence, a system which interweaves the subsistence, happiness, and rights of the individual with the subsistence, happiness, and right of all. The general
right and well-being form the basis of the individual’s right and well-being, which only by this connection receives actuality and security. This system we may in the first instance call the external state, the state which satisfies one’s needs, and meets the requirements of the understanding." (sections 182, 183)
So from this we can conclude, I think, that when the state fails to "satisfy one's needs" or "meet the requirements of the understanding" or possibly fails to foster the "mutual dependence" we need to be able to reify our private "subsistence, happiness, and rights," only then would Hegel say we should withdraw or question our consent to taxation.
Finally I have to say that if your articulation of Dworkin above is accurate, I pity him. His style of argumentation seems more convoluted than even Hegel. And anyone whose prose is a worse spaghetti nest than Hegel's. . . well. . .well. . .!
You can spin almost exactly the same story about the legitimacy of the state. Again, the content of normative political theory isn't terribly relevant. All things being equal, the world would probably be a better place with less coercion. So each coercive act, as such, is to be regretted. (I hedge to make allowance for retributive theories of punishment, under which inflicting suffering on wrongdoers is desirable in itself.)
But this isn't to say very much at all. Or, better stated, it is just to say that the world would be a better place if there were no scarcity and if people behaved morally. "If men were angels" in lived in Eden, and all that. But that's obviously true! I have grown genuinely puzzled over the last few years with political theorists' obsessive attempts to ground theories of economic redistribution and political legitimacy in premises so strong that they guarantee the legitimacy of state action in toto. But why should we expect that the state -- that most imperfect and lamentable of all human artifacts -- be legitimate? Or even capable of legitimacy?
The adult thing to do, I think, is to take the problem of dirty hands seriously, and realize that when humans exercise political authority, they do so unjustly and imperfectly. Sometimes we want the government to do blameworthy things! The government should pull down my house to make a firebreak! Why go through verbal gymnastics to insist that my property rights weren't really violated, because all property rights contain an inherent exception for fires? (What happens to your theory of property if we can automatically extinguish fires with Star Trek-like technology that never fails? Does it change?) Isn't it better to realize that sometimes the prince must violate a right to serve a greater good -- and to condemn him for it in full -- than it is to try to cram normatively-grounded exceptions for certain contingencies into a Rube Goldberg theory of political legitimacy? The problem isn't that I don't have a right to keep my house in the face of a fire, but rather than with the fire coming my property rights are astonishingly unimportant. Make the government buy me a new house later. Justice, or at least one particular conception of justice -- based on expectations and rights -- is one among several matters to which a government must attend.
I haven't read this particular Dworkin book, but I've come across this kind of argument for taxation before. Why don't its advocates just say that in the face of real human suffering, property rights aren't very important? That wouldn't violate analytical symmetry, and it strikes me as more persuasive.
This is a typical argument, but even here, one would have to show that, say, the majority of what taxes actually go to work to prevent Hobbes' brutish state of nature. Since (needless to say?) Bush's foreign policy, farm subsidies and an AIG bailout hardly prevent a collapse of civil society, indeed necessary to procure a living at all, one can still justify a right to about 95% of pre-tax income based on the argument of "political settlement" as vital. And seeing as how choosing which taxes to pay is not an option, one can say "I'm keeping it all!" until further notice.
It's not a question of plausibility, since we now have evolution and primatology. Chimps have culture, recognized families, and a social hierarchy. They even appear to have a basic services economy - since they travel and don't really settle in one place, commodity or real property doesn't make sense for them, so they don't have it.
Jane Goodall even argues they have a form of "religious awe;" whereas Barbara King argues they simply have precursor behaviors for religion. Either way, what other elements are necessary for a baseline civil society? I can't think of any. But yet chimps lack formal government. So QED.
"This is a typical argument, but even here, one would have to show that, say, the majority of what taxes actually go to work to prevent Hobbes' brutish state of nature."
As above, I think modern science has shown that Hobbes' idea of a state of nature - the atomized individual at war with every other - is not actually the monkey way. Rather, there might be an argument that it's the external state that atomizes us. Where this goes is I think obvious to all here.
There is in fact a rich body of academic literature that documents the existence of civil society and customary/private/polycentric law prior to and independent of any state sovereign. See, for example, Tom Bell or the Cato Unbound issue from August 2007. Here is the takeaway from Peter Leeson's lead essay:
Or so says you. Doesn't this effectively assume the very point under discussion? Indeed, Hegel's argument in Philosophy of Right is that civil society exists before the external state, just as the family exists before the state. He is not alone in this claim of course, which I quoted at too much length here. You are free to rebut it, if you have an actual argument. :) Just airly asserting your point is working with this skirt, sorry.
Also I think you are not considering carefully enough where any argument that puts government before civil society is going to take you. Do you really want to go there? Be wary! Engels is lying there with a trap.
