A Rule of Justice?

One way or another, what happened around the “tax CDs”, no matter if they are real or probably only exist virtually, still causes an upheaval inside me.

Tax evaders are criminals. Criminals must be punished. If they committed a severe crime, they even must go to prison. We should buy the CDs.

That is what we hear around every corner and it seems to be the general opinion. Although the people I know and have been discussing it with do not share that opinion. They believe the state should not use more and more questionable methods and make denouncianism more and more respectable.

And then I think that the state and the public morals have just sought the easy way out. And I come up with strange ideas:

Is it really the tax evader who is doubtless the criminal? Or does not the state at least have a share in the guilt by taking away so much of the income from its citizens through a system that nobody can understand any more?

As I see it – and this is how I also read it, for instance, in my favourite constitution, the Bavarian one – the state has a number of duties. It must administer the power monopoly adequately. It should serve the citizens. It should give structure to the economic life. Education, safety and some sort of social network are part of its responsibilities. It has to provide a functioning infra structure …

And then one can think of stupid questions like these:

• What if the state gets more and more negligent of its duties or fails to balance them? Is it then still allowed to cash in so much?
• Is the state still allowed to accumulate this kind of debt? After all “in theory” (and most likely in practice, as well), future generations will have to pay it back.
• Why should I pay for an infra structure I do not even need? An infra structure that will most likely be detrimental to us as an entity or even ruin us?
• Why should anybody grant a subsidy for buying and driving a car to a total stranger (eventually, it was 25 citizens, each of whom gave 100 Euros for the 26th citizen to get his wreck premium)?
• Why should I pay the state for providing infra structure if all its wants to do is privatize everything?
• Why should I finance the war in Afghanistan, which in all probability will eventually be judged by history to have been totally useless, just like the other wars of the last 50 years, be it in Vietnam, Iraq, or elsewhere.
• Should I pay for the pharmaceutical industry to make a huge profit, even though, as a matter of principle, I only take medication in an emergency and would never get a vaccination against swine infection?
• Didn’t the church say a long time ago that a fair tax was ten per cent of your income?
• Is it fair that I have to pay tax again on the interest of money that I originally already paid tax for?
• And assuming that I want my property to go to my children, why do I have to pay tax yet again?
• And is it really  my responsibility that everybody is employed, regardless of the fact that the system increases the price of the raw material labour to such an extent  that some things can only seem to work if done in illegal employment ?
• How long before we will no longer be able to afford all these taxes and all this state while our general prosperity dwindles?
• May the state really break the law in order to punish crime?
• Or does it only break the law in order to accumulate (even more) money?
• Does the state still represent the interest of its citizens? Or did it install an administration controlled by lobbyism of the powerful and individual interests of a party oligarchy?

Looking at all these issues, I am no longer sure if at the end of the road might not loom a rule of injustice. And I wonder why more and more Germans emigrate.

Our economical system made it possible for a manager to potentially earn not only 20 times, but even 400 times as much as his normal employees. And that you can become a billionaire within a few decades or even a few years if you are a race driver, golfer, soccer, or simply an author or entrepreneur.

In my opinion, it is a socially misdirected development that you can get absurdly rich because of a special talent, certainly some hard work and a lot of luck. But calling for the state to take this money away from the people by way of taxation out of jealousy cannot be the solution, either.

These are the kinds of ideas I have in weak moments.

I would almost be glad for some of you to prove my theses wrong once and for all. After all, I do not wish to fall victim to the virus “being fed up with the state”.

RMD
(Translated by EG)