31 comments

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  Ranjit Mathoda

  1 year ago

  Unless you favor the tax, you are being coerced with both a high and low tax. Seems to me we are all made to do things we don't totally want to do in life, but the question of how much of our life is effected by coercion is a very important one. Example: if I don't let you speak freely on 20% vs 80% of the topics you discuss, in both cases there is coercion/limitation, but you are restricted with respect to more resources in one case than the other. Depending on utility you get out of the 60% difference in the coercions, you may feel powerfully harmed or not by the difference.
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  Christopher M

  1 year ago

  Couldn't one reasonably say that taking more money is more coercive because it prevents you from doing more things with your money? I have $20 and I plan to buy a $10 book and see a $10 movie. Someone steals $10; they have coercively prevented me from seeing the movie (say I'd prefer the book if forced to choose). If they steal all $20 they've coercively prevented me from doing either one.
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  Jacob

  1 year ago

  From a previous post - “Now that Chad is making a bigger salary, he is at liberty (or, more naturally: free) to travel more often." If this is true than wouldn't it follow that having more take-home pay as a result of lower taxes means that one is more free to travel or to do whatever one pleases? Whether a bigger salary or lower taxes, they both result in the same thing - more money in the pocket. The degree of coerciveness seems to be of some importance. Tapping you with my fist is different than punching you with it.
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  Pithlord

  1 year ago

  On #1, isn't the minarchist/conservative answer that all taxes are coercive, but not all taxes are unjustified coercion. If the coercion is necessary to perform the just functions of the state, then it's still coercion, but it's like violence in self-defence. If the coercion is in excess of what is necessary, then it's unjust. So the size of the tax matters to the extent of the coercion.
  
  Alternatively, a minarchist/conservative could just stipulate that "coercion" just means "unjustified force." Force in self-defence isn't coercive on this view (intuitions on whether this is consistent with natural language may differ). So the taxes necessary to fund a state that is confined to its just functions aren't coercive at all.
  
  The "freedom" issue (as opposed to the "welfar" issue) still isn't how much money you have left over. It's whether the state was justified in its taking, and the size of the taking matters to how plausible the justification is.
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  Will Wilkinson

  1 year ago

  Pith,
  
  So, suppose the just functions of the state require a 10% tax rate. The rate goes down from 45% to 30%. That's no change in freedom, right?
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  Michael F. Martin

  1 year ago

  1. Must be incorrect unless the tax adjusts for wealth effects. All else equal, a higher tax deprives the taxed person of a larger number of opportunities that would otherwise be available.
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  Jason Kuznicki

  1 year ago

  Short answer: Tell the guy who pays 100% of his income in taxes that he is no more coerced than the guy who pays 1%. See what he says. Then get back to me.
  
  Long answer: Although binary with regard to presence or absence, coercion isn't a discrete phenomenon.
  
  Once present, coercion is continuous, yet variant in degree. This is why we speak of how coercive an act is, and we measure it as mentioned above (though only intuitively, and relatively) by comparing what we might have done without the coercive act, and what we did do in its presence. "Not at all coercive" is a possibility, but so are varying degrees of coercive.
  
  Therefore I may be either "coerced" or "not" -- the latter being the case only if I paid 0% in taxes -- but this set of classifications (are or are not, and then how much) is not unusual. There are plenty of other phenomena that admit both of a binary distinction and also of differences in degree:
  
  You're either a smoker or not, but some smoke two packs a day, while others only smoke that much in a week.
  
  You're either religious or not, but some believers go to church every day, and tithe, and so forth, and others don't.
  
  A painting may be aesthetically pleasing or not, but some are more pleasing than others.
  
  You're either pregnant or not, but there is a difference between nine months and one.
  
