‘I
work hard and I deserve my money and then the government take it and give it to
lazy buggers who don’t deserve it.’ How often have you
heard that sentiment? How often have you found yourself agreeing with it even
if only a little bit? How difficult do you find it to argue against such a sentiment?
How much has this sentiment driven the demand for only the ‘truly deserving’
receiving aid, for lobbying for spending my money appropriately, for demanding
low taxation rates and then implementing service cuts?
In answering this you can’t help but feel the pressure
of an overarching metaphor that drives people’s feeling and attitudes towards
taxes – the metaphor of taxes are theft. This metaphor drives and frames
debates over what taxes are and how they should be used. This metaphor drives
the need to ‘check’ taxes are being spent properly. This metaphor encourages
people to see their taxes as remaining their money and under their control
after they have paid them.
All the above may seem more or less reasonable but is
that because the metaphor has become so all embracing that we can now only see
taxation though the lens of this metaphor?
Let’s think about the metaphor a bit more. The basis
of the metaphor lies in the extension of the idea of ownership to money. The
argument runs something like this - the money I earn is mine, it is my
property, I own it so if you take it you are stealing from me. Taxation in this
view is just state sanctioned theft. As it is theft then the individual has
every right to avoid taxes, to pay as little as they can get away with. If they
can’t escape paying taxes then, as the money is really theirs, they feel that
they have every right to demand control over how the money is spent and to whom
it is given.
The taxes are theft metaphor have such resonance
because they dovetail with the deep-seated desire for and expectation of
individual control. The ‘taxation as theft’ metaphor links with a whole mesh of
metaphors about personal control and responsibility that, through their linkages,
strengthen each other’s plausibility. Individuals can’t give up on the view
that their money is still theirs even when the state have it as taxes. Nor can
they give up on the idea that they can control how it is used, that they can
define who deserves their money and who does not. It also means that there is
an undemocratic view that the more someone pays in taxes, the more they have a
right, an ownership, of the use of taxes. Within such a metaphor, the
insistence that only the deserving, as defined by them, receive the benefits of
their taxes is overwhelming as is the demand that the way taxes are spent is
properly tracked.
As the state defines and protects property rights,
such rights are not a given. No state would mean no organisation to define and
enforce ownership rights. Ownership is dependent on a state and its
institutions which requires funds to operate to ensure that ownership rights
can be sustained. As importantly, people
don’t earn money in a vacuum, they earn it as part of an economy and a society.
That society is often uneven in terms of wealth, opportunities and outcomes,
but without it there would be no economy to generate the money that individuals
earn. Taxes are a way of diverting money back into that society and economy to
benefit everyone through development and growth. Individuals who benefit most
from the way society and economy are structured earn most and so pay most to
maintain and develop that economy and society. Taxes are an investment in the
very society and economy that provide the income of the taxed.
So a better metaphor for taxes might be thought of an
investment in society and the economy. As with investments through banks, all
funds are pooled and then used to invest in diverse enterprises that create a
return to the economy and society as a whole. Except this metaphor is not
perfect either. Even this metaphor still has the control of taxes as a key
characteristic. When you invest you expect to be able to specify the types of activities
you are happy to invest in and those you are not. With taxation, an individual expects to be
able to identify and delineate their personal taxes from the ocean of taxes
flowing to the state. It is as if a single raindrop thinks it can retain its own identity as
it merges into the sea.
Countering the ‘taxes are theft’ metaphor is crucial if
taxes are to be seen as the essential lubricant for economic and society development
and growth rather than the stealthy theft of wealth. If the metaphor is not countered
then all debate takes place within the constants of that metaphor and so limits
and defines acceptable evidence and arguments.
For more on the metaphor these website are useful:
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