So can a libertarian work for the government with a clear conscience if “all taxation is theft”?
The inestimable Tom Woods has the conversation with Walter Block, based on the following article. To wit:
My take on this is that it is a positive virtue to relieve the government of its ill-gotten gains. Suppose Z steals an apple from Y and then X comes along and takes this fruit away from Z. Did X do anything wrong? Did he act incompatibly with the NAP? Is X no longer a libertarian? Of course not. Very much to the contrary, X did something entirely compatible with our philosophy.
The Robin Hood argument, so to speak.
But wait! If you cooperate with the government in this manner, can you not be properly accused of “aiding and abetting” an evil institution? Well, yes, sort of. If you take money from the state, you are indeed giving it your imprimatur, or “sanction” as the Randians would say.
. . .
However, you are not promoting statism any more by taking their money than by carrying around their cash, patronizing their libraries or streets, etc. And, too, while you are of course benefitting them in the ex ante sense, you are certainly not doing so in the ex post sense. That is, they are giving you the money in the hope that by doing so, they can better promote statism than by the use of it in any other way. But you, by your actual actions, will not be doing any such thing.
In effect, the freeloader argument.
Block concludes that the libertarian — living in a Keynesian world — should grab as much as they can and do so ethically and without moral scruple. A very different argument than say, the Glenn Beck argument where taking government grants and participating in the system is a moral evil. Block, in contrast, says that “relieving the government of their ill-gotten gains” is a virtue, not a vice.
Of course, there’s a small problem with this. After all… if one believes that goods are ill-gotten, and that one has a moral right to say, redistribute this wealth, then one most certainly can do so both as an ethical obligation and a moral imposition. The government is Robin Hood; the government can freeload off the hard work of others (as government does).
I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced by Block’s argument, as it implicitly justifies theft in a Bastiat sense. Production vs. theft is the core of Bastiat’s reflections on the free market vs. the state. If one argues in favor of theft, or paying the state back in its own coin, Bastiat would more than likely argue that you are part of the problem rather than the solution.
The solution, IMO, is Reaganism — freeze the denominator, grow the numerator. Grow freedom, cage the Leviathan.
Either way, the exchange with Tom Woods (a man I deeply admire and respect for his work on the free market) is worth a listen.