  Many examples could be added. Where exactly is the trouble?
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  Micha Ghertner

  1 year ago

  Will,
  
  The reason, I think, that people who speak in the language of liberty and coercion tend to avoid speaking in the language of harm is because harm is usually incommensurate, in their view. From a deontological perspective, we cannot say if stealing $2 from me is better or worse than stealing $1 from you, because deontologists don't believe there is a legitimate way of comparing the value of $2 to me to the value of $1 to you. All we can say is that both thefts are bad.
  
  But there is no problem of incommensurability when dealing with a single person and a single kind of harm. Deontologists can say that stealing $2 from you is worse than stealing $1 from you. Stealing $1 is a Pareto improvement over stealing $2 from the same person, but it is not a Pareto improvement if we are choosing between stealing $1 from one person and stealing $2 from a different person.
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  Will Wilkinson

  1 year ago

  Jason, Suppose you are taxed once a year. Some people pay a higher rate, some people a lower rate. There is ONE instance of coercion per taxpayer. Just like there is one mugging per victim, regardless of the thickness of their wallet. You really want to say that people with the lower rate are coerced less?
  
  Anyway, you are threatened with jail even if your pay 0%, as many millions of Americans do. You still have to file. So you may be coerced even if you pay nothing. But I maintain that these people are a lot better off than the people who have to pay, freedom-wise. Don't you?
  
  Micha, Good point. The intrapersonal utility comparison is do-able. And so they SHOULD be talking about higher taxes as more harmful, not as liberty-reducing. But they don't. They talk like normal people do and say it is a matter of freedom.
  
  To reiterate... My point -- ill-made, I'm afraid -- is that even ideological rights libertarians, when they are speaking unreflectively, use "liberty" just like other English speakers, and think that paying less in taxes is a gain in freedom just because it is a reduction in the loss of opportunity. They don't talk about harm because they really do think of it as a question of liberty, even though their theory says they shouldn't.
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  Mikeg

  1 year ago

  Agreeing with Jason, if a robber comes and pushes a gun in your face and demands all your money, certainly you have been coerced. If the robber instead demands half your money, you've still been coerced, though to a lesser degree. Your total misery is less, even if the value of the freedom lost by the coercion itself is far greater than the value of the freedom lost according to the amount of money stolen.
  
  The converse (or inverse?) of this is perhaps the adage that goes: Slaves are still slaves, even if their masters allow them the "freedom" to sing their own campfire songs at night.
  
  #2 seems to ask a question regarding relative levels of wealth, but to me it doesn't add up. Adding the political freedoms of India to Singapore's citizens would increase their overall freedom. Likewise, imposing Singapore's system on India would reduce Indians' freedom. Wealth might increase the variety and quality of choices one has available, but that's a different sort of "freedom" than what is understood as "liberty". I'm reminded of the free-software movement's distinction between "free as in 'free beer'" and "free as in 'free speech'".
  
  And as for myself, coerced into choosing to live under one system or the other, I would choose India over Singapore any day.
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  Jason Kuznicki

  1 year ago

  Suppose you are taxed once a year. Some people pay a higher rate, some people a lower rate. There is ONE instance of coercion per taxpayer. Just like there is one mugging per victim, regardless of thickness of their wallet. You really want to say that people with the lower rate are coerced less?
  
  Absolutely. I smoke two packs a month. You smoke two packs a day. You're "a smoker," and so am I. But you smoke more. What's so confusing about that? I could give you examples of similar usages all afternoon if I wanted, and this suggests that you've found merely a language game, not a defect in our thinking about coercion.
  
  Now consider two governments: One has a 1% tax rate, while another has a 90% tax rate. Both are "coercive." One is certainly more coercive than the other. We count both the degree of severity and the number of instances, although in asking "How coercive is it?" we have a sliding scale from "not coercive" (zero acts of any magnitude) to "extremely coercive" (at least one act, and all acts considered together are extreme).
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  Will Wilkinson

  1 year ago

  Jason, I find your intuition to be exactly parallel to "The guy with the thicker wallet got mugged more," which doesn't make sense. Why do you think you're not saying that?
  
