Chris Giles of the FT really does not like Corbynomics. At least he is clear about it. As he says in an article this morning:
Corbynomics should not be as incoherent as it is. Leftwing economic platforms need not be stupid, but proponents must understand their strengths and limitations.
On a scale of 1 to 10 that is at the unsubtle end of the commentary scale.
The difficulty for Chris is that he has a problem: he's judging Corbynomics against the standards set by his own failed economics. He thinks that neoliberal economics can be used to create left wing policy. He's so explicit about the point that he says:
So here are some suggestions for Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left veteran likely to become UK Labour party leader next month.
And he then says that:
The left's important freedom is its ability to worry less about preserving individual property rights than others. Such rights are never absolute – any form of taxation is lawful extortion – and if they stand in the way of growth and greater equality, a leftwing government can remove them. This surely should be the guiding theme of any practical economics of the hard left.
Where do you start to unpick the errors in that?
Let's start with the glaringly obvious. The left does not think economics is all about property rights: it thinks it is about people. Giles falls at the first hurdle.
But if property rights are important he then shows he has no comprehension of them. As I have argued time and again, and do in The Joy of Tax, tax is not an extortion. It is a creation of democratically elected governments in the case of the UK. And the vast majority is paid over willingly and without the need for any real effort on the part of government. That's not because of coercion: it's because people want to pay it because they know what they get for it. And the penalties that Giles no doubt would describe as the evidence of extortion are in fact the price of deviant behaviour, just like the other penalties we impose when people fail to comply with societal norms for theft, and so on.
Even more importantly though, Giles ignores the fact that if property rights are so important then tax is a property right just like any other, and like them created by the proper due process of parliament. So in fact tax due is not an individual's property extorted from them: it is money they hold in trust for its rightful owner. Giles can't pick and choose on this: you either believe in upholding property rights or you don't. It's not at all clear he does. The left is unambiguous on the point. Which is precisely why, for example, his suggestion of compulsory purchase of city centre sites to enable enforced building of high density housing either just shows his contempt for his fellow citizens or is his idea of a joke, and in the process clear indication of the poverty of thinking lined up against the new ideas Corbynomics represents.
Clear thinking on the powers of the Bank of England, for example, backed by evidence.
And clear thinking on the role of money, deficits and sectoral balances in the economy.
And clear thinking on the need to finance the government at lowest cost.
Coupled with clear thinking on the need for a mechanism to support the economy when all else might be failing in the face of another economic crisis.
And what does Giles offer? Building over the green belt.
I have to agree with Giles in that case: there is an incoherence around economics right now, but it's all his own.
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If we are to accept this presumably individualist, libertarian conclusion that tax (a collective responsibility) is “lawful extortion” then what are we to make of that other collective obligation – the law itself? That it is social coercion?
If so, we would well to remember that property rights do not exist in the absence of law, in which case the property rights themselves would become lawful theft.
Would they not?
As always I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that so-called libertarians seek the protection of the state without wanting to pay for it.
Agreed. People like that still think the works of Ayn Rand are a coherent platform for policy. I’m yet to hear a libertarian explain how they would pay for their own roads, hospitals, railways etc etc.
Libertarians also ignore the fact that what complete freedom for some means suffering for others – which is why of necessity certain freedoms have to be restricted for the common good. What they then fail to understand, as you rightly point out, is that if it really was a free-for-all of the kind they claim to desire, there would be nothing to stop everyone else from pinching their stuff.
Libertarians are to logic and clear thinking as hollandaise sauce is to cricket stumps.
I like that last one….
“I’m yet to hear a libertarian explain how they would pay for their own roads, hospitals, railways etc etc.”
If you actually talked to a Libertarian, you would find that those questions have been answered over and over again until we are blue in the face.
I’ve noticed
You demand everyone pay a rent to the private owners
Neo-feudalism rules in your book
That quote doesn’t say that left wing economics is all about property rights at all, or anything even resembling that. So you have either entirely misunderstood what he said, or you’ve just picked a fight with something that you’ve not provided a quote to evidence that he thinks whatever you’re claiming he’s wrong about.
What he says is that it’s a feature of left-wing economics (and he doesn’t present it as a bad feature) that it is NOT as bogged down in the protection of property rights as right-wing economics is.
