View source for Taxation is rent; non-payment of taxes is squatting.

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[[Category:Mike Huben]]
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{{DES | des = [[Government holds allodial title.|Allodial title]] means that government is the ultimate owner of the land.  As the property owner, government can do as it sees fit with the land, including who resides there and makes use of it.  The idea that "taxation is theft" attempts to blame the government when the non-payer is at fault. | show=}}
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==Allodial Title==
All rights, all property, are held ONLY by enforcement.  All nations hold their territory through enforcement of their territorial claims by occupancy and defense.  The legal term for this is allodial title, which means that the territory is the property of the nation because it is occupied and defended.  It is a part of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty Sovereignty].  Allodial title is a form of property: territory has been bought and sold frequently in the past (for example, the Louisiana Purchase and the Alaska Purchase.)  That's what makes government the ultimate owner, and why it has rights of taxation, expropriation, escheat and eminent domain. Allodial title is a fact that is required for any nation (or anarchist equivalent) to persist in the face of other competitors for the land. Libertarians may call this coercive, but it is a fact that all property and rights are coercive this same way. What is ordinarily thought of as real property in the US and other [[Common Law|common law]] nations is held in "[[fee simple]]".

Allodial title is as close to the absolute property libertarians want as you will find in the real world.  Because of sovereignty, there are no limits on what can be done on that property without outside interference.

==Property Rights In Territory==
Once national territory is viewed correctly as property, then [[Bundle of Rights|a large bundle of property rights]] applies to the territory:

*the right to possess
*the right to use
*the right to manage
*the right to the income of the thing
*the right to the capital
*the right to security
*the right of transmissibility
*the right of absence of term

Government as a sovereign can enforce these rights for itself.

These normal parts of property rights do not apply because of soverignty:

*the duty to prevent harm
*liability to execution and
*the incident of residuarity

==Taxation As Rent==

Just as we don't question a landlord's right to rent (under the above rights), we have no cause to question government's right to collect rent as taxes in whatever form it wants.  That's because a tenant has no rights to the property with which to deny the claim of the landowner for rent.  Likewise, a resident of a nation has no rights to the territory with which to deny the government's claim to rent (taxes.)  Property owners have historically demanded many forms of rent: fixed amounts, shares of production, etc.  Governments can also do so with fixed or progressive taxes on anything.  Libertarians have no valid reason to oppose rent collection by ANY property owner, but they make an unwarrented exception for government.

==Non-Payment Of Taxes Is Squatting==

Squatting is: the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use.

This denies the owner of many of his rights, and under various jurisdictions is a civil or criminal offense.

That makes non-payment of taxes, illegal immigration, operation of business without licenses and many other offenses equivalent to squatting because they violate several of the bundle of rights listed above.  It's no different than for any other landlord.

==The Market Has Spoken==

With the state as the ultimate owner, fee simple property is really rented from government through property tax.  Work and business conducted in the territory are also subject to taxes for the privilege of using the territory.  Some libertarians whine "So you argue that no one ever owns anything? The state does? And we simply rent the land we own from the state? And that is fine with you?"  The answer is obviously yes: that's the way it works for property ownership in almost all circumstances.  The market has spoken: the value of fee simple property is many trillions of dollars.  You don't have to be the ultimate owner to benefit from property, nor does it matter except to would-be freeloaders.  And it is easier and probably cheaper to rent and let the landlord worry about defense and other things like that for the same reason that most of us do not self insure.

==States Exist In An Anarchocapitalist Society Of States==

Of course this real anarchocapitalism differs from libertarian daydreams.  Instead of hiring protection agencies, states defend themselves.  Instead of having a granularity of individuals, there is a granularity of geographical territories.  Instead of having overlapping polycentric law from protection agencies, the polycentric law does not overlap because of territories.  That's the real result of anarchocapitalism, and it would be up to libertarians to find viable means to change it.

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