I think this is an interesting thing. If you scale the idea of 'country' down to the size of a tribe, then you can call it taxation, whithout any euphemism. They control/own the land, they decide the 'laws' on it. If that is good or bad for development of a region is another question.
> If you scale the idea of 'country' down to the size of a tribe, then you can call it taxation, whithout any euphemism.
No. "Taxes" in the modern sense implies that the taxees [1] as a group receive something in return. Are the bedouins building and maintaining roads? I don't think so. "Pay us money or else we'll torture, rape, and/or kill you" alone doesn't qualify as taxes, but as extortion.
[1] Is that a real word? I use it to refer to the people who have to pay taxes.
As a house owner I pay property taxes. Some of that money is spent by the state to maintain the road which connects my garage to the rest of the world. Some of it is spent to finance the school my kids go to. And the school bus. And the roads beneath the school bus.
'Under anarchy, uncoordinated competitive theft by "roving bandits" destroys the incentive to invest and produce, leaving little for either the population or the bandits. Both can be better off if a bandit sets himself up as a dictator-a "stationary bandit" who monopolizes and
rationalizes theft in the form of taxes. A secure autocrat has an encompassing interest in his domain
that leads him to provide a peaceful order and other public goods...'
Olson, 'Dictatorship, Democracy and Development', APSR 1993.
When you pay them you have safe passage through their territory, not only from them but from other tribes who usually want to avoid robbing people in another tribes territory.
With the taxation you not only pay them to not rob you but their presence also protects you from other robbers, who may not be willing to negotiate and just shoot you.
I really don't see a principled difference to taxation by states, the only difference is the size and a more formalized institution surround the racket.
You can decide for yourself on the morality of it, I will avoid to offer an opinion on it.
You don't pay them to have safe passage through their territory.
It's not their territory, similarly to how guerrilla groups in Columbia/Nepal do not own the Jungle/Himalaya/etc, and you don't get a choice whether you want their protection. If you brought your own armed man with you, you will get fired upon.
There where/are rubbers in Europe and in the USA, and we call them "rubbers"/"criminals". Why all of a sudden when we're discussing an "exotic" tribe we can't call it what it is?
and again I'm emphasizing that not all Bedouin tribes practic(ed) violent rubbery, but some really did(do), and it was/is really nothing like taxation.
If we want to discuss a general claim that rubbery is the same as taxation, that's fine (and I disagree), but there is no reason to drag a specific type of rubbers into focus.
They lived there since generations. They had weapons. They controlled who goes in their land.
I think that mattered more in reality, than some arbitary lines drawn on some map far away, by people never been close to the land in the first place.
And taxation in its oldest shape was indeed just protection money.
You had to pay your lord/king for safety. Otherwise the noble knights came to your farm and took what they wanted and might have burned it down, if they felt like it.
And if you passed through foreign land, you had to pay hundreds of local lords for safe passage.
Same here. You pay the nomads for safety - they keep other tribes/rubbers away from their territory, providing you safety.
So you can claim, they did provide a "service".
But sure, you cannot really compare it to the taxation and services of the modern national states.
And sure, for the caravans it would be better, if just no one was around they needed to pay for protection of someone else.
It is parasitism. But this is how most states started. By preying on the weak for the benefit of a ruling class.
These people were the government. If it's robbery when they do it it's robbery when the government does it.
Until the governments in question were able and willing to project the power necessary to take the Bedouin controlled territory by force it was their state. Regardless of what the .gov claimed on paper. The Bedouins were the government there in practice.
Except they didn't build the road or own it or live in it. They go over a vast land, attack caravans, do some damage, and then approach a day later and ask for money for "protection".
Exactly what everyone called a gang or bandits in the Americas.
For crying out loud "raiding" is listed in the Bedouin Wikipedia page under "traditions". (Again not the only practice, but it is what it is).
Also note that raiders are not generally also herders or traders and don't act in some common good and share their loot with the formers. (they share with their own close family) (most Bedouin families suffer from the raiders)
If you still have issues with seeing this as bandits also note that these tribes come with child abuse and women slavery bundled, but hey who are we to judge.
This all thread now reminds me of the movie Dogville. Highly recommend.
And don't get me wrong. They could have easily formed an autonomous territory and collect passage taxes. They didn't. The raiders, "protectors", were exactly, literally what we call gang or bandits anywhere else. Now you can go philosophical about how raiders and gang families are just tiny states, but use general terms please, these raiders are generally not different than others
You risk being murdered and your business put on fire?
Stop romanticizing it.