And, to borrow your language, candidly he makes that point very coherently (in the quote you used, at the very least.)
Respectfully, read the article
I quoted correctly and contextually appropriately
You are wrong
Unfortunately I cannot read the full article because it is behind a paywall. So I can only rely on what you’ve quoted.
Please explain how you draw the conclusion that he thinks that left-wing economics is “all about property rights” from what you quoted. Or give a quote which does show that you have properly represented this as his view.
Further, many people do pay their taxes happily. Maybe even most people do. It’s unquestionable that the majority of people vote for parties with a fairly uniform view on what the overall level of that tax should be and what should be done with it. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is the force of law behind what people pay. An individual cannot opt out, whoever s/he voted for.
When the law changes, the tax that people pay also changes. If taxes are cut is not as if people carry on paying at the old rate that they, previously, were apparently happy with. So whilst ‘lawul extortion’ is an unecessarily provocative description of the process, it is the case that it is the law, democratically set, that decides on the split between that which is the property of the individual and that which belongs to the state. Giles point is that someone who believes that the balance of money that is spent by the state should be larger than it currently is (either in aggregate, or in respect of certain elements) is more willing to put the interests of the state above the individual and rebalance the property rights accordingly. He considers that a feature (not the only feature, and not even a dominant on) of left-wing economic thinking.
You seem to disagree, which is your right. It’s not your different viewpoint that I object to, it’s your unsopported characterisation of Giles’ views that irks.
I am not going to reproduce what is behind the paywall for you
I argued with what Giles wrote
And I note you say you know what that was without reading it
I think that says all that needs to be known about your case
Technical point…you can read a number of articles free at the FT every month but you have to sign up…so the article is not really behind a paywall.
So no excuses (unless they’ve changed it in the last month!).
It is a column, so the FT make the full text available to the Google cache here:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F49454d12-4a59-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.html%23ixzz3jzkHWWuS&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#axzz3k5wufIkV
To paraphrase, the profits or wages of any work done by an individual are the property of the state, at any tax rate that the state decides. Whatever the state decides to leave you with is still legally the state’s money and it can demand it back at any time. So presumably any physical property also belongs exclusively to the state as well, as money is only a proxy for the value that individuals place on the property? I am wondering why the government needs to do any form of QE when it has all of these resources available to it. Most countries that have tried this tend to have to build strong borders to prevent their citizens leaving, at least within my lifetime.
I have spent most of my working life in countries trying to recover from the damage that this thinking produces. Often after they have forcefully overthrown the governments that thought the way you describe. But thank you for your honesty, I won’t be coming back soon.
That is an impossible conclusion to draw
You ignore, completely, the impirtant caveat of democracy that I inserted
I have no time for totalitarian views
I explianed taxation in a democracy
It is you who is creating a fantasy. I described our reality. That is the bedrock if what I do
In a democracy, if a majority want to soak a minority and totally disregard their personal property rights, that would be ok? It wouldn’t result in chaos, injustice and flight?
The fact is, most people disagree with your view that personal property rights are weak and provisional – that is why barely coherent claptrap like this will never become government policy because no one would vote for it.
In a democracy that is just fine
Yes
If the democracy truly reflects the electorate and has appropriate balances and checks in place – which a proper constitution would enforce
And a final response to you: what I describe is the essence of UK law. We do only have a right to net incomes. People have voted for governments that have indeed created that law. You just don’t like it that I am wholly mainstream and you are the extremist
You write….”So in fact tax due is not an individual’s property extorted from them: it is money they hold in trust for its rightful owner.” Who is the rightful owner? the state?
Of course
@pcw – And then the next question is, who owns the state? That’s where the nuances come into play.
No one owns the state
Who owns the state?
Answer: Corporate Lobbyists and Oligopoly.
Unfortunately Simon’s answer is nearer to the truth!
The answer should be “we the people”.
Why is it that Libertarians can’t see that if they require a democratically elected “Government” to defend their property rights via a legal framework and enforcement machinery, then that same “Government” doesn’t have the right to tax them as it sees fit?
Talk about banging one’s head against a brickwall!
If the left thinks economics is about people not property rights, that implies the left worries less about preserving individual property rights, if they stand in the way of the interests of people (greater equality). Which is what Giles says.
