Part 1: Taxation rests on the evil of force

Everyone knows the moral arguments for taxation. Taxes are necessary to fund large public projects such as roads and bridges; to pay for essential functions such as defense and the justice system; and to provide support to the needy.

We hear the moral arguments against taxation much more rarely – yet these arguments are numerous and strong. Tax may be a necessary evil – but it remains an evil.

First, taxation relies on the use of force. Most of us would willingly make some voluntary contribution towards things like policing and education. But taxes at today’s levels can be extracted from us only by the threat that non-payers will be fined or imprisoned. The main reason we pay up is not the thought of doing good, but the thought of going to jail if we don’t.

Coercion is an evil. It might be justifiable if it forestalls some greater evil – arresting an intended terrorist, for example. That is simply choosing the lesser of two evils. But it is much harder to justify the evil of force against some people in order to produce good for others – evicting home owners, for example, to make way for a new airport. We simply cannot get into people’s minds and measure the balance between the grief of those who lose their family homes against the pleasure of air travellers.

So if government wants to coerce people in the name of creating some wider social benefit, it must have a really strong case. There is an awesome responsibility on the authorities to ensure that the money they force out of us in taxes is spent wisely and effectively. Waste in government is not just a loss to the economy, but a moral evil. Every time our politicians come across it, they should cringe with shame and guilt. The fact that Congress is not full of permanently embarrassed red faces speaks volumes about the moral integrity of our representatives.

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Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute and has a PhD in Moral Philosophy from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In his next piece, the second of seven, he will show how taxation undermines personal morality.