WEBVTT NOTE A Nietzschean Case for Tax Evasion 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.000 In my presentation, I begin by addressing why people believe they have a moral, at least a practical duty to pay taxes by focusing on what actions on the part of the state have brought about and sustained this belief. 2 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.000 I then discuss the ethical consequences of holding and acting on such a belief from two angles. 3 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:22.000 First, with an eye towards the effects the methods employed by the state to bring about such a belief has on a society and its members, 4 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:26.000 as well as with an eye towards ethical implications for people acting on such a belief, 5 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:35.440 Finally, I address why evading taxes is an ethical imperative here and I consider the 6 00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:41.200 ethical benefits for the individuals who evade paying taxes and for the culture of a society. 7 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.680 In this section, I address the dual question of what kind of people can successfully evade 8 00:00:44.680 --> 00:00:57.760 Paying Taxes and How Tax Evasion Can Be Done Effectively. 9 00:00:57.760 --> 00:01:01.680 Nearly every student of the state recognizes it as an institution that claims a monopoly 10 00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:06.020 on the legitimate use of force. However, only the more keen observers have gone beyond this 11 00:01:06.020 --> 00:01:10.400 definition to see the state as the ultimate exploiter of the people that acquires its 12 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:17.040 In other words, it steals from the subjects of its domination in order to fund its domination 13 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:21.320 of them. As Rothbard and other Austrians have demonstrated, coercive exchange necessarily 14 00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:26.720 leads to an asymmetry of gains, with the coercer gaining at the expense of the coerced. Therefore, 15 00:01:26.720 --> 00:01:30.440 since we assume human agents act to further their own interests, then human agents would 16 00:01:30.440 --> 00:01:37.000 only put up with or support involuntary exchanges if one of two conditions is met. Either, the 17 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.760 possesses a superior degree of material force relative to the exploited agent, or the exploited 18 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:47.520 agent does not recognize his exploitation as such. The first condition holds for the relationship 19 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:51.200 between the state and each individual subject, but not for the state relative to the whole 20 00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:56.480 exploited population. Therefore, if a group of political subjects each recognized they 21 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.480 were collectively being exploited, then they would have a great incentive to work in concert 22 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:05.600 to throw off their oppressor. As Mises aptly notes, though a tyrant may temporarily rule 23 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:14.600 In the long run, a minority cannot keep the majority in subservience. The oppressed will 24 00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:19.260 rise in rebellion and cast off the yoke of tyranny. The precarious nature of political 25 00:02:19.260 --> 00:02:23.520 rule, therefore, requires that the subjects not recognize that they are being exploited. 26 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:28.560 To this end, the political elite must imbue their subjects' mental complex with categories 27 00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:33.080 that make these subjects view the state's exercises of power as non-exploitive and legitimate. 28 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:37.760 When I speak of one's method complex, I am referring to what Bourdieu calls a person's 29 00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:43.400 habitus or his schemas of perception and action. Mises refers to it as one's world view or 30 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:49.400 ideology. As Mises puts it, a world view is on the one hand an explanation of all phenomena 31 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:53.640 and on the other hand a technology. World views interpret the universe and they advise 32 00:02:53.640 --> 00:02:58.480 men on how to act. With that being said, we can understand why the state's employment 33 00:02:58.480 --> 00:03:03.400 One of what Bourdieu calls symbolic violence can lead to subjects becoming willing participants 34 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:08.180 in their own domination. Symbolic violence is defined as the act of imposing schemas of 35 00:03:08.180 --> 00:03:13.180 perception and action into an agent's mental complex. While symbolic violence like physical 36 00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:17.440 violence can potentially be employed by many different agents or institutions, what Bourdieu 37 00:03:17.440 --> 00:03:22.080 demonstrates is that the state, owing to its incredible volume of symbolic capital, has 38 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:27.300 an effective monopoly on the legitimate use of symbolic violence. Symbolic capital refers 39 00:03:27.300 --> 00:03:44.140 In other words, the possession of symbolic capital gives one the power to shape reality 40 00:03:44.140 --> 00:03:48.380 to the extent that one can take advantage of symbolic capital to impress different categories 41 00:03:48.380 --> 00:03:52.980 into an individual's perceptual schemes through which he interprets and decides how to operate 42 00:03:52.980 --> 00:03:53.980 in reality. 