Did you read what I wrote which made quite clear I respect property rights and Giles does not?
ah yes, except you think that the money people pay in taxes is not their property, but is merely being held in trust for its “rightful owner” – the state.
Giles says the left worries less about preserving *individual* property rights. You don’t even *recognise* that taxes are a claim on individual property.
You call that respecting property rights because you have assigned that property to the state, which you argue comes before *individual* property rights. I think Giles would say you are a rather extreme example of the left not worrying about *individual* property rights, exactly as he describes.
The individual gas an absolute right to their property after tax is paid
For the record, I think you will find that is UK law
But why let such minor details spoil your libertarian rant?
Your mistake is to equivocate between personal and societal property rights. You do not support personal property rights.
You can’t just magic up a narrow definition of legitimate property rights (only societal are legitimate and personal are not) and then say “Look Giles says he supports property rights but on my tendentious definition, he doesn’t”. One, it is clear what he means by property rights is the opposition of what you are calling property rights. Two, he is not claiming he supports property rights (although I’m sure he supports personal property rights). He is saying the Left is less concerned about strong personal property rights. Which is true – and it is your position. Nor is he saying in this article that such a view is wrong. He’s exploring the Left’s position, not misrepresenting it.
What’s more, even if you do think using ‘extortion’ is pejorative, it is not used as part of a sustained critique of the left’s position on property rights. He is saying “they believe this – here are options that are consistent with that belief”. He is saying that they will probably be unpopular because most people’s conception of property rights is that they should be able to keep most of what they earn and very few people believe in very strong societal property rights – while accepting they should pay something towards a state that they want to be some size (clearly different ppl disagree on what size)
I unambupuguously support personal property rights and require that the state uphold them
We all have a clear right to our after tax income
Nothing else need be said on this
Trying to convince you that Giles has correctly characterised your position regarding individual property rights – because you regard the state’s claim on income as prior to the individual’s – is not a “libertarian rant”.
That kind of response does you no favours.
Saying someone who claims all tax is extortion is offering a libertarian rant is entirely reasonable comment
I am entirely happy to say so, and will continue to do so when the evidence is that around the world it is clear that tax paid has a positive contribution to well being (and I note you should know)
Richard, is was Giles who described taxation as extortion, not me.
Of course I recognise the positive contribution of taxation. I am a mainstream economist and that is mainstream economics: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9624.html
I haven’t actually expressed any of my own views, other than my interpretations of what you and Giles have written, but as it happens I side with Giles on this and would regard people’s income as their own individual property (not the state’s) and when the state claims it by force of law, it must do so under democratic mandate and be damn sure to use it well. I think how I see taxation is sometimes called a fiscal or social contract – we allow the state to take our money, because the state does things for us (collectively). I do not agree with you that the state has prior claim on individual’s taxable income, and regard that as a dangerous way of thinking.
Paddy
a) I am saying ‘mainstream’ economics is wrong. I said so to Giles
b) We agree on democracy
c) I cannot – in any way at all – see how anyone can claim what is owed to another person as their own property. And if the law defines property rights – and let’s live in the real world where it does – then my formulation is not only right, it is the only sustainable case
Only an economist could argue otherwise
Sorry: that’s not dangerous. If you had not noticed, that’s how we structure society, although I agree with you to the extent that economists are very bad at noticing such minor points
Richard
You’ve said that an individual have property rights over their after tax income. Suppose my after tax income is £100 and the government proposes increasing taxes and taking £10 of that. Is the government proposing to claim my property? I would say yes. You say whatever the government chooses to tax, that money is the state’s by definition.
I am a left winger but I do not want politicians to think that whatever tax they want to take, it is theirs by right. I would much rather politicians thought of taxation as claiming peoples’ property, so they remember their responsibilities to the taxpayer and do not regard the money they take as actually belonging to them. I think it’s pretty obvious why it would be dangerous if politicians started thinking like that.
it would be nice if you acknowledged that you were wrong about the libertarian rant thing.
There is a ballot box to resolve these issues
What mechanism are you proposing?
And, no. I will not be admitting I was wrong: I have read such ranting for years and it is always based on libertarian logic and fundamentally anti-democratic
It seems to me like you have completely misinterpreted him. Far from saying that tax is theft, he states that “such rights are never absolute – any form of taxation is lawful”.
