In today’s age one would expect the principles of slavery and involuntary servitude to be unacceptable under any grounds. What people fail to realize is that while this may be true for individual citizens, what is illegal for citizens is not necessarily illegal for government.

The Merriam-Webster definition of slavery is the “submission to a dominating influence.” The 13th Amendment of the Constitution, adopted in 1865, specifically prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. The U.S. Code punishes those who seek involuntary and forced labor of others with a fine and prison sentence of up to twenty years.

Yet there is one form of involuntary servitude, coercive labor, and obtaining money through force and threat of physical restraint that largely goes unquestioned in the U.S.: the income tax. First, let’s briefly explore the history of taxes in the U.S.

After the creation of the United States and the Constitution, the federal government paid the majority of its bills through tariffs and internal excise taxes on various items and goods. During the War of 1812 an income tax had been proposed to help pay off expenses but was never brought into existence. Several years later in 1817, every internal tax was eliminated and all of the federal revenue came from tariffs on imported items and the sale of public land.

To pay for the mounting costs of the Civil War, in 1862 Congress passed the first income tax of 3% on those who made between $600 and $10,000 (people who made above $10,000 paid a higher portion). This income tax was phased out in 1872. Another income tax was briefly put into place in 1894 and 1895, but was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. During this period, the Populist, Democratic, and Socialist Labor parties were all advocating for some form of income tax. The Socialist Labor Party was and still is the leading socialist/communist party in the U.S.

Arguments made for the passage of the 16th Amendment and the permanent ability of the federal government to tax income often revolved around the rhetoric that an income tax would mean less reliance on tariffs for revenue, which would result in lower prices, and therefore help less fortunate citizens. The original idea was that only the rich would be taxed and feel any negative effect. Sound familiar?

An income tax gives government the direct control over any individual who holds a legal job. This simple principle of direct taxation, especially since the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, has played a major role in the growth of the federal government over the past century. If government can reach into income, there is no limit to the extent that government can reach into your property to raise funds. It is all done in the name of protecting the poor and the middle class, punishing the rich, and promoting “equality.”

“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.” — Frederic Bastiat

Think about this situation for a second. Are taxes not forced out of us through coercion and threats (audits, fines, prison, etc.)? Is income taxation anything close to voluntary servitude? Is the income tax in any way not a “submission to a dominating influence,” the Webster definition of slavery? At what point does taxation become a form of legal slavery?

Most people in the U.S. spend approximately one-third of their time working for the government. Some may argue that we get benefits by working for the federal government: welfare, education, and many other programs created since the adoption of the latest income tax in 1913. Would these same people argue that if slaves had been forced to work merely one-third of their time and received basic benefits from their masters that it would be morally acceptable? This practice would be rightfully blasted as immoral and illegal in a second if it was done by a plantation owner, but it is rarely questioned when performed by government. So I ask again – at what point does taxation become a form of legal slavery?

“To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection, it is plunder.” — Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the U.K. (1874-1880)

The intentions of the income tax do not justify a thing. It is one of the core ideals of socialism, communism, and Nazism, the very systems that have grown into the greatest abominations of life that mankind has ever seen. The income tax builds into the notion that our rights, privileges, and liberties come from government and its powerful leaders. Certain centralized and elevated individuals have the power to take the fruits of our labor through force; this alone is a principle that originated with kings and some of the greediest individuals in history, not with a free people.

In The Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, Karl Marx lists “a heavy and progressive or graduated income tax” as the second of ten general steps for a nation’s transition to communism.

The principle of the income tax is a direct assault on the life, liberty, and property of all humans. An income tax implies that there is a higher authority to whom we must work and contribute or be severely punished. It shifts power to the men and women who feel they know the best uses for our labor. The very idea is that certain centralized and powerful individuals in government have the wisdom and morality that the general people lack, and the authority to force others into that moral code. At heart, it is one of the most selfish, discriminatory, and violent ideals to have crept upon the U.S. and other nations.

“I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.” — Frederick Douglass

The income tax has become incredibly entrenched in our economy and society today. It is often considered unthinkable to imagine a time when the federal government stayed within its constitutional confines; it is unimaginable to think of a federal government whose soul purpose is to protect life, liberty, and property. An income tax is one of the worst forms of taxation possible: there are few ways to avoid it (as you can somewhat do with sales tax, excise taxes, and tariffs), it is a horrid state invasion of privacy and property, and it turns government into a tool of plunder with a strong disregard for basic justice.

These elevated and seemingly angelic figures whom we elect convince us that it is because of too much freedom and voluntary exchange that our biggest problems arise, rather than recognize one of the greediest, most powerful, and largest attacks on life, liberty, and property through the income tax and the centralist principles it is guaranteed to carry with it.

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” — James Madison

Judging from the media and political scene today, regulations to “help the environment” or “punish greed” sound too good to pass up. However good increased government regulation and control may sound, it is essential that people consider the regulatory harm that is not directly seen.

