Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Is taxation theft?
Position‹2 of 4›: No, taxation is not theft.
Argument‹2 of 3›: Not according to Social Contract Theory

When we as citizens elect our officials, we are entering a social contract with them and entrusting them with running our society. Them choosing to tax us is not thievery because we willingly give them the power to do so.

The argument

According to Rousseau, “what man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting.” The focus is primarily upon the idea that personal interests are sacrificed for the common good. Through the social contract theory, taxation is an exchange of goods in return for a service; a contract that is reciprocal. Taxation is a forfeit of economic independence with the promise of prosperity by the state. Through the social contract theory, a taxpayer's money is put towards this goal of maximizing prosperity. Tax evasion would therefore be a violation of the law as the burden falls upon responsible taxpayers and affects budget allocation. The assumption, under the social contract, is that the taxpayer’s freedom lies with the government who are composed of elected individuals. When citizens elect the government, we enter a social contract with them; they rule our society in the way they believe best, and we allow ourselves to be ruled. For many elected rulers, that includes taxation. By electing rulers who support taxation, we agree to subject ourselves to said taxation. Under this argument, the consent of the people is presupposed, eliminating the idea of taxation as a “theft.” Taxation cannot be considered theft if taxpayers play an active role in bringing it to fruition.

Premises

[P1]Under social contract theory, citizens forfeit some natural liberty and economic independence in exchange for the state's protection and promotion of common prosperity. [P2] By electing rulers who endorse taxation, citizens consent to be taxed as part of that reciprocal exchange. [P3] An action cannot be theft when it is carried out with the consent of those from whom resources are taken. [C] Therefore, taxation is not theft, since it is a consensual exchange grounded in the social contract.

Counter-arguments

Though this argument reigns true for those who choose to live and participate in a taxpaying society, not everyone chooses that. Some people are born somewhere with no ability to leave, or some do not support or actively participate in the taxpaying society (examples include living off the grid, not voting). Not everyone has the access or desire to actively participate; if we are forced to live in a taxpaying society, we are not doing so by choice, and thus not willfully entering the social contract. Therefore, taxation is theft because we are forced into it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The exchange is posited by the theory rather than demonstrated. Social contract theory is a normative model, and quoting Rousseau on natural liberty establishes what one philosopher argued, not that any bargain was struck. [Rejecting P2] This is the weak link. Voting is not consent to taxation: most people never vote for the government that taxes them, many do not vote at all, and nobody consents to the arrangement they are born into. Treating continued presence in a system one cannot practically leave as agreement to it makes consent impossible to withhold, and so impossible to test. [Rejecting P3] The principle is sound and unavailable here. If consent is what separates taxation from theft, the consent has to be actual — and the tacit variety the argument relies on is exactly what the opposing position denies. [Rejecting C] Stronger replies are available to this position: that property rights are themselves constituted by the legal order taxes fund, so there is no prior holding for tax to take. By resting on consent instead, the argument chooses the ground on which the objection is strongest.