Another case of you having people say what you wanted them to say, rather than what they did say.
The word he used is extortion
I wholly understood him
Extortion simply means taking with the threat of force. So yes it is extortion. Or if your view is extortion is always morally wrong, some other term will suffice. But that is semantics – the substantive question is whether it is moral or not.
As to whether it is moral extortion, I refer you to the entire canon of political philosophy.
There is no threat of force
Unless you also say we would all burgle but for the threat if state force
The force is actually to punish deviation from the norm: not to impose
Tax is the norm people want
You are simply wrong
Tell me something Richard (not richard murphy), in your conception of the society, who decides whether a tax is moral or not?
The section was:
“The left’s important freedom is its ability to worry less about preserving individual property rights than others. Such rights are never absolute – any form of taxation is lawful extortion – and if they stand in the way of growth and greater equality, a leftwing government can remove them”
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If taxation is thought of by neoliberalists as “extortion”, are big business going to pay back the taxes that were used to build railways, roads and bridges which were as much for big businesses and corporation’s benefit as the general public’s?
Are they also going to pay back the billions of pounds in subsidies businesses receive from the state every year?
I think we should be told. 🙂
This is hilarious. Chris Giles has actually retweeted this article to demonstrate that you have almost completely misunderstood his article.
Your ‘fail at the first hurdle’ is an objection to a view that Chris doesn’t hold and doesn’t argue for. Nowhere is he arguing for the centrality of property rights to economics, to the exclusion of people. The point you quote and the argument it supports in the article is that the Left is less concerned about personal property rights. You then go on to argue that tax is a property right, returning property to its rightful owner. But you provide no argument for that. Sure, you can argue that there should not be strong personal property rights and that ultimately society or hunanity as a whole own everything collectively or jointly but that view is extremely divergent from how most people think and how our society operates. People genuinely believe they rightfully own their possessions, particularly those resources they earn from their own labour (which they must surely own wholly and not provisionally, just as they own their own bodies).
Perhaps your argument that people freely and voluntarily pay tax is supposed to provide evidence for people’s acceptance of the weakness of personal property rights. But your argument is daft. The fact that people pay tax without having to be hassled, coerced or prosecuted, in a situation where there is a threat of all three hanging in the background, does not prove that people pay willingly. It shows that they correctly calculate that they are unlikely to get away with not paying and the penalties are harsh so it is not worth evading tax. Your argument is basically if I point a gun at you and demand you give me your watch, then providing I don’t have to shoot you, you handing the watch over with no hassle proves that you willing give it to me. Absurd.
Your assertion that Giles is inconsistent just shows that you haven’t distinguished between what most people mean by property rights and your tendentious view that there are community property rights. His point about compulsory purchase is that the left could pursue that policy because they are less concerned about the former.
What can I say?
Giles and I hold fundamentally different views, including on property rights which he seems to think are exclusive to individuals, and then only some of them
That makes my case
It is not that long ago, historically, where the little people didn’t even own themselves. A state they/we are rapidly regressing to……after all, the Great and Good, including royalty, got their property by just grabbing it….democracy changed that, now democracy is being reset to represent our living in an age where a select group of people, unelected and unrepresentative, hold the power: Oligarchy.
It’s not exactly quantum mechanics Richard (not Murphy). Property rights only exist courtesy of the law. No law, no property rights. Tax exists within the same contextual framework. Now, if income, under law, is a property right as you seem to argue then any tax taken or given from that income must also, in law and also in logic, be property with rights accruing. Unless you are arguing that by some stroke of magic that once any proportion of income, which you argue is by definition a property right, is taken or given in tax it ceases to be property in any way shape or form.
If that is indeed what you are alluding to it will certainly be entertaining to hear the rationale for such a position. But give advance warning to enable us to get the popcorn.
Moreover, there seems to be, in the minds of certain sections of our society, that property rights are only and can only be exclusively individual. Which poses the question as to how it is, in law and in the real world, there exists property rights which are shared by more than one individual. Such as common land, joint stock companies etc.