Today “Cap and Trade” and limiting carbon emissions is a top priority for Barack Obama and many politicians. To dismiss claims that this legislation would hurt the economy, corporate leaders are stepping up to the plate to support the legislation. In fact, quite a few major corporations have supported legislation of this sort over the past decade, such as Dupont, Dow Chemical, and Caterpillar. These corporations must be fighting for the noble cause, right? Not entirely.

What we hear is the supposed benefit of the government regulating carbon emissions in the name of the planet. What we don’t directly see is who pays for those regulations and how they pay for them. Regulations are not cheap to enforce or to comply with. What’s key to understand is that large corporations, who have more money and manpower than their competition, will not have a tough time working with the regulation.

But what about the smaller businesses in the marketplace? Clearly regulations that cost several million dollars per year will effect a $500 million company more than a $50 billion company. When you take this into account it is quite simple to see why many corporations are pushing for more regulation: it stifles the competition, who are forced to allocate more manpower and money to meet regulation. That money will come away from product development, wages, production, etc., and things of that sort, while forcing businesses to either raise prices or scale back on other areas of business that made them competitive in the first place.

When government pops a new regulation on the market, it requires money from the taxpayers to enforce and money from the businesses to comply with. Always take it as a danger sign if large corporations are supporting or actually encouraging government to pass new regulation. They see that more regulation means less effective competitors; history has not shown it any other way. If the corporations really felt that strongly about limiting emissions, absolutely nothing is stopping them from voluntarily doing it right now. At the heart of it, regulation often represents an indirect subsidy to corporations.

In the early part of the 20th century, hemp was a major competitor to many different industries: fuel, paper, clothing, among many others. William Randolph Hearst, a wealthy businessman who owned vast amounts of timberland used to create paper, saw hemp as a major threat to his position in the paper industry (given that hemp was a much more sustainable source for paper).  Similarly, Dupont would have had a tough time had hemp plastic been allowed to compete with its plastic made from oil and coal. Hearst, Dupont, and other corporate interests fought to criminalize hemp through government in 1937. Hemp was thrown in with the government’s scare campaign against marijuana and cannabis merely because very powerful interests were fighting for it. Because of this, one of the most remarkable and efficient plants is still illegal to grow in most states.

Regulation has this effect both at the state and federal level. Within the past year, my home state of California passed an act in the name of “animal rights.” I am a staunch believer in the humane treatment of animals, but this regulation will hurt smaller farms most (who usually treat animals better than the large-scale corporate farms) who do not have the resources to comply with complex laws. While the thought behind the regulation may have been good, it will simply give the corporate farms (who often treat animals far less humanely than smaller farms) a competitive advantage over smaller and more sustainable farms.

The problem with government regulation is that it actually takes power away from individuals, consumers, and the local level. This is precisely because it is the smaller businesses who suffer from government regulation the most, and that government regulation will increase the inefficiency of competition in favor of larger corporations. By indirectly shifting the advantage through regulation, government decreases choice, limits competition, thereby increasing prices and hurting consumers the most.

Quite simply, government regulation decreases the regulatory oomph of the individual. As more regulation and laws are constantly being proposed and passed by politicians, the fate of a business lies increasingly on pleasing government, not the individual. The power tilts to government force rather than voluntary exchange.

Unlike government regulation, in a true free market consumer regulation is indifferent to the size and power of a business. In a true free market, a business must serve the interests of the individual, not government, to survive. In a true free market, individuals searching for the best product or best service at the best price outweigh the regulatory ability of government bureaucrats.

Regulations do not fall out of the sky and suddenly make things better. They have a cost, both in the short-term and the long run. With government regulation, effective competition is decreased because of lack of resources to comply with the regulation. With a free market, competition is decreased because of nonproductive practices. Government regulation does not discriminate between productivity and wealth. In a true free market, productivity, not wealth, is rewarded regardless of size.

More cries for government regulation will often come from individuals, corporations, and politicians alike. What must be realized is that as the regulatory power of the government increases, especially so on the federal stage, the regulatory power of the people and the market decreases. Government regulation might be seen as the attractive option in the short-term, but it is only the individual’s regulatory power that can shift the economy and society in a sustainable direction over the long run. The demands of the people, not bureaucrats, pave the road of true security, freedom, and liberty.

It’s hard to not go gaga over the ideas and intentions of “stimulus packages” and ramped up government programs. After all, won’t it create a lot of jobs, boost the economy, and lift us out of a rough spot? This is what we’ve constantly heard from politicians and the media especially over the past couple years. “Government needs to do something.”

Never forget how government gets its money. It does not earn it. It does not work for it. Every penny that goes to government must come forcefully from a productive area of the economy. Government can’t take money from a failing business or struggling individual, it must forcefully take money from wealthier (i.e. productive) businesses and individuals.

This brings us to the first problem with “stimulus projects” in the form of increased government programs, public works, and public spending in general. The only way any government can afford to spend billions and trillions of dollars “stimulating” the economy is to either tax, borrow, or print that money. In other words, people will either directly lose more money to government through taxes, the effect may be felt in the longer-term through debt and borrowing, or the currency will depreciate and prices will rise through the process of monetary inflation. Pick your poison; all three options for government to increase spending will inevitably pinch people the most either directly or indirectly.