  And your example flatly fails. Suppose at the 90% rate, there is perfect compliance. Or low compliance but the government does little about it. But at the 1% rate, a ton of people resist, and the government constantly comes with guns and throws people in jail until they pay up. Evidently the place with the lower rate has the more coercive government.
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  Tim Fowler

  1 year ago

  Will, you can make up scenarios where a system with a 90% tax rate is in some sense less coercive than a system with a 1% tax rate, but your scenario isn't particularly likely. People are more likely to resist a 90% rate. More importantly in your scenario it isn't the 1% rate that makes the situation more coercive, but the harsh enforcement of the rate. The harsh enforcement is not the same thing as the rate itself.
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  Jason Kuznicki

  1 year ago

  I am saying that the guy with the thicker wallet was robbed of more. This seems self-evidently true.
  
  Suppose someone breaks into my house and steals only a beer from the fridge. Suppose someone else breaks into my neighbor's house and steals everything. We were both robbed, but he was the victim of a greater robbery.
  
  Likewise, someone who pays more in taxes has been coerced out of more. In what way is this not greater coercion?
  
  Incidentally, your alteration to my example regarding tax rates would change things, but it's hardly charitable. When a discussant offers a comparison, it should be assumed that things not mentioned remain equal. The example doesn't "flatly fail" unless it's changed along the way.
  
  Here's another example: I skipped lunch. I'm hungry. But people are also starving to death right now in Burma. Consider one of them. Is he "not more" hungry than I am? If I were to accept that "hunger" is like your "coercion," then I would have to say that he and I were equally "hungry," but this would impair our understanding of the situation to an almost unbelievable degree.
  
  Is there only ever to be "hungry" and "not hungry," without regard to degree? This seems artificial and contrary to ordinary usage not just in politics, but virtually everywhere.
  
  Consider another example: One woman is beautiful. Another woman is not beautiful. A third woman is more beautiful than the first. In the group, there are two "beautiful" women. This doesn't sound weird, does it?
  
  In short, I think what you've found is a Wittgensteinean language game, not a serious problem in philosophy.
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  Will Wilkinson

  1 year ago

  Jason, So, basically you are accepting my distinction between an instance of coercion and the harm from coercion. But you say I'm playing a language game. Yes. It's called "English". I think you're just table-pounding, insisting that instances of coercion that are more harmful are ipso facto more coercive, but this seems to me just obviously wrong. I agree that some coercive acts are more coercive than others, but the degree of coerciveness seems more or less independent of the degree of harm.
  
  (a) I threaten to kick your shin unless you give me your $10 million van Gogh painting. You capitulate.
  
  (b) I grab you by the throat and, angry eyes blazing, credibly threaten you with violent death unless you give me everything in you pockets. You give me everything you have: $.45.
  
  In what universe is (b) not more coercive? The harm is probably rather greater in (a) but that doesn't make it more coercive, does it?
  
  Coercion is the use of force or the threat of force to gain compliance. If I stipulate that the same amount of force is used steal $100 and $1000, you can't just reply that, no, really more force was deployed in the $1000 case, since that's more money. Or maybe you're playing language games?
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  Jason Kuznicki

  1 year ago

  So, basically you are accepting my distinction between an instance of coercion and the harm from coercion.
  
  Yes and no. Certainly, there is a distinction between instance and degree. But I believe that you have changed your argument.
  
  Initially, you claimed that "a higher tax isn't more coercive than a lower one. You're either being coerced or you're not."
  
  It's true -- unquestionably -- that you're either being coerced or you're not. But it's also true that there are degrees of coercion beyond mere "yes" and "no," and that within "yes," less coercion is, well, less coercive than more coercion. A person who uses a lesser degree of coercion is less guilty.
  
