Taxation is a form of slavery.

Modern slavery is a great deal more subtle than it once was. Most of us are not out there tilling the soil with whips at our backs, sure, but we labor for a ruthless master nonetheless.

“A ruthless master?” you inquire. It couldn’t be any other way. Every state in the history of human-kind has formed to serve no other purpose than the exploitation of the vanquished by the victors. Centuries later, long after the victors and vanquished have perished, the means of exploitation remain. They remain, in this case, as the forced appropriation of another’s labor, an activity we euphemistically call “taxation”. If we citizens were to apply the same method, we’d be jailed for extortion.

Philosopher Robert Nozik formulates taxation like this: “taking the earnings of N hours labor is like taking N hours from the person; it is like forcing the person to work N hours for another's purpose”. Thus, he says, taxation is a form of forced labor. I’m inclined to go further. If we were to imagine falling upon a spectrum between freedom and slavery, it seems to me that our condition in this relationship lands closer to one end than the other.

Anyone who laments watching a vast percentage of their earnings disappear each year might feel the force of this. But for those who rely on this exploitation, whether to fund their own survival or to fill the void where their charity might have been, raising taxes and strengthening the means of exploitation are causes worth fighting for. The liberty-minded should refuse to cede any moral ground here because tax-advocates want forced labor, extortion, and exploitation. They advocate for slavery.