43 00:03:53.980 --> 00:03:59.580 However, these categories must have some referent in reality, even if, in itself, this referent 44 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:04.260 fails to fully conform to its referential category, because the agent, if the category 45 00:04:04.260 --> 00:04:08.760 is sufficiently embodied, likely will ignore the differences between the two and read in 46 00:04:08.760 --> 00:04:12.660 from the category what is not there in the object. 47 00:04:12.660 --> 00:04:16.460 The volume of symbolic capital an agent or institution possesses determines the degree 48 00:04:16.460 --> 00:04:21.820 to which its classification schemes are internalized by those upon whom it is imposed. 49 00:04:21.820 --> 00:04:26.660 By volume, I am referring to how much and how many people, relatively speaking, respect 50 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.500 or honor a given institution. 51 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:33.380 By the degree of internalization, I am referring to both how ingrained in people's habitats 52 00:04:33.380 --> 00:04:37.700 a given set of classification schemes are and, relatively, how many people have this 53 00:04:37.700 --> 00:04:42.220 given set of classification schemes ingrained in their mental complex. 54 00:04:42.220 --> 00:04:46.380 It's clear that the modern Western state has acquired more honor, or symbolic capital, 55 00:04:46.380 --> 00:04:51.180 both in terms of intensity and breadth than any other social organism because it has positioned 56 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:56.740 has seen itself as the primary and most necessary agent of social order and social progress. 57 00:04:56.740 --> 00:05:00.740 This prominent position has allowed the state to succeed in its efforts at impressing its 58 00:05:00.740 --> 00:05:04.940 data schemas of perception and action deep into the mental complexes and dispositions 59 00:05:04.940 --> 00:05:10.220 of its subjects. In this way, the state has succeeded in gently forcing its subjects into 60 00:05:10.220 --> 00:05:14.700 believing that they have a moral obligation to pay taxes. In my paper, I demonstrate how 61 00:05:14.700 --> 00:05:19.860 the state succeeded in positioning itself as a divine entity. In Europe, this was the 62 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:26.860 are the results of the state taking advantage of the growing level of nihilism that accompanied the collapse of Christendom that began during the Renaissance. 63 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:37.860 In the United States, religious and secular post-millennialists, with the help of big businesses and political elites, succeeded in presenting the state to the public as the means by which the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth could be brought about. 64 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:42.860 I refer to Nietzsche's and Oakeshott's work in my description of the developments that occurred in Europe, 65 00:05:42.860 --> 00:06:05.860 In both the United States and Europe, the means the state employed, through which it claimed it could bring about this heaven on earth, consisted of welfare programs, universal public education, a massive state bureaucracy, economic regulations, and central bank, among others. 66 00:06:05.860 --> 00:06:12.260 By establishing these institutions, the state has succeeded in offering objective reality 67 00:06:12.260 --> 00:06:17.540 to the view of the state as the divine. Thus, such a view of the state acquires a self-evident 68 00:06:17.540 --> 00:06:23.700 status for a great many people. Of course, some Westerners clearly do not view the state 69 00:06:23.700 --> 00:06:27.980 as a divinity, but nearly every Westerner at least believes that only the state can 70 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:33.380 provide the order necessary for the functioning of society. The latter belief stems from the 71 00:06:33.380 --> 00:06:39.780 The fact that since the 17th century, the state has succeeded in crushing the major 72 00:06:39.780 --> 00:06:46.540 vestiges of intermediate power and in absorbing into its ever-expanding bureaucratic apparatus 73 00:06:46.540 --> 00:06:51.560 the functions of a great many of them. The state's effective displacement of most intermediary 74 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:56.640 institutions has placed it in an immediate relation to individuals, thus offering objective 75 00:06:56.640 --> 00:07:01.140 confirmation of the state's classification of itself as necessary for the sake of social 76 00:07:01.140 --> 00:07:06.300 Order. In this way, such a classification has come to be embodied by subjects such that 77 00:07:06.300 --> 00:07:14.020 it appears evidently true. The State has obtained what Bourdieu calls a monopolization of the 78 00:07:14.020 --> 00:07:19.420 universal as a consequence of its success in incarnating its divinity and social necessity 79 00:07:19.420 --> 00:07:25.180 in objectivity in the forms of specific institutional structures and in subjectivity in the form 80 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:31.100 of mental categories. Three important features of the modern Western State play an essential 81 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:41.100 have a central role in solidifying the state's universal position, including the bureaucracy, the status of economists as high priests, the democratic form of government, and the public school system. 