This is because, again in the real world rather than the fantasy utopia of the pseudo science that is economics, property rights do not exist in a vacuum, they exist in a context. In practical terms it would be impossible to have or enact either individual or collective property rights without the support of the state and the taxes it levies. How does the rightful property owner(s) access their property, obtain services and maintain that property in whatever form it takes? How has the road, rail and other travel networks the property owner needs to travel to and from their property been financed? How have the energy, water and communications infrastructures which bring utility services necessary to utilise effectively property rights, from buildings through to electronic stock trading systems and everything in between, been paid for? The private sector was not, is not and never will be interested in investing in those necessities, without which private property rights would in practical terms be effectively meaningless. And it is tax which has provided that and propped up the private sector and supported private property rights.
Without the massive injections of tax the majority of banks and financial institutions would have ceased to function in 2008. The staggering injections of existing and future taxpayers money created under QE has propped up private property and fuelled another stock market bubble, with many blue chip companies who are part of stock market indexes increasing their stock price by using this free money/property and their own profits to buy their own stock. Turning tax back into private property ubder your apparrant logic. Consequently, the value of much of that private stock/property is unsound as it is not grounded on fundamental performance of the private companies involved or investment which will ensure future value. Which is why the bubble is bursting and has nothing to do with the Chinese stock market situation.
So of course tax of any kind is a property right. It cannot exist anything else, except in the fevered imagination and faith based fantasy world of the Libertarian.
I see the rabid right are trolling again. They “the rabid right” have no conception of society, they get everyday more selfish and self seemingly greedy. We have a fractured society because they broke it, figuratively and literally. They make no coherent sense, but still talk the rhetoric that has bought us here. They want everything and they want it for nothing. I say until they get to grips with the real world and not the pretend world, they should do some study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L0Rsz3zB04&feature=youtu.be&a=
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QrmY7o5ulY&feature=youtu.be&a
Don’t see any trolls at work…No evidence of “rabid right” (whatever that means)? …. rather an interesting exchange of views…
BTW there are very clear “right wing” conceptions on the role and relationship of society and individuals. It’s what one means by “society”–and the role of the state–is where they differ from the left.
I think you need to go to Specsavers
@pcw –
Can you please –
1) Clarify what you mean by “right wing” considering you put it in quotes?
2) Clarify the “right wing” conceptions on the role and relationship of society and individuals?
3) Clarify what “society” means to you and why the term is not in quotes in question (2) but here. Are you referring to different meanings? If so, what is the context of these two different meanings?
What I find interesting about Chris Giles’s piece is that, instead of extending his previous attacks on Corbynomics, he is exhorting Jeremy Corbyn to switch his focus from Corbynomics to policies (an effective inheritance tax, a Scandinavian style taxation system, something like a land value tax to extract economic rents and a big increase in the land available for house-building) that he (Giles) knows (and concedes) will arouse the ferocious opposition of all property owners and many other citizens and definitely make a Corbyn led Labour party unelectable. It strikes me that those who are most intent at destroying Corbynomics and demonising Jeremy Corbyn have realised that most of the policies Jeremy is advancing are striking a chord with a majority of voters. They are losing the public argument about Corbynomics and looking for other sticks with which to beat him. Chris Giles’s accusation that Jeremy isn’t proper ‘hard left’ unless he pursues the polices Giles recommends is one example. The media flurry over Jeremy suggestion about women only train carriages is another. And we’ll see plenty more. But it is actually encouraging. One can only hope a majority of Labour MPs will take note.
The idea of deliberately recommending unpopular policies is interesting. I can’t imagine anyone falling for it though.
I can see why some commenters might think that Giles was actually trying to be even-handed, or, was somehow misrepresented by this blog post. But then again I think that may simply be due to the fact that Giles has hedged his bets a little on this topic – and that’s something that a lot of Corbyn’s critics (and Richard’s critics) seem to have in common.
The logic of it is clear enough. Whatever happens they can try to claim the “I told you so” rights in retrospect.
I don’t think Giles was hedging his bets. He simply refused to take on key elements of Corbynomics (which Richard set out in his post as clear thinking on:
1. The powers of the Bank of England, for example, backed by evidence;
2. The role of money, deficits and sectoral balances in the economy;
3. The need to finance the government at lowest cost; and
4. The need for a mechanism to support the economy when all else might be failing in the face of another economic crisis.)
