> The whole idea that you can make a billion dollar business without being hugely dependent on the infrastructure, education, history, societal background etc that has largely been paid for by...taxes...is utter fallacy.
Taxation is not a transaction you enter voluntarily; it's enforced by violence, and all these rationalizations don't matter as you don't have any choice anyway. So, taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft (I'm not sure which definition matches it better), and tax evasion is simply a moral obligation for everyone who believes that people should not be subject to violence.
>So, taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft
If ultimate enforcement through violence is the only determinant of whether or not something is a crime, then the very laws that dissuade other crime, say the robbery or theft that you refer to, are themselves blackmail, extortion or some other variation of violent crime.
This circular reasoning does not hold up to scrutiny, which is why it is almost only used in respect of taxation in libertarian circles and nowhere else.
> the very laws that dissuade other crime, say the robbery or theft that you refer to, are themselves blackmail, extortion or some other variation of violent crime
No, because in these cases it's violence enacted in self-defense (often by proxy), and therefore not an aggression.
Defending yourself is not aggression. Going after somebody or their property is.
>No, because in these cases it's violence enacted in self-defense
The use of coercive force is justifiable by the state or it isn't. If you now create justifications for why the use of violence in pursuit of self defense is valid, then you've conceded that the use of violence can be justified.
Which then means the "it's enforced by violence, and all these rationalizations don't matter as you don't have any choice anyway" no longer holds.
There are justifications for the use of violence, therefore we need some ulterior basis other than ultimate enforcement being premised upon the use of state violence in order to explain why 1) taxation is a crime, and further more that 2) that crime morally must be avoided.
You point towards the idea that Taxation is not a transaction you enter voluntarily, but the same can be said of your aggression theory; I didn't consent to any NAP with you, and the NAP is ultimately enforced by violence. I have no desire to abide by the NAP when it doesn't suit me as I never agreed to it.
Ultimately, whether it's the NAP, property rights or taxation, enforcement of pro-social behavior will require some scope, authority or justification which addresses more than just a single individual's consent. "I don't like taxes" is not sufficient an argument to state that you are morally obliged to commit tax evasion.
If choose to not make any money and own nothing, you pay no taxes. You can also "just move lol" to another country where there is no taxation.
>tax evasion is simply a moral obligation for everyone who believes that people should not be subject to violence.
Some people should definitely be subjected to violence. It's not hard to find examples where violence is justified. Even a Buddhist monk will forcefully stop a child from touching a venomous snake and make the child cry.
You don't enter life voluntarily, you don't go to school voluntarily, you don't go to the hospital voluntarily when you fell on your head, become unconscious and slowly bleed out...
Just curious - you don't believe that people should be subjected to violence, but how would a state be able to enforce sovereignty over its territory, without the means of violence? Implied or otherwise.
I know the US defense complex gets a lot of sh!t for its massive expenditure, but the hard reality is that no state on earth is going to invade the US, and thus threaten its citizens within the boarder, which is a result of tax money being spent on building the most powerful military in the world.
The fact is that we are all vastly better off under this social contract that we did not have a choice in agreeing to and that is enforced by violence.
> Taxation [is] enforced by violence... taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft
Perhaps, but less so than money. People wouldn't recognise other people as having millions or billions of wealth unless that was enforced through the violence of state capitalism, and a legal system protecting banks, creating cops and prisons.
Why would they? Millionaires aren't a natural concept; it's something our society allows.
Justice (in any possible variety except “might is right”) isn't a natural concept too; it's something our society allows. You could also say that justice is a “social construct”.
So what? Does it mean that it's something not valuable or desirable? I don't think so.
The legal system is primarily a legal system, not a justice system.
Mainly, however, I am pointing out how absurdly reductionist it is for you to say “taxation is violence”. As you say, social constructs—taxation perhaps—can be “valuable or desirable”.
Taxation is not a transaction you enter voluntarily; it's enforced by violence, and all these rationalizations don't matter as you don't have any choice anyway. So, taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft (I'm not sure which definition matches it better), and tax evasion is simply a moral obligation for everyone who believes that people should not be subject to violence.