In a recent entry for his Ideas Matter blog, Max Borders uses a video clip of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to prompt a thought-provoking discussion of the libertarian view of taxation:
Jan Helfeld asks Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) probing questions about the coercive nature of taxation. And in the timeless tapdance of the politician, Reid insists that taxation is “voluntary” (in some postmodern sense, I guess).
But the clip prompted deeper questions for me — questions that challenge classical liberals of all stripes to think through their commitments:
* Is any taxation justified ever? If yes, then what forms and for what purposes?
* If no taxation is ever justified, is any government at all justified?
* If some minimal government is justified, how is that government to be funded?
* If that minimal government is to be funded, how – besides via taxation – can it avoid free rider problems?
Most libertarians and classical liberals are not anarchists. But certain answers to the questions above will zip one rather quickly to an anarchist position. I admit, there is a lot that is seductive about anarcho-capitalism. But it faces a lot of problems. …
