One of the first Facebook friends I lost occurred because I equated taxation to slavery. It was unthinkable to him that I would, in any form, draw similarities between "society enabling" taxation and demoralizing chattel slavery. After all, the local tax assessor doesn't knock on my door, whip in hand, waiting for me to pay my municipal taxes so maybe I should just stop talking in hyperbole.
Rothbard restored my resolve in equating slavery and taxation. In chapter 2 of Man, Economy, and State, Rothbard covers interpersonal interactions. There are two ways in which we can interact with one another, either by mutually beneficial voluntary trade or through threats of violence i.e. hegemony. What's remarkable about the analysis is how he formalizes hegemony using praxeology. Axiomatically, one person loses and another gains under a system of hegemony. If both were to profit from the transaction, an ulterior motive to comply would not be needed and we'd be back to voluntary trade. The ulterior motive under hegemony is to avoid the pain of the violence threatened. A person faced with a threat of violence has to determine what is higher on his value scale: the suffering that would result if the threat were carried out or carrying out the demands of the aggressor. In this way both parties "profit" but only because one party imposed a threat.
The state imposes a threat on every citizen to comply with its rules. This includes paying taxes, not smoking indoors, not taking drugs, not speeding, not using insider information, and not buying products from any country the state doesn't like (to name a few). To disobey does not imply a crime, it does not imply that any aggression has taken place; it simply means that you have not listened to the threat closely enough, and you should be prepared to suffer the consequence. In the case of taxation, the state has not shown itself to be legitimate owners over all things in a given territory, it just says so under threat of force. This is hegemony; this is how some people lose and others gain. The state does not persuade you to pay for its torture, its drone attacks, its invasions; it simply demands you do so or else. Every minute spent paying off these demands is to prevent violence from the state, it is not for an end that you yourself seek (generally speaking), the end is to avoid your kidnapping, imprisonment, or death. You do not work to satisfy your desires, to accomplish your goals; it is to accomplish the goals of the state. Because your only choice is to work for the state or to be punished by the state, you are the state's slave.
Slavery is not per se violent just like the state is not per se violent. It is possible to imagine a slave owner or state that never used violence, although the latter is very difficult to imagine. However, both must, by definition, use threats of violence. If they did not then a slave owner would be an employer and the state would be a business, no hegemonic rule would exist if threats of violence were not used. Chattel slavery described the cases where violence was carried out to alter behavior. This is similar to the violence used today to prevent people from taking drugs (google Jose Guerena). In most white collar cases of tax evasion or insider trading no violence actually takes place but fines are collected and people are imprisoned. What about "white collar" style slavery? I'm guessing it occurred, perhaps often, that some slaves were never whipped or harmed. Some might have gone along doing just what they're told, much like we do with the state. Plus, slaves were expensive, and they were an important asset to the plantation. It's likely that some farmers didn't wish to harm their investment the same way people don't harm their horses, cattle, or sheep dogs (border collies) today. The state puts far less emphasis on human life than the plantation owner, this is evident by the tens of millions killed by their own state in the 20th century. However, if the beating of slaves was as ubiquitous as we've been lead to believe then it's likely that the proud black workers were not so easily conjoled into accepting their slave owner as their great benefactor. They would likely have resisted more than the modern, putty-brained american who can't imagine life off the plantation. If Kunta-Kinte were a 21st century american he would have requested to be called Toby while bending down to lick his new owner's boot. This is not to say anarchists should be more courageous (I'd say foolish) in standing up against the state, it's simply to point out that slaves didn't accept that they were legitimately owned and neither should we. Slavery is wrong, not because violence is carried out, but because threats of violence are used against an innocent person to change his behavior, to extract from him the product of his labor.
I no longer consider taxation equal to slavery, but have conclude that taxation is in fact worse than slavery because the state attempts to seize for itself not only your labor but your will and your mind. Under the state, children are subject to compulsory education (paid for by taxation) where the kids are told daily how the state protects them, and how it has protected their parents, grandparents, and without the state we'd be enslaved (by a different state of course, not necessarily a worse one). It's clear that this brainwashing is incredibly effective as evident by my ex-friend and by most of the people I encounter who embrace the gun of the state. Under state hegemony people actually begin to believe that their enslavement is the best possible outcome, that if they weren't slaves, a much worse fate would await them. The state has successfully convinced them that in their heart of hearts that two and two really make up five.
It's truly sick, and I refuse to accept that humans can do no better than mass hegemony, mass farming of human potential, and the imprisoning of young minds. Krishnamurti said, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" and so I will not apologize for equating taxation to slavery. Hegemony is hegemony is hegemony regardless of its form. It is not the way civil people act. Cooperation, compassion, trade, fortitude, hard work; these are compatible with a peaceful society. Fraud, murder, aggression, hegemony, and callousness; these are compatible with barbarism, with the state. These are in fact the modus operandi of the state apparatus, they must be defied if we seek peace and human flourishing.