And your account of "out of order" mating shows little knowledge of chimp society I'm afraid. Primate society can be quite ugly, unfortunately. But we could say the same of people: if X commits adultery with Y's wife, Y can do little except accept it (stay with her) or fight it (divorce her). So forgive me but that strand of your thought lacks force.
Yes, you can invalidate whatever reasons a person offers for taking a certain position. You may even change the minds of a few people who used a line of reasoning to form a stance on something.
But most people don't do that. They form opinions and then try to articulate reasons -- much as I might decide I like a TV show and then try to tell my wife why.
If my wife points out that my stated reason is factually incorrect, it doesn't mean that I don't actually like the show. It just means that I couldn't accurately say why.
In most cases, the only complete reason for holding any opinion is "because I do" which is why most people think taxes are (or aren't) fair.
About monkeys: most chimps are really promiscuous, gibbons are pretty monogamous, and orangutans are basically monogamous but occassionally adulterous, like humans. But the difference is that in human societies, unlike in any ape or monkey society, we don't have to just fight or accept: we can sue. If you don't see a difference between fighting and adjudication, then maybe I ask you to be wary of Foucaldianism!
MIcha: I would only say that if anarchic societies worked, there'd be a lot more of them. At a certain point, any society with sufficient population density establishes something like a sovereign power. I don't argue that complex systems of exchange and social organization exist and have existed absent a governing sovereign power. The point is that until such establishment, there is nothing like civil society in the relevant sense because there is no security in transaction. Now I WOULD argue that, once the political settlement is reached, the point of that settlement both as a theoretical and empirical matter is not restricted in any way towards maintaining the pre-settlement state of affairs.
It is a legitimate question to ask why there aren't more anarchic societies alive today, but that is separate from your prior question of whether or not "there is a plausible notion of contract, civil right, and law outside or prior to a recognized sovereign power able to enforce that law."
This doesnt negate his point. These systems can only exist due to the social insitutions that govern the exchange of goods and services. If one person in society doesnt go by these rules than the conditions for exchange unravel, so although there isnt govenrment involvement it is still in a sense 'governed'. Contract laws are just the official formulation of such arrangments
In short, there is no guarantee under anarchy just as there is no guarantee under a state. There are only systems of incentives and probabilities that these incentives will work the way we intend.
Long also addresses the "if Bill gates stole from me" argument. Lobbying magnifies the power of the rich through access to taxpayer dollars. There is good reason to think that the rich can get away with a lot more under a monopoly legal system than they could under a competitive one.
Finally, you say that "if Ohio attacked Michigan, there'd [be] a soverign power to come and make things right" and this therefore makes both Ohio and Michigan count as civil societies. But what if Canada attacked Mexico? Is there a sovereign power to come and make things right? Does this absence of a world sovereign power mean that neither Canada nor Mexico count as civil societies?
In fact, Will doesn't seem to be a libertarian in the sense you describe either, or else I, and a more than a few other lurkers, wouldn't even be here.
Do you truly believe I did not begin my argument cannily? When I start with the "impossible" Philosophy of Right, oh I do so for a reason. And it is precisely the reason you articulate to Micha: "any society with sufficient population density establishes something like a sovereign power."
Like Will, I am more interested in following a decent way towards Sen. I am not particularly interested in cranky railin's 'ginst the goover-mint with the black helicopter folks.
The issue with your argument is that you remain vulnerable to the chain of thought that ends up with the individual as a property of the state if you do not take care to carefully separate government from civil society and ensure that civil society comes first. But likewise after that, we need to ensure that elements of civil society - the family, religion - aren't allowed to enslave the individual either. This is particularly important to me as a skirt.
This is actually why I want Hegel. I want to be able to say, yes, there will be a civil society, with property rights and a market. Afterwards I want to have a state to draw the human person out of the communal obligation into individuality. But it has to be the right kind of state!
This is where Sen becomes interesting; however I am not always sure exactly how we keep the Sen "positive" state from becoming the Berlin problem "positive" state. So I want more carve-outs.
As for the issue of formal justice, or adjudication as you say, I think I actually want some Foucault here. Monkey society - be it gorilla, chimp or what have you - is a power society, where nearly all females are subjugated. I have to admit this fact. If I am not careful, our structures will slide back towards this, as we see in some places today.
Because civil society includes religion, and almost all large religions have a system of religious law and religious courts, which in human history have often run in parallel with ('l'ancien regime) or in place of (Iran) state justice. . .
I want to be able to argue that these courts and legal systems are based solely on power and are oppressive to liberty - I don't want conservatism, I want secular individual human liberty. As a woman, I need to create for myself some protection from ancient structures of civil society, with its monkey roots, and I need some positive "capabilities" from the state to do this.
But I need the right kind, again. There's no doubt the market, that market systems, have been the greatest liberator of women, in so far as capitalism works massive change on traditional civil society. But for that to work for me, again, I need a certain state structure to help me out of religion and the family *first.*
Or at least that's how I'm thinking recently. I'm not married to this yet.