6/24/2015 Frank Chodorov argues that taxation is an act of coercion and if pushed to its logical limits will result in Socialism (1946) ­ Online Library of Liberty

http://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/146 1/2

From: Fugitive Essays:Selected Writings of FrankChodorov (Frank Chodorov)

By: Frank Chodorov

Theme: Taxation

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Frank Chodorov argues that taxation is an actof coercion and if pushed to its logical limitswill result in Socialism (1946)

Frank Chodorov argues that taxation is an act of coercionwhich violates individual rights to property and, if pushed toits logical limits, will result in the ownership of all productionand property in the hands of the state, i.e. Socialism:

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Whenever it declares itself on the subject of taxation,socialism shows how well it knows its stuff. The Pharisees ofthat order have pointed out how the bourgeois system of“forced dues and charges”—as the Encyclopedia Britannicadescribes taxes—can well bring about the abolition of privateproperty. It is a device for both siphoning capital out ofcitizens' pockets into the coffers of the state and discouragingthe accumulation of capital. In that they are eminentlycorrect, even though, characteristically, they avoidmentioning the greater peculation of wages. But, since theend justifies the means, they are strong for taxes, the biggerthe better.

The scribes of what we call capitalism, neither as knowingnor as honest, have gone about camouflaging taxation withtheories, canons, sanctimonious justifications, and, of course,a library of laws, until its mask has become its true face.When you unmask it, by means of reason and historicalinvestigation, you see that taxation is highwaymanry maderespectable by custom, thievery made moral by law; thereisn’t a decent thing to be said for it, as to origin, principle, orits effects on the social order. Man’s adjustment to thisiniquity has permitted its force to gain momentum like anunopposed crime wave; and the resulting social devastationis what the socialists have long predicted and prayed for.

The fact of taxation was known long before it was so named.If the thing was referred to by any particular word, it musthave been some prehistoric counterpart of swag. The Daneswho made periodic collecting visits to their neighbors calledDannegeld. However, a name and a theory are unimportantto the unsophisticated brigand who takes what he likes; both

6/24/2015 Frank Chodorov argues that taxation is an act of coercion and if pushed to its logical limits will result in Socialism (1946) ­ Online Library of Liberty

http://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/146 2/2

About this Quotation:

Few people are willing to call a spade a spade. Frank Chodorov however is one of thosepeople when he calls taxation a form of robbery which has been obfuscated by intellectualsand politicians for centuries. Writing at the end of World War Two, when the state hadgrown prodigiously and taxation and debt levels had risen accordingly, Chodorov thought hecould see a pattern in all this: the steady increase in taxation would ultimately lead tosocialism. One might compare this with Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom written in1944 which comes to a similar conclusion.

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become important only after the browbeaten victim learnshow to buy peace at a price, and the brigand finds it nice toput himself on a par with the merchant. The path ofskulduggery is made easier with a coating of morality, whichis aptly applied to an established custom, by the lawyer andthe professor of economics. And so, the business of takingwhat does not belong to you has been well obfuscated by a“philosophy” of taxation. …

All this argument, however, is a concession to theobfuscation with which custom, law, and sophistryhave covered up the true character of taxation.There cannot be a good tax, or a just one; therefore,every tax rests its case on political power. And thepower behind every levy fattens on its collections,while the power of the individual is commensuratelyweakened. The ultimate of the progressive processof taxation is the absorption of all production by thestate—which is the ideal of socialism.