“Stimulus packages” aim to boost the economy in the short-term. If government can provide jobs to build public entities (such as transportation options, buildings, etc.) the economy will correct quicker than if the market could work, right? The problem with this theory is people always ignore where that money comes from. Taking money from productive sources in the economy and throwing it to unproductive and expensive projects does not set the economy on a sustainable foundation.

Strong economies are not build on artificial spending. The more that government takes from productive sources in the economy and pumps it into unproductive government projects, the longer the correction and recession will be. Consider some of the projects being funded under Obama’s massive spending plan. One is building a light rail track. This is all well and good, but how is spending billions of dollars on a train track and system going to increase long-term productivity? Few people use government-operated trains as it is (witness Amtrak and its black hole of wasted money), it will simply require more funds sucked out of productive sources to survive.

People buy into the illusion that as long as people have jobs, regardless of productivity, it is good for the economy. Unproductive jobs do no good for the economy and will not expand sustainability and prosperity. Napoleon tried to create jobs and work just by paying people to dig up ditches and fill them back in. It’s a nice idea, but it won’t do a thing to improve the economic picture. It is when labor is efficiently and sustainably used that an economy will expand on a strong foundation.

Today we are seeing government promote and prop up unproductive entities like nothing else. First, we bail out companies who lived beyond their means, made terrible business decisions, and recklessly spent money. These companies were unproductive and hurting the economy. Second, we have the ongoing “stimulus package” pumping money into pork projects that will not be productive in the least. It may sound great to build roads and infrastructure to stimulate the economy, but it won’t create wealth and expand productivity. It is not beneficial to use productivity to fund nonproductive goals. It is a bogus and failed theory that we continue to follow. It will not help the long-term economic picture.

One does not need to look very hard to see how terribly these government shenanigans have failed in the past. The Great Depression is the first obvious example. Hoover and Roosevelt both increased taxes, public projects, and expanded government with hopes of curing economic ills. Subsidies, public works projects, and many other government programs were created and expanded in the 1930s. Roads were built, prices were propped up, and government would not let the market organize labor and money on its own. Despite the intervention and spending efforts from government, unemployment was higher in 1939 than in 1931. The New Deal cost billions of dollars and expanded the federal government like never before, but unemployment and productivity still did not improve.

Let’s take a brief detour to the recession of 1921. Few people have heard of this recession because government actually decreased its size, spending, and taxes during the rough economic period. The government and Federal Reserve did next to nothing as the economy began to correct after the government’s market intervention during World War 1. The government (to the disappointment of some interventionist politicians), rather than increase its role as it would do disastrously just eight years later, ended up sitting this recession out. Prices fell, unproductive businesses failed and reorganized, and the economy was back on its feet after no more than 18 months. The pain was brief, the correction and reorganization was quick, and it all happened largely because government reduced its size and let the market shift money and labor to productive areas of the economy.

In more modern times, Japan’s “Lost Decade” can be another example of the botched intervention of government and the central bank. Some believe that Japan did too little to “stimulate” the economy, when the government and central bank actually took a nearly identical road to the U.S. today. Failed businesses were propped up by government, the central bank lowered interest rates to 0% for a time and pumped cheap money and credit into the economy, and huge amounts of Yen were spent on unproductive and essentially worthless public projects. All of this did nothing but lead to huge government debt and a devastated economy.

It’s hard to understand how much money Keynesians want to spend on “stimulating” the economy. Paul Krugman, the front-runner of the Keynesian crowd, is calling for a second and larger stimulus package. The trillions of dollars already pumped into unproductive businesses and projects wasn’t enough? How much do these guys think we need to spend to bring about their Keynesian Utopia? Rather than realize that government intervention and central manipulation have done more to agitate the economy than help, people are crying for more of the same that historically has done more damage than good.

Government is great at managing the time, labor, and money of other people. It also guarantees that politicians won’t manage that time, labor, and money more efficiently than the people who own that time, labor, and money. The very concept that by taking from productive parts of the economy and spreading it to various unproductive jobs and projects is downright silly. The worst recessions and depressions have come in many countries when government prevents the market from reallocating funds from unproductive businesses and sectors to the strong and productive areas of the economy.

Preventing the failure of a large corporation because jobs would be lost is the equivalent of saying that government should have propped up horse and buggies and the many jobs in the industry regardless of its uselessness to society. The natural order of a free market is to shift funds to the strongest, smartest, and most productive businesses and industries. When government gets in the way with bailouts, “stimulus plans,” and countless other intervention methods, it only guarantees inefficiency, unsustainable activities, and prolonged suffering.

The answer to our economic problems does not lie in government spending as Paul Krugman and many other Keynesians would like, but in more freedom for the market and people to reallocate money and labor to the productive and sustainable portions of the economy.