Taxation: philosophical perspectives
Questions I hope to answer:
- On what basis do we justify taxation and redistribution?
- Efficiency?
- Property rights?
Overview
There is a tension between two philosophical views of taxation:
- Robert Nozick argues that property rights were pre-political, and thus the state cannot interefere with these rights. It should be kept at its strict minimum to enforce these rights; transfers should operate via philantropic work. As a result, Nozick sees taxation as "forced labor". It has a strong influence on contemporary debates. cite:nozick1974
For John Rawls, property rights are not a pre-political constraints on the operation of economical and political institutions, they are creations of the "basic structure" of society. Tax rules are also part of this basic structure. A tax system is just when it contributes to a system that satisfies the principles of justice. In his conception of Justice, Rawls endorses a steeply recipient-oriented inheritance and capital trasnfer tax. cite:rawls2020,rawls1958
cite:murphy2002