Winston Churchill made the point clear: “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” There is no such thing as taxation that ever increases the living standard or economic growth. That is a fundamental fact of life and anyone who argues otherwise is simply trying to live off of other people’s money turning them into economic slaves.
Japan is the ultimate example of how fiscal irresponsibility destroyed the economy much like the fall of Rome. Feudalism emerged in Japan BECAUSE they raised taxes so much people could no longer afford to live. They were forced to abandon their property and sold their labor to the TAX-FREE landlords. Today we have lobbyists who make sure the bankers pay little to nothing and get unreasonable allowances living exempt from any rule of law (Goldman Sachs got a tax-free deal to build their new headquarters because it was close to the World Trade Center). Back then, the aristocrats got tax-free exemptions along with the Buddhist monks. Hence, all taxation falls to the unprivileged class lacking lobbyists.
These estates or manors rose undermining the political and economic power of the emperor and contributed to the growth of powerful local clans. The estates developed from land tracts assigned to officially approved Shintō shrines or Buddhist temples or had been granted by the emperor as gifts to the Imperial family, friends, or officials. Local administration gradually became more self-sufficient, while the breakdown of the old land distribution system and the rise of taxes drove the average individual from their land forcing them to just abandon everything becoming the “wave people” (furōsha) or the hobos of the United States after they lost their farms as well in the Great Depression. As the people were driven from their property because of government taxation they were forced to sell themselves as servants of the tax-free landholders. This process increasingly converted Japan into a feudal system all BECAUSE if taxation. This is why no coins were minted for 600 years.
Taxation DESTROYS society. PUBLILIUS SYRUS, of the 1st century B.C., said: “Debt is the slavery of the free.” The destruction of society by debt has been known for a long time. It was the sin of usury that the Catholic Church maintained as well as the Arabs. Fiscal mismanagement of government has ALWAYS, undermined living standards and economic growth. Women today have LOST the right to stay home and raise children if they wanted to. It now takes two people to pay the taxes to survive compared to the 1930’s. In 1980 Margaret Thatcher said: “Never in the history of human credit has so much been owed.”
As Adam Smith wrote:
“It is the highest impertinence of kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without exception, the greatest spend thrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.”
Adam Smith Wealth of Nations 1776, Book II, Chapter III,
Of the Accumulation of Capital, or of Productive and Unproductive Labour
