Imagine a future state of anarchism. There is no government, so nothing is provided for ‘free’. Place yourself in the shoes of a poor father with young children. Your oldest child has just turned five, and it is the time that normally he would go to school. Since we are in a state of anarchism, the only schools are private ones. Unfortunately, you, as the poor father, are unable to finance sending your son to school. You ask around family and friends – no luck. The bank won’t lend you money because of your bad credit rating. If you don’t send your child to school, they will simply have to go to work in the local shop when they grow up a bit. They aren’t in any direct danger from not going to school. The question is: Is it morally permissible to steal in order to pay the school fees? I would put it to you that no, it is not morally permissible. Whilst schooling is something nice for the child, it is by no means a necessity, and it certainly doesn’t warrant stealing, which is pretty much universally accepted to be immoral.
Now, imagine the same situation, except this time instead of schooling being the subject at hand, it is paying for fire safety insurance. In this state, protection from your house burning down is that you pay for insurance for private fire services who will come round to houses who have paid for insurance when they get set on fire. Here, would it be permissible to steal in order to pay for fire insurance? I would say again – no. It might potentially save your life, but the likelihood is pretty small, and again it doesn’t seem to be enough of a problem to make stealing morally permissible.
Finally, this time the situation is that you need to pay for an operation. You are unable to afford the heart transplant, and if you don’t pay for it you will die. Here the question seems a bit more unclear – I do not think that there would be a general trend in people's intuitions one way on the other as to the morality of stealing to pay for the operation.
If you accept that the first two situations – schooling and fire insurance – are not problems enough to warrant stealing – then I put it to you that you have already decided that taxation to pay for public schooling and a nationalised fire service is immoral. Because what’s the difference between theft and taxation?
6 hours ago
Tax is not equal to theft where it is under democratic control. It is akin to a joint decision - perhaps a majority decision - amongst a group of friends who, having agreed to having a day out together, split the costs of their activities, whether higher or lower than expected
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