So instead he sets out what he believes “hard left” policies should look like – while having a dig at the left about being cavalier with property rights – and berates Corbyn for not pursuing them. There is nothing invalid per se about the policies he advances but it would need a generational change in public sentiment to secure the democratic plurality required to implement them.
Jeremy (via Richard’s insights) is going for much lowering hanging fruit whose harvesting will generate huge benefits and will have considerable popular support across the political spectrum. It is this which is flumoxing his critics on the right (both inside and outside the Labour party).
I would have thought it was obvious to all but the most blinkered neoliberal that property rights can only exist in the context of a properly ordered society. There has to be a higher authority for them to exist.
Yes you believe in personal property rights – *after tax* – which, if that tax is high, is to say you believe in weak personal property rights.
I made one slip in the post you responded to claiming that you didn’t believe in personal property rights at all – but from what I’d written it was clear that was a slip – what is at issue is you believe that the balance between personal and societal rights should be tipped further toward societal than it is and most people think.
The fact that you responded only to my slip and you’ve mischaracterised Giles’ argument shows you can’t conceptualise this sliding scale between the two and you seem to have a very loose grasp even that these two types of rights are distinct and should be kept distinct in your argument for fear of causing confusion. You’ve certainly equivocated between the two in your criticism of Chris.
Anyway, this has been a fun morning but a little too easy really. I’ve been very amused by your curt, pompous and uncomprehending responses to criticism. Pro tip: you look silly if you baldly claim someone is wrong without demonstrating you’ve understood their argument and explaining why you think it is wrong. Pro tip 2: saying you’ve understood isn’t demonstrating you’ve understood, just as saying ‘you’re wrong’ isn’t the same as demonstrating someone is wrong.
The constraint is democracy
I know you libertarians don’t believe in it
We on the left do, because that is how rights are balanced
We do balance rights: it is the right who fail to do so
So, debate over
Pro tip 3: don’t debate with time wasters
I think that you might have already given the time wasters an all-too-generous allowance. An indication of your patience and generosity.
Putting the content and politics aside, the standard courtesy (as far I am aware) allows for one long (detailed) initial comment or one long initial reply on any one topic. And that’s it – one states one’s case and any replies after that should be respectfully concise.
People that persist with 3, 4, 5 or more repetitive, long-winded replies are either being inconsiderate or deliberately trying to sabotage the thread by making it insufferably boring. I suspect the latter in some cases.
I’d better finish here or I’ll fall prey to my own accusation.
You’re forgiven
I really do not mind follow ups
Repeating the same tired libertarian point time and again about how the writer is the epicentre of human rights that no one else must enjoy in equal measure is just tedious
I’ve always seen contemporary libertarians as enabling the assertion of individuals above those of the majority (or other individuals).
And don’t forget that that assertion is usually helped by large dollops of money, class, breeding, greed and exploitation.
It’s all about ‘I’m the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal’.
And it has gone too far for too long as an idea.
PRO tip?? On what basis are you a ‘pro’? We dont even know who you are, what your credentials are, your work experience, your educational background, your professional or personal accomplishments. You like most people here, you are just another anonymous person commenting on a known personality’s blog. For all we know you could be someone who has been paid to write these comments. And you talk about upholding standards. Sheesh! Talk about being hypocritical!
And for the sake of clarity for others, can you please post your OWN conception of property rights so that we may atleast be able to know where you are coming from?
Pro tip is a turn of phrase used on the Internet.
My conception of private property is based on Lockean self-ownership. We have almost absolute property rights over own ourselves and our labour. Regarding worldly resources, we can acquire each individually such that we leave enough and as good for all others to acquire (The Lockean proviso). How you interprete ‘enough and as good’ gets very complicated.
I don’t believe in any substantive theory of egalitarianism. That is not to say that I don’t believe that people have equal rights based on a Rawlsian conception of moral personhood. So I guess, I agree with Rawls’ first principle of justice. His second principle, that inequality of resources or status are justifiable if and only if they are of benefit to the least well off (class of people, rather than individuals) and attached to positions that are open to all, according to fair equality of opportunity – that I’m not sure about. I think I reject luck egalitarianism but I don’t have a full argument for that. I think you could build one out of the Lockean self-ownership and a Kantian value of autonomy.