  At this point it behooves us to say what we mean by "more" or "less" coercion. The degree of force employed and the degree of harm wrought are two different factors to weigh in assessing the severity of any act of coercion, and this does raise some interesting quesitons when the two are mismatched as in your recent example.
  
  (Incidentally, one promising way to assess the degree of coercion in two or more scenarios, each with a number of imposed alternatives, is simply to ask which set of alternatives would allow me to choose the most favorable result. Between your "a" and "b" above, I might prefer to pay $.45 rather than be kicked in the shin, and thus "b" is the less coercive when these two are compared in isolation. Both, however, are coercive, as they both compel me to disregard my own hierarchy of values in favor of yours.)
  
  But in any case, I don't think that these conundrums have much to do with the original post. Let me try one more time to come up with an example that will express what I mean.
  
  Suppose there are two history books on a shelf. We are told that one book contains thousands of lies, while the other contains only a single, relatively trivial lie. Which book would you rather read? Which one is more truthful? Would you really say that "a book is either honest or it's not," and that the one is "not more dishonest" than the other?
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  DWAnderson

  1 year ago

  Why isn't it the case that there can be different "senses" in which an act can be coercive? In one sense a robber than only asks for half of my money seems less coercive than one that asks for all of it. In another sense they are both equally coercive in that they involve the same implied threat. Which is the "better" sense of the term is a function of the conext in which the term is being used.
  
  That question is unstated in these past two posts and the responses, almost as if this were a cross-examination in which eliciting an admission would make other arguments easier. The admission doesn't seem to be forthcoming (from anyone) so why not move on to the later substantive argument(s)?
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  Ken Hagler

  1 year ago

  On 1, I _do_ talk that way. Coercion is coercion.
  
  On 2, politically recognized rights are irrelevant to actual freedom, because the government will just "interpret" them in whatever way happens to suit the government. All that really matters is how free people are in reality.
  
  For example, here in the US it's a politically recognized right (under the highest law of the land) for me to walk down the street with a machinegun. In reality, if I tried to do that here in LA I would certainly be murdered by the government almost immediately, because in the US the politically recognized right to keep and bear arms is irrelevant to the way things actually are.
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  Jeff

  1 year ago

  I put this on my blog, but I thought I'd copy it here to see if I can provoke a response from Will:
  
  First, we tend to view taxes as confiscation of our time. The more we’re taxed, the more we feel that we’re working for the Government. Thus, we don’t just feel like we’re being mugged—we feel like we’re being mugged every day until Tax Freedom Day, which meant every day until last April 23 for the typical American.
  
  Second, most people don’t feel that a mugger is entitled to ANY of their money, but most libertarians believe that the Government is entitled to SOME of our money, usually for the few legitimate functions of the state: defense, courts, police. Some libertarians would add roads and environmental protection. Some would add more. I think most libertarians would admit that there’s no divine dividing line that delineates what is an appropriate government function and what is not. At some point on the spectrum of Government powers, it becomes a matter of argument and policy. It’s hard to know what’s absolutely right.
  
  When the Government takes our money for welfare—pure redistribution—it feels completely illegitimate. When the Government takes it for roads or school—something we might actually benefit from, it seems less illegitimate. When the Government takes our money for national defense, it seems completely legitimate. But then again, when the Government uses our national defense for an unjust war, again it seems illegitimate.
  
  If a mugger takes my money, it’s coercive force. But suppose the mugger is someone who I hired to paint my house for $100. Maybe I feel that he did a lousy job and won’t pay him, but in my heart, I know he’s owed something for his work. If he pulls me aside in a dark alley, shows a gun, and takes $50, I might feel he deserved it. If he takes $80, I might think that’s more than he’s really owed. But if he takes $200, it clearly feels wrong—there’s no good argument on his side to suggest that he’s entitled to the $200, and it feels a lot more like theft than if he took $50 or $80. The difference between the mugger taking $80 and $200 isn’t just a matter of damages; the difference is in the nature of the transaction.
  