82 00:07:41.100 --> 00:07:51.100 The state's bureaucracy consists of a set of individuals tasked with disinterestedly and rationally employing the state's resources to realize the interests of the whole. 83 00:07:51.100 --> 00:08:01.620 Economics is believed to be the means by which society can be perfected, and it possesses 84 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:06.320 the air of objectivity because of its seemingly scientific methodology. Therefore, the high 85 00:08:06.320 --> 00:08:11.980 status of the contemporary economist and their close alliance with the state contributes 86 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:16.180 to people's belief that the state acts to realize the general interest while also being 87 00:08:16.180 --> 00:08:22.700 is incapable of doing so because it has the scientists of society working for it. As Rothbard 88 00:08:22.700 --> 00:08:27.060 argues, the increasing use of scientific jargon has permitted the state's intellectuals to 89 00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:32.020 weave obscure ontis apologia for a state rule that would have only met with derision by 90 00:08:32.020 --> 00:08:36.820 the populace of a simpler age. Democracy has greatly contributed to Westermann's belief 91 00:08:36.820 --> 00:08:42.380 that the state possesses a universal and impartial status because its institutional features, 92 00:08:42.380 --> 00:08:57.900 Public schools function as one of the prime sites for the state's molding of the minds 93 00:08:57.900 --> 00:09:04.500 of its subjects. One aspect of this indoctrination consists of teaching students official history 94 00:09:04.500 --> 00:09:08.300 that depicts the state as the defender of the people from foreign threats and the progenitor 95 00:09:08.300 --> 00:09:14.980 The State uses its schools to introduce its young subjects to its dichotomous classification 96 00:09:14.980 --> 00:09:20.180 system of people. On one side they are the subjects and on the other are the authorities, 97 00:09:20.180 --> 00:09:24.180 with the latter defined as inherently good and the former divided into two groups, the 98 00:09:24.180 --> 00:09:29.100 deviant and the obedient. The State's classification of people comes to be embodied by students 99 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:33.340 in the course of their schooling because the production of official records and the hierarchical 100 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:37.740 relationship between students, teachers and administrators gives objective reality to 101 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:51.740 This kind of statist framing takes place throughout society, with the state having infiltrated all features of society with its symbols, as well as with and in part because of its pronounced and ever-growing material presence in society. 102 00:09:51.740 --> 00:10:04.740 Since the public believes the state exists either to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth or to maintain the social order, then it follows that most everyone also believes that it is a moral imperative, or at least a practical imperative, 103 00:10:04.740 --> 00:10:10.900 to provide the state with its means of existence. This translates into the belief that everyone 104 00:10:10.900 --> 00:10:15.580 who earns an income or has some level of wealth is obligated to pay taxes unless the state 105 00:10:15.580 --> 00:10:20.860 beneficently grants them an exception. This widespread belief is the legitimating source 106 00:10:20.860 --> 00:10:26.060 or basis of the state's power to viciously punish and morally condemn tax evaders. In 107 00:10:26.060 --> 00:10:30.620 fact, the masses, fully imbued with the spirit of equality, are thoroughly convinced that 108 00:10:30.620 --> 00:10:42.900 The Mass Man, blinded by the mystical vision of the state, used civilization as a gift 109 00:10:42.900 --> 00:10:46.620 from the state, and thus for him, taxes are what all citizens owe in exchange. 110 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:51.860 For the Mass Man, people who refuse to pay taxes are refusing to sacrifice for the public 111 00:10:51.860 --> 00:10:56.260 good, are challenging the very essence of the Mass Man's world vision, and are leveling 112 00:10:56.260 --> 00:10:57.900 an assault on the social order. 113 00:10:57.900 --> 00:11:02.900 It is even claimed by many that tax evasion is tantamount to stealing from the public. 114 00:11:02.900 --> 00:11:08.900 Moreover, I find that subjects of Western nation states have been habituated to obey the directives of authorities. 115 00:11:08.900 --> 00:11:16.900 This phenomenon is a product of the framing the state imposes upon practices throughout the social order in the form of its dichotomous classification system. 