> Neither do you, let's get this proposal to the legislature.
I’m representing the interests of society to you, the same as the legislature. You’re no more entitled to say “no” to me as either of us is to say “no” to them.
> Perhaps the same can be said of all laws.
Perhaps this idea of consent and aggression could lead us to a way of making laws that do not impose values on people without their consent.
> The onus is on you to advance an alternative model and light a candle, rather than just calling taxation theft and cursing the darkness.
I’m identifying the same model as we used when we abolished slavery and marital rape. The model is already here, awaiting critical feedback. So far the only criticism is that people aren’t going to be able to avail themselves of other people’s property.
> As with taxes.
The problem is that people impose taxes on people who have not consented. That is to say that crime exists, independent of the understanding that it is crime. Right now I’m working to show you that it is in fact crime, so that you can stop enabling the criminals.
> Not so with Proudhon, the originator of the phrase. His take was that those who owned those properties had no right to the wealth generated by those properties if the labor was undertaken by others. That is, rentier wealth via property was theft.
Unfortunately thats an occasion of Proudhon dictating to others what they may and may not do with their property. In essence, Proudhon wishes to exert property rights over other people’s property by forbidding certain relations. Clearly this is self-contradictory and not a basis upon which to reject rents on capital.
> when "property" is defined as ownership by people who do not work yet become wealthier than the people from whom rent is collected.
Thats not how property is defined; and its not surprising that people who collect rent on capital often accumulate more than people who sell their labor. Its fine for someone to think thats immoral, they are free to explain why they think it is immoral, and likwewise they are free to educate themselves and realize that restricting rent on capital because of its superior productivity impoverishes society by preventing society from accessing means of superior productivity. Capital collects higher rents than laborers receive as wages: then let laborers own capital and collect their own rents. Quite naturally the market has already commodified the ownership of capital and made it available to the meanest of laborers.