  Libertarians want lower taxes because we know that we owe the Government something, but we feel like it’s taking a lot more than we owe it.
  
  In the comments above, Will notes: “So, suppose the just functions of the state require a 10% tax rate. The rate goes down from 45% to 30%. That’s no change in freedom, right?” But again, it’s hard to know what the legitimate functions of the state are. I also know, despite my strong beliefs, that I could be wrong about some of them. I know that 30% is closer to what I think is right that 45%. And I know that I’m less certain about the impropriety of 30% than I am 45%. It’s like the house painter example—if the guy takes $50, I probably think he’s entitled. If he takes $80, it’s a closer question. If he takes $200, it’s clearly wrong.
  
  Now, I suppose Will could reply, what if a tax rate of 99% were dropped to 98%. Okay, I suppose we would probably agree that neither rate is anywhere near an appropriate rate for supporting the essential, minimal functions of the state that we want. But I’m still more certain that 99% is wrong than I am that 98% is wrong.
  
  We could, as Will suggests, just look at the nature of the threat against us, whether it's kicking us in the shins or throwing us in jail. But again, we judge the coercion based upon the circumstances surrounding the use of force. If I throw you in jail for killing a man, that coercive force seems fine; if I throw you in jail for insulting me, not so much. If I'm holding your baby and won't give it back, then kicking me in the shins is fine. If I kick your shins to take your money, it's not. But if you owe me some money and won't give it to me, maybe I shouldn't kick your shins, but if I do, it's different than if I have no right to that money.
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  Retief

  1 year ago

  Yet libertarians and conservatives don’t tend to talk this way. Why not?
  
  Umm, cuz they're full of crap. Was the question supposed to be hard? Libertarians and Conservatives don't like to whine about taxes because they believe taxes are coercive, they believe taxes are coercive because they like to whine about them.
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  Benquo

  1 year ago

  Will:
  
  Couldn't we think of "coerciveness" like density of coercion? If I rob 10 people, that's not meaningfully "more coercive" than if I rob one, but I have effected more coercion. Similarly, if I steal ten dollars from you or one hundred, the coerciveness has not altered but the total amount of coercion has.
  
  Similarly, if someone applies social pressure to get what they want, that is absolutely less coercive than stealing, but can still effect different amounts of coercion depending on how often it is applied.
  
  Another way of thinking about it is that "how coercive" refers to the effort on the coercer's part. It would be more difficult -- require more effort -- to enforce compliance with a 95% income tax than with a 5% tax. Coercion would have to be used more often, and in a stronger form, in the first case than in the second. At the limit, a zero percent tax rate would require no coercion at all. We should expect some non-zero increase in the amount of coercion necessary to enforce any finite increase in tax rates. This, I think, is more along the lines of your suggestion that coerciveness needn't be in direct proportion to harm, but permits talking about comparative coerciveness.
  
  I think both these ways of speaking are common.
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  David Nieporent

  1 year ago

  Libertarians and many conservatives often talk about lower taxes as a matter of liberty. But a higher tax isn’t more coercive than a lower one.
  
  Even if your premise were true -- and I don't concede that point -- a higher tax gives the government more resources, enabling it to be more coercive. IOW, a 5% tax allows the government to fund the FDA; a 50% tax allows it to fund the FDA, Social Security, and Medicare. Each of those is a separate act of coercion.
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  Student

  1 year ago

  Will, I suspect that you really enjoy the Cowen-esque move of tweaking those in your corner(libertarians)...
  
  Just making an observation...
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  nordsieck

  1 year ago

  I think you are missing one large point:
  
  The government taxes in order to fund programs. Those programs, in general, decrease liberty, instead of increase it by undermining the market and presenting citizens with perverse incentives. Many people try to decrease taxes, not because of a fundamental aversion to taxation, but in order to "starve the beast".
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  Glen

  1 year ago

  I haven't read all the comments above, so I apologize if this point has already been made.
  