116 00:11:16.900 --> 00:11:21.900 From its universal standpoint, the state is capable of performing, in Bourdieu's words, 117 00:11:21.900 --> 00:11:51.900 A Diagnostic. That is, an act of knowledge or cognition which begets recognition and which, quite often, tends to assert what a person or a thing is and what it is universally. For every possible person, thus objectively, administrative discourse says, through directives, orders, prescriptions, etc., what people have to do, given what they are. It says what people have actually done, as in authorized accounts such as police records. In effect, the state has made most of its subjects predisposed to heeding what Bourdieu labels 118 00:11:51.900 --> 00:11:57.420 calls to order, which when issued, awaken these deeply buried corporeal dispositions. 119 00:11:58.060 --> 00:12:03.100 For our purposes, when it comes time to, or the order is issued for one to pay taxes, 120 00:12:03.100 --> 00:12:08.780 one does so without questioning the legitimacy of so doing, or without undertaking a cost-benefit 121 00:12:08.780 --> 00:12:16.060 analysis of compliance. This is because calls to order, in that they awaken corporeal dispositions, 122 00:12:16.060 --> 00:12:20.940 function outside the channels of consciousness and calculation, making such considerations 123 00:12:20.940 --> 00:12:25.780 is technically inconceivable and viewed as absurd if proposed by an other. 124 00:12:25.780 --> 00:12:30.420 A foregoing section gestured at the fact that the state's imposition of classification 125 00:12:30.420 --> 00:12:36.180 systems serves to cripple the human spirit, replacing rational and creative agents with 126 00:12:36.180 --> 00:12:44.260 herd animals. Nietzsche calls this bureaucratization of spirit the liquidation of particularity. 127 00:12:44.260 --> 00:12:48.580 And such is the intended goal of the state, for only then can it succeed in having people 128 00:12:48.580 --> 00:12:53.580 will willingly sacrifice their hard earnings to the state so that it can acquire the means to oppress them. 129 00:12:54.580 --> 00:13:02.580 The masked man that the state has forged possesses the characteristics of the weak man or herd animal that Nietzsche speaks of in his Genealogy of Morals. 130 00:13:03.580 --> 00:13:12.580 These herd animals, and by extension, masked men, tend to despise the freedom to choose because in the course of acting freely they are forced to acknowledge with revulsion their own impotence. 131 00:13:12.580 --> 00:13:18.300 And as Nietzsche teaches, the less one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets 132 00:13:18.300 --> 00:13:23.940 someone who commands, who commands severely, a god, prince, class, physician, father, 133 00:13:23.940 --> 00:13:26.740 confessor, dogma, or party conscience. 134 00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:32.900 As well, the existence of noble types serves to constantly remind lower types of the inferiority 135 00:13:32.900 --> 00:13:36.740 and thus they tend to loathe and to desire to enact revenge on such people. 136 00:13:36.740 --> 00:13:41.420 Nietzsche refers to this petty desire for revenge as the basis of what he calls resente 137 00:13:41.420 --> 00:13:45.940 and we can certainly find it heavily present and widely cultivated in our 138 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:49.940 modern democracies where for evidence one need only consider things like its 139 00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:53.980 state taxes and progressive taxation which the public rapidly supports while 140 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:58.260 seething at the mouth. What we therefore find as a consequence of the state's 141 00:13:58.260 --> 00:14:01.940 inculcation of status schemas of perception and action in its subjects is 142 00:14:01.940 --> 00:14:05.460 the progressive destruction of what Nietzsche calls sovereign types or 143 00:14:05.460 --> 00:14:09.420 strong individuals who create their own moral laws and ways of being that push 144 00:14:09.420 --> 00:14:34.420 In this way, society becomes ever more subject to status control and becomes easier for the state to collect the taxes that enables it to minister its exploitation far and wide, sometimes beyond the borders of its territory. 145 00:14:34.420 --> 00:14:39.620 Finally, the state's dichotomous classification system that has become thoroughly entwined 146 00:14:39.620 --> 00:14:45.380 with the fabric of society molds men into inauthentic role-players who display a paralyzing 147 00:14:45.380 --> 00:14:51.260 over-concern about possible causes, meanings and consequences of acts and an unending dialogue 148 00:14:51.260 --> 00:14:54.900 about what others might think, expect, say or do. 149 00:14:54.900 --> 00:14:58.980 This role-playing forecloses genuine attachment to others and undermines this type of act 150 00:14:58.980 --> 00:15:03.580 as integrity, decisiveness and spontaneity. 151 00:15:03.580 --> 00:15:07.540 Depending on the belief that one has a duty to pay taxes, these ones unwittingly fund 152 00:15:07.540 --> 00:15:13.100 his own domination. Moreover, paying taxes inclines one to view oneself as invested in 153 00:15:13.100 --> 00:15:17.420 the state's activities and thus makes one more disposed to support the state's war 154 00:15:17.420 --> 00:15:22.660 on society. In this way, one stains one's own hands with the blood of those who are 155 00:15:22.660 --> 00:15:27.980 victims of the state's aggression. The liquidation of particularity, the progressive forging 156 00:15:27.980 --> 00:15:32.940 of mass men, the progressive destruction of sovereign individuals, and the public's enthusiastic 157 00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:37.820 support for the state's worn society all serve to push a given society's culture into the 158 00:15:37.820 --> 00:15:40.900 lowest depths of cultural decadence. 