Taxation in Utopia , livre ebook

TAXATION IN UTOPIA
TAXATION IN UTOPIA

REQUIRED SACRIFICE AND THE GENERAL WELFARE

DONALD MORRIS
Cover: Anemone , designed by William Morris, 1876. Jacquard-woven silk and wool or silk damask fabric.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morris, Donald, 1945– author. | State University of New York.
Title: Taxation in utopia : required sacrifice and the general welfare / Donald Morris.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020000964 (print) | LCCN 2020000965 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438479477 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438479491 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Taxation. | Political science—Philosophy. | Utopias—Economic aspects.
Classification: LCC HJ2305 .M67 2020 (print) | LCC HJ2305 (ebook) | DDC 336.2001—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000964
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000965
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Keith and Sarah
Shigaloyov continued: “Having devoted my energies to the question of social organization in any future society … I’ve come to the conclusion that all creators of social systems, from ancient times down to our own in 187_, were dreamers, story-tellers and fools who … understood absolutely nothing about natural science or that strange animal called man. … I’m proposing my own system of world organization. … Moreover, I must declare in advance that my system is not yet complete. … I became lost in my own data and my conclusion contradicts the original premise from which I started. Beginning with the idea of unlimited freedom, I end with unlimited despotism.”
—Dostoevsky, Devils