  If I robbed you *and* raped you, that would surely be regarded as more coercive than if I had merely robbed you. I hope this is obvious.
  
  Okay, now suppose I robbed you yesterday, and then I robbed you again today. That's more coercive than if I had robbed you only yesterday (assuming the amount I took yesterday is the same in both hypotheticals). I think this follows directly from the same principle as robbery + rape above.
  
  But does the interval between the two robberies matter? What if I robbed you an hour ago, and then I rob you again right now? You can see where I'm going. Keep shortening the interval until it's zero. Unless you think the crucial difference is how many times I flip open your wallet, I think we must agree that the taking of a greater amount of money is more coercive.
  
  I think some confusion is arising from failing to distinguish between absolute dollars and percentage of income. Say you have $200 in your wallet, and I have $100 in mine. Someone steals $10 from each of us. I would say we have been coerced equally, but that the significance of the coercion might be less for you (supposing the money in our wallets is reflective of our incomes).
  
  The amount of coercion depends, I think, on the absolute amount taken, but the significance of the coercion depends on how much is taken *relative to your income or wealth*. This line of thought leads, I think quite reasonably, to the conclusion that rich people are coerced more than poor people by a progressive (or even proportional) income tax, but that the significance of the coercion might well be greater for the poor.
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  grumpy realist

  1 year ago

  Would all those of you who don't want to pay income taxes please move to a country that doesn't have them and STFU.....
  
  Look, you nitwits--we're living in a democracy. A DEMOCRACY, capisce? If you don't like the level of taxation that's imposed get together with enough of your neighbors and vote to a) cut the programs, and b) cut taxes. If you can't get enough of your neighbors to vote the way you want them to do, then tough noogies--go back to the drawing board and get better arguments. Or demonstrate on a local scale that you have a private program (with checks and balances against corruption) that can provide the same benefit as the governmental program--then go back and have another vote on the process.
  
  What Libertarians are really bellyaching about is that not enough of their neighbors have the same view of government programs as they do.
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  John Markley

  1 year ago

  grumpy realist said,
  
  "Would all those of you who don’t want to pay income taxes please move to a country that doesn’t have them and STFU….."
  
  Ah, the classic "If you don't like President Bush why don't you move to China" defense, beloved of brain dead redneck warmongers across this great land.
  
  "What Libertarians are really bellyaching about is that not enough of their neighbors have the same view of government programs as they do."
  
  Well, yes. This is what any political group or ideology in a democratic country that does not currently have its program in place is "bellyaching" about. What antiwar activists are really bellyaching about is that not enough of their neighbors have the same view of war and militarism as they do. What socialists are really bellyaching about is that not enough of their neighbors have the same view of government ownership of industry as they do. What members of the organization Stop Prisoner Rape are really bellyaching about is that not enough of their neighbors have the same view of stopping people from being raped in prison as they do. Do you have some sort of point beyond "People who disagree with me should shut the fuck up"?
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  Micha Ghertner

  1 year ago

  Grumpy Realist,
  
  

  Would all those of you who don’t want to pay income taxes please move to a country that doesn’t have them and STFU…..

  
  
  This argument is circular. It assumes that the imposer of income taxes (the government) is the legitimate owner of the geographic territory that is called United States and has carte blanche discretion to impose whichever policies it pleases. This legitimacy is entirely what is in question; it cannot be shrugged off with a "like it or leave it" bromide without begging the question.
  
  

  Look, you nitwits–we’re living in a democracy. A DEMOCRACY, capisce? If you don’t like the level of taxation that’s imposed get together with enough of your neighbors and vote to a) cut the programs, and b) cut taxes. If you can’t get enough of your neighbors to vote the way you want them to do, then tough noogies–go back to the drawing board and get better arguments.

  
  
  Again, this is circular argument question begging. You are trying to justify the legitimacy of democratic decision making by appealing to... democratic decision making. Democracy does not justify itself.
  

