Producing Workers and the Tax Pool

In my political pamphlet, "The Myth of Inalienable Rights" (http://dowehaverights.blogspot.com/) I coined a term for those people who support themselves, as well as everyone else. I call them "producing workers."

A producing worker is someone who is integral in the production of tangible goods, which is what true wealth is. You can't eat money and you can't build a house out of money nor can you wear it as clothing. Money is merely a way of keeping track of your wealth. Even if you are not fabulously wealthy, you still have wealth if you have possessions.

So who is a producing worker? A producing worker is a person with the idea for making something that other people want to possess. Or it is a person with the capital to get that idea made into a tangible object. Or it is a person who provides the labor to make the object. Or one person could fill all three positions. One person could have an idea, have the capital to buy the necessary materials, and provide the labor to make it.

The taxes that the producing workers pay support everyone else, with one minor exception. Service providing businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and airlines get paid directly by producing workers, or indirectly by people who have shared in the taxes that the producing workers have paid. Then, the service providers pay taxes on the money that came directly or indirectly from the producing workers.

Let me try and create a mental image. Imagine a large pool of water with the water representing the collected taxes from all taxable income. There is a very large inlet pipe which is coming from the producing workers. Off to one side of the large inlet pipe and before the tax pool outfall is a smaller pipe leading to the service workers and then from them an even smaller inlet pipe pouring into the tax pool.

On the other end of the pool are three siphons: federal, state, and local governments. Any money that is disbursed by these governments, whether for paying wages to government workers, farm subsidies, corporate subsidies, personal subsidies (welfare), social security, medicare, the military, road construction--anything paid for from and by these governments--comes from the taxes paid by the producing workers.

Of course, anyone getting an income from the government has to pay taxes, so there is another inlet pipe collecting that "tax water" and putting it back into the tax pool from the government side of the tax pool. However, that does not raise the level of the tax pool. It is only a small percentage of the water that was taken out previously by the governments. (And, one wonders, why government workers don't have a tax adjusted income so they don't have to pay taxes, thereby reducing the cost incurred by them filing their taxes and having their tax claims processed by more government workers.)

Also, when anyone receiving an income from the government eats in a restaurant, stays in a hotel, flies on an airplane, they are paying the service workers with the money paid in taxes by the producing workers.

When a producing worker buys anything, whether it is an automobile or a pencil, he or she is paying for it with the wealth--translated into dollars--that he or she has made by producing things that people want. When anyone receiving an income from the government buys anything, they are paying for it from the wealth created by the producing worker.

If producing workers are taxed too much it destroys incentive and, perhaps, makes some of them want to try and get in on the "free" government money. Heavy taxes also makes many of the financiers of production look for cheap labor overseas.

And, as to government largess (with other people's money), the more people receiving government money, for whatever reason, the fewer producing workers there will be to keep the tax pool at a sustainable level. If the tax pool level gets too low, the national economy will fail.

We should never forget that the whole of our economy is supported completely by the producing worker. Also, there is no such thing as a free lunch (TINSTAAFL to those who understand), regardless of what the progressives and socialists would have you believe. Fewer people on the government payroll or dole would mean more money in the pockets of those who actually support us all. That would mean more spending by those people, which would create more demand for goods, which would create more jobs and more producing workers . . . and a healthier economy.

Victimless Crime: A Contradiction in Terms

The word victim comes from the Latin word victima, which meant a person or animal that was to be killed to honor the gods. Animals aside, it is my guess that there were very few people who willingly gave themselves up to be killed in a religious ceremony.

They were victims because an outside agency--in this case, other people--caused them physical harm to the point of death. And that is a good definition of victimhood, being harmed--physically or financially--by an agency outside of one's self, whether it be by other people or by nature, and whether or not it causes one's death.

It is my contention that you, yourself, cannot be a victim of your own knowing and willing actions. You may be stupid, or ignorant, or careless, but if you harm yourself by your unforced or uncoerced actions you are not a victim.

A crime, in today's convoluted legal world, is defined as a violation of the law. But there was a time in which a crime was defined as the violation of the rights of others.

One of my favorite 19th Century authors, Lysander Spooner, in his essay Vices are not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty, stated that "[i]t is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another."

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Spooner. How can there be a crime if there is no victim, no person who has been physically or financially harmed by some other person? Therefore, there can be no "victimless crime." Either a person has been so harmed or he or she has not. If such harm has been done then a crime has been committed.

However, a person behaving in a way that may, or may not, harm himself or herself, either phyically or financially, is not violating the rights of others and is, therefore, not committing a crime. Neither would he or she be a victim, because that person, not some outside agency, is the actor.

The biggest cause for the use of the term "victimless crime" is the use of the presently illegal drugs. The laws making it criminal to make, sell, buy, or use those substances are based solely on religious or personal moral beliefs.

I agree that an adult (not a minor) who knowingly and willingly uses one or more of the presently illegal drugs and comes to some kind of harm is not a victim. But I disagree that such drug behavior is a crime. The mere use a drug does not violate the rights of others. People who drink alcoholic beverages (alcohol being a true narcotic drug) are not arrested unless their behavior harms or threatens to harm the rights of others.

Another area where the term "victimless crime" is use is in the so-called sex industry, mainly in prostitution. If an adult women knowingly and willingly rents her body for sexual use to a knowing and willing adult, there is no victim. And, since the behavior is consensual and no rights are being violated, there is no crime.

As another 19th Century author, John Stuart Mill, stated, "[t]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."

Unfortunately, society believes that the government has the legitimate power to dictate proper moral conduct and to criminalize conduct that is considered immoral by a certain percentage of the population. That flies directly in the face of the concept of inalienable rights as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Also, there doesn't seem to be a legitimate enumerated Constitutional clause allowing the government this power.

Crimes harm other people. Victims are harmed by other people. There is no such thing as a victimless crime because if there is no victim then there can be no crime. That is logical, but then, the morality laws are based on religious and personal moral beliefs which are rooted in the emotionally controlled part of our minds.