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Devils , trans. Michael R. Katz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 426.
CONTENTS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NTRODUCTION
C HAPTER O NE
Taxation as a Moral Quest
Part One: Taxation: The Tail Wags the Dog
An Experiment in Shared Sacrifice
Ends and Means
Practicality
Taxation as a Moral Question of Sacrifice
Part Two: The Construal of Taxation and of Utopia
The Sinews of Taxation
Beyond Revenue: Defining a Tax
Defining Utopia
C HAPTER T WO
Privacy Deprivation as Taxation
The Nature and Role of Privacy
Thomas More (1478–1535): No Spots for Secret Meetings
Big Brother’s Eyes in Nineteen Eighty-Four
H. G. Wells (1866–1946): Indexing Humanity
Zamyatin (1884–1937): Who Are “They” and Who Are “We”?
Expectations of Privacy
C HAPTER T HREE
Taxing Access to Truth
Part One: Plato and Bacon
Opaque Government
Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE): The Republic of Lies
Francis Bacon (1561–1626): The Sacrifice to Science
Part Two: Orwell and Godwin
Totalitarian Methodologies: Orwell (1903–1950)
William Godwin (1756–1836): Anarchist Tax Policy
C HAPTER F OUR
Taxation by Required Work or Occupation
Part One: Plato and More
Work and Inequality
Matching Specialized Abilities to Society’s Needs
Plato (c. 428–c. 348 BCE): The Ideal Job in the Republic
Thomas More (1478–1535): The Common Obligation of Common Daily Toil
Part Two: Bellamy, Gilman, Wells, and Skinner
Edward Bellamy (1850–1898): The Industrial Army
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935): Half the Human Race Is Denied Free Productive Expression
H. G. Wells (1866–1946): Labor Laws and the Insult of Charity
B. F. Skinner (1904–1990): We Have Created Leisure Without Slavery
Part Three: Saint-Simon and Campanella
Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825): The Human Spirit Follows a Predetermined Course
Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639): Assigned Labor in The City of the Sun
C HAPTER F IVE
Taxing the Family: Marriage, Childrearing, and Eugenics
Part One: Plato, More, Bacon, Wells, and Le Guin
Marriage Restrictions
Francis Bacon (1561–1626): Marriage Except for the Wise
H. G. Wells (1866–1946): Motherhood as a Service to the State
Le Guin (1929–2018): Anarchism and the Tax-Free Family in The Dispossessed
Part Two: Owen and Gilman
Robert Owen (1771–1858): The Tax on Childrearing
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935): Motherhood and Eugenics in Herland
Part Three: Skinner, Eugenic Tax Procedures
B. F. Skinner (1904–1990): Eliminating the Meaner Emotions in Walden Two
Eugenic Tax Procedures: Campanella, Bellamy, Zamyatin, Huxley
C HAPTER S IX
Taxation and Land Proprietorship
Part One: Harrington, Godwin, and Owen
The Land Question
James Harrington (1611–1677): Inheritance Tax in Oceana
William Godwin (1756–1836): Anarchy and Private Property
Robert Owen (1771–1858): Peaceful Revolution
Part Two: George, Tolstoy, Wells, and Nozick
Henry George (1839–1897): Progress, Land, and Poverty
Tolstoy (1828–1910): A Landowner’s Struggle with the Land Problem
Wells (1866–1946): The Land Question in A Modern Utopia
Robert Nozick (1938–2002): Entitlement Theory
C HAPTER S EVEN
Taxation Purged from Utopia
Part One: Ayn Rand (1905–1982): Atlas Shrugged
Disparate Social Systems
Rand’s Four Utopias
Rand’s “Tax” System
Part Two: Robert Nozick (1938–2002): Utopia of Utopias
The Most Extensive State that Can Be Justified
The Developing State: The First Four Stages
The Fifth Stage
Taxes, Forced Labor, and the Minimal State
Utopia: The Minimal State Framework
Taxation in Nozick’s Utopia of Utopias
In Closing
B IBLIOGRAPHY
I NDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the librarians at the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Supreme Court Library in Springfield, Illinois, and the Brookins Library at the University of Illinois, Springfield for affording access to scarce and out-of-print materials. I am also grateful for the observations and suggestions of the three anonymous reviewers enlisted by SUNY Press as well as the encouragement and guidance of Andrew Kenyon, Senior Acquisitions Editor, philosophy, in implementing the reviewers’ recommendations. Also from SUNY Press, I extend my appreciation to Ryan Morris, Senior Production Editor, for her expertise and to Holly Rogers for her editorial enhancements. The engaging meetings of The Society for Utopian Studies and the compelling investigations in its journal Utopian Studies have kindled my interest in the role of utopias as stimulants to the moral imagination. The editorial efforts of Sabrina Leroe improved the precision and readability of the text and reduced, to a considerable degree, potential strain on the reader’s patience. James Bockmier’s editorial assistance enhanced the work’s organization and clarity as well as its stylistic consistency. I would also like to express my appreciation to my colleague Rosina Neginsky, my friend Dana Plank, my brother Jim, and my son Keith for reading slices of developmental versions of this work. Their critical comments and stimulating counsel provided early insights into the challenges I faced. The discussion of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in chapters two and three includes portions adapted from my article “Privacy and Control in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four ,” in Critical Insights: Nineteen Eighty-Four , edited by Thomas Horan (Ipswich, MA: Salem Press, Grey House Publishing, 2016), 213–27. Cover design image by William Morris from rawpixel.com / The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
INTRODUCTION
Judge Learned Hand observed, “it is hard to imagine any tax whose imposition was not in some degree dictated by its effect on the public interest.” 1 On November 6, 2017, as the US Congress prepared to complete work on a wide-ranging tax bill, the House chaplain, Reverend Patrick J. Conroy, SJ, offered a prayer.
As legislation on taxes continues to be debated this week and next, may all Members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great Nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle. May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans. 2
The prayer angered some members of Congress who sought the chaplain’s dismissal; they perceived the prayer as a political rather than a religious invocation. Like Mustapha Mond, the World Controller in Huxley’s Brave New World , they preferred “God in the safe and Ford on the shelves.” 3 Gandhi, a practitioner of both religion and politics, advises, however, that “those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.” 4 While the chaplain emphasized balancing tax benefits, the primary moral challenge of taxation is balancing sacrifices. Tax laws limiting opportunities and picking winners and losers impose sacrifices on some people for the profit of others. When lawmakers seek to camouflage their handiwork—obfuscating its self-interested dispersion of sacrifice—they evince Hayek’s