  What Libertarians are really bellyaching about is that not enough of their neighbors have the same view of government programs as they do.

  
  
  Correct. The central libertarian insight is that Other People Are Not Your Property. They are not yours to boss around, even if you win an election.
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  Micha Ghertner

  1 year ago

  From that last link:
  
  

  Other people are not your property. ...They are not yours to boss around. Their lives are not yours to micromanage. The fruits of their labour are not yours to dispose of.
  
  It doesn’t matter how wise or marvelous or useful it would be for other people to do whatever it is you’d like them to do. It is none of your business whether they wear their seatbelts, worship the right god, have sex with the wrong people, or engage in market transactions that irritate you. Their choices are not yours to direct. They are human beings like yourself, your equals under Natural Law. You possess no legitimate authority over them. As long as they do not themselves step over the line and start treating other people as their property, you have no moral basis for initiating violence against them – nor for authorising anyone else to do so on your behalf. ...
  
  Nor is this requirement lifted merely because you happen to be a police officer, or an elected legislator, or a member of a majority of citizens casting their votes.</blockquote

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  wyt

  1 year ago

  2) The average citizen of Singapore has fewer politically recognized rights but is freer than the average citizen of India.
  
  This is a statement the average S'porean might readily agree with, and not without justification. He enjoys a higher income than the average Indian, and probably better healthcare, education, and housing. On top of that, take into account the massive inequality in India, and we might conclude that the average S'porean appears to have better opportunities and something of a headstart in life. The freedom to fulfil one's potential, and thus become a more productive member of society, is not to be underestimated; it might even outweigh the value of some political rights.
  
  A major problem arises, however, when a person views political freedoms and economic growth, and hence the rights gained from economic growth, as mutually exclusive. And yet many Singaporeans suffer from this malady, the result of years of indoctrination through the media and schooling system. The blind acceptance of this argument espoused by the government is a symptom of the rigid thinking which has led to the frequent view that Singaporean are mere automatons. The average Singaporean probably has no idea, or a very poor one, of the political freedoms that he would be entitled to in true democracies, and is often inclined to toe the line drawn by the government. Contrast this with the vibrant democracy in India, where the average Indian has the latitude to express his views and choose a party or candidate he thinks will adequately represent his interests. The Indian government is accountable to its people, whereas the S'poreans seem to be accountable to their goverment instead. In terms of independence of mind and opinion, the average Indian is probably freer than the average S'porean.
  
  On balance, it is difficult to decide whether living in S'pore or India would be better. But that is not the question at hand, because happiness is not the equivalent of freedom. But speaking purely in terms of freedom, I believe that the Indian is freer. As opposed to the S'porean, who lives in semi-ignorant bliss, the Indian is fully aware of what he deserves as an individual and is free to think as an individual.
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  Aaron

  4 months ago

  Will, not sure if you look at comments from older posts, but I thought this post ("Please discuss") was relevant to your more recent postings on liberaltarianism & the possibility of big and free so would be interested in your thoughts. In reading this post, my only question would be why conflate coercion with liberty. I agree that corecion is coercion, no matter if they are taking a lot (90% tax rate) or a little (5% tax rate). But the issue of liberty, it would seem to me, would depend on what use the coercer (is that a word?) put to the funds that it expropriated. i.e., if the funds were used to finance a highly regulatory nanny state that would reduce liberty. Conversely, if the funds, even if we are talking about a larger amount of funds, are necessary to protect the conditions in which an ordered liberty can exist, then liberty is not reduced, and in fact may even be increased. In any case, as a practical matter, I suspect that economic freedom and low tax regimes will have a very high correlation with each other as human nature predicts that government actors will spend tax dollars not in ways that increase the freedom of its citizens but rather in ways that will increase their base of power and reduce the freedom of its citizens. But your point is very well taken.
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