So you own yourself and your labour – your ownership of resources is a bit more tricky. Locke thought you could come to own previously unowned resources through mingling your labour with them. I’m not sure. But whatever resources you do come to own – your fair share or whatever – whatever you gain through exchanging what you own (self, labour, resources) freely and fairly with others, you also own. And what you own cannot be legitimately taken from you except if doing so is absolutely necessary to save the life of another. It is a legitimate infringement of your property rights, based on self-ownership, to take away your non-essential possessions if that is necessary to save the lives of others.
This is all very similar to Otsuka’s left libertarianism as he sets out in his book and his article ‘self-ownership and equality’ although whether what he says about gifts is plausible I doubt.
I do not agree with Richard Murphy that what is legal is what is right, because democracy. I think that is a little basic.
None of which answers any of the questions raised, I note
Nor does it answer how a legally proper (i.e. due process followed) property right belonging to another person (the state) can be your own at the same time
Typically
A turn of phrase used on the Internet? So I should assign credibility to someone who gives advice on serious matters, such as arguing in public over serious economic matters, using phrases of the same nature as ‘LOL’. SERIOUSLY??!!
Ysaac, I suggest that you conduct a little research on RM’s credentials etc and just how many people read this blog on a daily basis before writing “You like most people here, you are just another anonymous person commenting on a known personality’s blog. For all we know you could be someone who has been paid to write these comments”. Sheesh! Talk about being plain ignorant!
I think that was, in fairness, aimed at another Richard
Such are the perils of those who will not use full names on the web
Unlike you Nick
That’s cool Nick. I was replying to Richard, not Richard Murphy’s blog. To be fair, the blog hasn’t been programmed in a way to properly show who is reply to whose reply. So it ended up showing that I was replying to Richard Murphy’s comment instead of the one above that.
“Unless you also say we would all burgle but for the threat if state force”
There would be a substantial increase in the number of burglaries if burglary was decriminalised.
Similarly, there would be a plunge in tax yields if the threat of force was removed from tax collection.
So yes, there clearly is a threat of force and yes, it clearly works.
What little faith you have in other human beings
For better or worse, the self-serve checkouts in supermarkets would appear to be good evidence of voluntary lawful compliance as a social norm. I never use them myself.
In reality property rights also exist within the law and therefore are maintained through the force of law. The same force of law which criminalises burglary and levies taxes.
Therefore, according to the logic of this argument, if the law enforcing property rights were removed property rights would cease to exist and burglary could not occur.
The point being that it is not possible in practical terms to remove and abstract something the the contextual reality in which it exists and operates.
I am struggling to come up with an antonym for “libertarian” to make it easier to be concise on here. “Justiceafarian” appeals, but can anyone else do better?
Franklin,
Bob Marley would say Rastafarian (of course). The term ‘libertarian’ occasionally annoys me because it is yet another reminder of the right-wing delusion where they and they alone have a monopoly on the idea of liberty. Its as if everyone else has chained themselves to floor of a basement or something.
On other occasions I don’t mind the term as much because its a bit like vegetarian. These guys don’t promote liberty they eat it.
On all surveys I take I come up as a libertarian
So I carefully add ‘right wing’
Yes indeed.
They appropriate it for themselves and their kind.
Indeed- the word ‘libertarian’ is also used to desribe a form of socialism where workplace democracy is emphasised rather than state bureaucracy -the economist Richard Wolff is one of the main contemporary voices in this area.
I think this explains why we have this seemingly strange phenomenon of aspects of the right overlapping with the left on issues of money creation and challenges to corporate power -the overlapping soon ends!
How about ‘Selfisharian’?
I like that
I was looking for an antonym, not a synonym. And I have not seen many improvements on my own clumsy effort.
‘Pro tip 3: don’t debate with time wasters’
Well said. Couldn’t agree more.
Richard, your argument that what is legal is also what is morally right is not a good one.
The fact of the matter is that we have statutes that have existed for hundreds of years that no living person has voted on. Add to that the inability of any voting system to correctly convey people’s very complicated preferences on a range of topics and the nature of representative democracy where elected representatives are allowed to use their judgment in shaping the law, then the moral argument about tax, property rights or anything else doesn’t start and finish with what laws have been enacted.