159 00:15:40.900 --> 00:15:45.620 As Nietzsche pointedly stated, a time that stakes its salvation on public opinions, that 160 00:15:45.620 --> 00:15:50.860 is on private laziness, will one day really be killed, by which I mean it will be stricken 161 00:15:50.860 --> 00:15:54.560 from the history of the true liberation of life. 162 00:15:54.560 --> 00:15:58.860 The cultural bankruptcy and erosion of the human spirit brought on by the state's success 163 00:15:58.860 --> 00:16:02.940 in engraining in its subjects the belief that they have a duty to pay taxes is itself a 164 00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:07.940 sufficient reason for people to evade paying taxes. If the number of people evading paying 165 00:16:07.940 --> 00:16:11.820 taxes reaches a critical mass, we will see a steady collapse of the state, which will 166 00:16:11.820 --> 00:16:16.500 serve as the permissive condition for the unleashing of pent-up spiritual force that 167 00:16:16.500 --> 00:16:20.420 will invigorate individuals and reverse the given society's trend towards cultural 168 00:16:20.420 --> 00:16:26.020 decadence. However, I acknowledge that such an undertaking requires great effort, and 169 00:16:26.020 --> 00:16:35.020 Currently, most of our fellow men and women are incapable of even contemplating the need to evade paying taxes, let alone openly opposing the state. 170 00:16:35.020 --> 00:16:48.020 What our time then requires is that those few remaining sovereign types, who recognize the absurdity and deleterious consequences of believing in the duty to pay taxes, offer a clear and distinct challenge to this faith. 171 00:16:48.020 --> 00:16:53.100 Before we consider how sovereign types must go about evading taxes, we must again recognize 172 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:58.060 that the state has nothing more than petty rhetoric, inept intellectuals, worthless statistics, 173 00:16:58.060 --> 00:17:09.060 fabricated history and pandering drones as a veil to cover up its naked aggression. 174 00:17:09.060 --> 00:17:13.260 The feebleness of the state's foundation owes to the fact that it is composed of people's 175 00:17:13.260 --> 00:17:18.460 misrecognition of what the state actually does. Hence, if the state subjects were ever 176 00:17:18.460 --> 00:17:24.540 made aware of the blatantly obvious facts about the exploitative nature of the state, 177 00:17:24.540 --> 00:17:29.900 it would crumble with utmost rapidity. These sovereign types have a dual opportunity. They 178 00:17:29.900 --> 00:17:34.300 can infect the social order with an alternative vision that, if done correctly, will hopefully 179 00:17:34.300 --> 00:17:39.500 inspire weaker types to loosen their symbolic shackles and possibly throw them off. And in 180 00:17:39.500 --> 00:17:45.300 In doing so, these sovereign types can succeed in proceeding to a higher spiritual existence. 181 00:17:45.300 --> 00:17:50.460 As Nietzsche argues, a powerful individual must listen to his soul and build and cross 182 00:17:50.460 --> 00:17:52.500 a bridge to his higher self. 183 00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:55.740 The crossing of the bridge represents the attainment of freedom through the overcoming 184 00:17:55.740 --> 00:18:01.300 of his self, others, and the customs that maintain a community. 185 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:03.060 In this case, a political community. 186 00:18:03.060 --> 00:18:07.820 Nietzsche would describe this moment as the most alive unleashing of one's will to power, 187 00:18:07.820 --> 00:18:11.340 which for him represents the greatest feeling of happiness. 188 00:18:11.340 --> 00:18:15.660 Of course, the individuals who pursue this path face grave risk for which they must take 189 00:18:15.660 --> 00:18:19.420 account and develop strategies that lessen their severity. 190 00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:23.980 However, they must not allow such dangers to distract them from focusing on bringing 191 00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:29.380 about their ultimate goal, because the overcoming of self and neighbors is best achieved when 192 00:18:29.380 --> 00:18:33.940 independent-minded individuals have to approach existence with a certain boldness and willingness 193 00:18:33.940 --> 00:18:45.500 What drives such a man to evade taxes in this noble and courageous fashion is his great 194 00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:50.060 love for himself, his fellow man, and what he finds monumental in all ages. 195 00:18:50.060 --> 00:19:00.540 In my paper, I have offered some concrete ideas as to the forms such tax evasions could 196 00:19:00.540 --> 00:19:10.980 to take, including engaging in black market activities and the like, or secession in the 197 00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:26.780 form that Hoppe speaks of. And I also discussed the fact that the courageous sort of challenging 198 00:19:26.780 --> 00:19:33.780 of the belief that we have a duty to pay taxes can be done more successfully in a communal 199 00:19:33.780 --> 00:19:37.780 form than just lone individuals. Thank you.