Yes, some states started from violent protection based tribes (not all of them). This was not taxation. There were/are states and actual laws in the places Bedouin extort people for money under threat of violence. They provided no service in return execpt the promise that they themselves would not harm you.
Absolutely no, extorting "protection" money is not OK and it is not taxation.
The difference is marginal in my view. The only difference now is that they wear suits and bleed you slowly instead of putting you out of your misery with one shot.
The commenter was instructed to ask people who have actually paid taxes. My point is that everyone does. I’m a valid person to ask my experience. It’s not scary. I doubt anybody who has been mugged would say the same.
> You risk being murdered and your business put on fire?
Yeah. Depending on the details of how you go about not paying your taxes I can see it happening. Heck, even if you pay your taxes the tax men might do it to you anyway if you do the kind of business they don't like they think you're unsympathetic enough and can get some political brownie points for screwing you[0](though thankfully this is very rare).
> There were/are states and actual laws
What makes them "actual laws". Surely the Bedouin have customs regarding the right and wrong amounts to charge, methods of payment, penalties for non-payment, etc, etc and those who work outside of those customs would be subject to penalty as a corrupt or rogue agent of the state would be in a "normal" state.
On the other I'm guessing your country does actually provide a ton of services you benefit from every day. Transport and utility infrastructure, health services, social services, policing and justice systems that protect your personal and property rights, national security and defence, it's easy to take all of that for granted.
If you live in a democracy, 'the government' is a consensus agreed by the people around you that you live amongst. The government is your family, neighbours, employer, all your fellow citizens. If you really don't like it vote, campaign, go into politics and change it. People do that.
I don’t really buy the moral argument. The government regulates, facilitates and protects the economy in which you work and earn. It creates and acts to protect the value of the currency itself.
The problem with consumption taxes is they can be bypassed in many ways, such as by spending your earnings abroad. I do think income taxes at higher brackets can be counter productive because they also can be bypassed in various ways, but that’s a practical matter not a moral one.
I have links to China and I think the growing implementation and use of income tax in China is a good thing. I hope that it will give Chinese people a sense that they are personally funding government, and that therefore the government should be accountable to them, the people paying its way.
As a citizen I feel a lot more of a direct connection between myself and responsibility for and accountability of government through the income taxes I pay than anything else. I’m proud of my contribution through income tax, but not so much for things like VAT.
Because if people consume more, they would pay more and wealthier people generally consume more.
The problem with income tax is that low income people risk being put in jail if they can't pay their taxes. And rich people can easily avoid income tax anyway (e.g. earn 1 USD a year from the job and get paid in stock or donate most income to a foundation that is in their own control).
An extra tax on luxury goods (private airplanes, yachts) would also be ok by the way.
It’s called taxation, in the Middle ages peasants we’re taxed by the King and the only thing offered was protection. Government services is a modern world thing.
And even in the middle ages there were criminals. People that rubbed villagers on the side of the road. People that brunt down their fields and asked for money. There is a difference between violently robing people and taxation.
In a modern society, if you don't pay your taxes you are likely to be imprisoned, possibly violently (depending on circumstances). Fundamentally there is no difference.
You fail to see the parallels. A state is a group of people, and taxation is money for that group. I guess you are thinking emotionally and with associations ("state" and "tax" is something "respectful" and "civilized" and "bedouins" and "robbers" are something "uncivilized").
First of all I didn't say 'bedouins' are 'uncivilized'. Bedouins are not just about what we discuss here and they are not all violent, unlawful, or "robbers".
Second, I see very well where people are making the very much false IMO parallels.
You are comparing modern states to opportunistic self-serving shortsighted violent families. Yes, states used and use violence also, but, no, they did not evolve from the kind of behavior that we are talking about, if anything they evolved in opposition to this. "Parallels"? similarity? maybe in some broad sense, but the differences are Hugh.
There is no structure here, there is no idea of a shared identity, there is no law. There is just the extended family (tribe) an the opportunity and willingness to do harm to others for profit. And no, historically this is not where we all came from, and no, this was not how most states where formed, and no, this is not what taxes are about.
I don't think you're correct there as others have pointed out, but are you trying to say that taxation is bad, or that this kind of rent-seeking behavior is good? I can't quite work out what you're getting at.
He's saying that you can't both say it's good if the government does it and bad if a tribe does it. The tribe has just as much right (that is, might), as a "legitimate government".
> He's saying that you can't both say it's good if the government does it and bad if a tribe does it.
Who says that though? Is it a straw man argument or is there some real point to it? Is it bad when the government and the tribe does it, or good when they do it?
> The tribe has just as much right (that is, might), as a "legitimate government".