Similarly, if you believe that Corbynomics and higher taxation is morally preferrable to the current policy, then you have to see that the legal and moral come apart.
You’re arguing that the only conception of personal property rights anyone could possibly agree with is rightful ownership of post-tax income. That is true but facile for anyone except anarchists. The argument is about what is the right level of taxation and how that fits with very differing conceptions of how far personal property rights extend. To blithely assert that the state rightfully owns everything and that is the only property right anyone can meaningfully talk about isn’t an argument. Nor is habitually making up what your critics think.
I agree that it is not possible in all areas to draw the inference it us legal so it is right
And emphatically not outside a democracy
But tax law is vibrant, reviews and renewed frequently and at the forefront of political debate
So my argument holds
The rest of what you say is bunkum: are you saying the state does not own tax revenues? Really? If so, how. That has to be the case if I am wrong
I am making up nothing. I am actually describing the world we live in
And who owns the state? 😛 The citizens? Monarchies? Putin? Wall Street?
It is a trust without a settlor but with beneficiaries
Richard
You appear to have a remarkable ability to misinterpret virtually everything anyone says.
It really is quite astonishing.
In the eyes of some that is true
But please do not convince yourself that your view is that of the majority
Richard, you are clearly correct that the state owns tax revenues even before they fall due as it is the state that gives us property rights and we wouldn’t have the property without those rights. It clearly follows – as you say – that the State therefore owns those assets relating to tax that could fall due in the future and we simply hold the money on trust. The State has to own the money even before the tax falls due otherwise your argument on us only owning our after tax income would simply fall apart. I know, for instance, that I do not own any of my assets that relate to my future inheritance tax bill or indeed any of the money I have now that relates to the VAT element of any future expenditure. Why is this so hard for the Right to understand?
As the underlying concept from the above discussion about property rights seems to also be about individual freedom, might I quote a rather brilliant quote from Slavoj Zizek’s book that I really hope would shut up atleast the ranting libertarians and make them think twice before posting –
“The moment we approach the U.S. healthcare debate in this way, the “freedom to choose” appears in a different way. True, a large part of the population will be effectively delivered of the dubious “freedom” to worry about who will cover their illness, to find a way through the intricate network of financial and other decisions. Being able to take basic healthcare for granted, to count on it like one counts on a water supply without worrying about having to choose the water company, people will simply gain more time and energy to dedicate to other things.
The lesson to be learned is that freedom of choice is something which actually functions only if a complex network of legal, educational, ethical, economic and other conditions exists as the invisible thick background of the exercise of our freedom.”
Source – http://www.salon.com/2015/08/24/slavoj_zizek_ayn_rands_tea_party_lie_now_we_know_who_john_galt_is/
@Richard Murphy – Did you notice how your comments section exploded when it came to arguing over theoretical ideology and not when you were talking about topics based on current reality? 😛
There is a confusion of Richards here, which doesn’t help!
The other has got abusive and is now on the spam list
I’ve been on holiday for a few days and haven’t looked at the FT at all in that time so I’m coming to this a bit late but… Goddamn, that was a poor article by Chris Giles. And I’m saying that as someone who used to work with him at the IFS in the 1990s, when he was a very good centre-left economist. It’s hard to know what went wrong.
Chris seems to think that abandoning planning restrictions and concreting over the green belt – a policy recommended by right wing think tanks like the IEA and Policy Exchange – is a ‘hard left’ policy. This is like saying that e.g. Nationalisation of the FTSE 100 is a ‘hard right’ policy. Absolute and total codswallop. Chris is then reduced to saying that the statement “faster growth and higher wages must be key to bringing down the deficit” is ’empty’. On the contrary, it’s basic economics that is taught at GCSE level. Chris risks making himself look ridiculous with statements like that. Quite frankly it’s the worst article I’ve ever read from him.
I also despise the initial premise that Corbynomics is ‘stupid’. The policy documents Jeremy’s team have put out so far have been considerably more intelligent than anything we have seen from the other Labour leadership candidates, and he has a strong and economically literate advisory team – something Chris Giles could really do with, on this evidence!
Thanks Howard
Hope the holiday was good