Reply To: Atlas Shrugged and the Torah

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#946494
yytz
Participant

The idea that anytime the government gives anyone money (and the people who received the money voted) this constitutes coercive theft is highly problematic.

Certainly, if the majority of the country voted to elect a party to power who then followed through on their campaign promise to seize the estates of the few thousand richest people in the country, and then redistribute their assets to everyone else, that would be stealing. In fact, I believe some of the features of the US’s originaly political system, such as the Senate (which was appointed by other officeholders until the early 20th century) and allowing only those with property to vote, were designed to prevent such things from happening.

But the way the modern state works is a far cry from that. There are various kinds of taxes, and everyone pays taxes. The poor pay lots of taxes (through sales taxes, for example). Many poor people on food stamps or other benefits actually probably pay more in sales taxes each year than they receive in benefits. So in that case, who are they stealing from?

Even if some people are receiving more than their tax contribution at a particular time, if you look at their lives over the long-term, it is likely that they will end up having other years in which they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. Most people using government benefits do not remain on them for life. The average food stamp recipient is on food stamps for less than a year.

Even if some people receive more benefits overall in their lifetime than they pay in taxes, this is not really stealing. Such people are not in the majority, for one thing. Moreover, it’s not as if they’re appropriating the assets of other people. They’re simply getting a bit of income to allow them to survive. And the well-off are getting the benefit of not having to have starving mobs begging in the streets and rioting and such.

Although some wealthy people may object to paying taxes that will help poor people, most people (even though who currently have plenty of money) recognize that it’s completely possible that they themselves, or their descendants, will at some point be destitute and require assistance. (See John Rawls’ concept of the veil of ignorance.) Most people would rather live in a society that helps destitute people, because no one knows what will happen to them personally. Perhaps it would be ideal if private charity could do this by itself, but that’s really a fantasy, at least for now.

The way the government works, money is distributed all over the place for various purposes. Government contractors make billions, and thousands of people get steady jobs, because the government decides to make (often unnecessary) weapons (to use ourselves and to give away to countries like Israel and Egypt.) Thus they take a little bit from everybody and in this case the benefit is specific to a particular group of people (contractors and their employees). Even so, it’s not stealing — it’s just the government raising revenue by various means and deciding how to spend it.