Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Bureaucracy: Bureaucracy is a hierarchical organizational structure characterized by standardized procedures, clear roles, and formal rules governing decision-making within a system or institution._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Murray N. Rothbard on Bureaucracy - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard III 907 Bureaucracy/taxes/Rothbard: For years, writers on public finance have been searching for the "neutral tax," i.e., for that system of taxes which would keep the free market intact. The object of this search is altogether chimerical. For example, economists have often sought uniformity oftaxes, so that each person, or at least each person in the same income bracket, pays the same amount oftax. But this is inherently impossible, as we have already seen from Calhoun's demonstration that the community is inevitably divided into taxpayers and tax-consumers, Who, of course, cannot be said to pay taxes at all. To repeat the keen analysis of Calhoun(1): "nor can it be otherwise; unless what is collected from each individual in the shape oftaxes shall be returned to him in disbursements, which would make the process nugatory and absurd." RothbardVsBureaucracy: In short, government bureaucrats do not pay taxes; they consume the tax proceeds. If a private citizen earning $ 10,000 income pays $2,000 in taxes, the bureaucrat earning $ 10,000 does not really pay $2,000 in taxes also; that he supposedly does is simply a bookkeeping fiction. He is actually acquiring an income of $ 8,000 and paying no taxes at all. >Taxation/Rothbard. 1. It has become fashionable to assert that John C. Calhoun anticipated the Marxian doctrine of class exploitation, but actually, Calhoun's "classes" were castes: creatures of State intervention itself. In particular, Calhoun saw that the binary intervention of taxation must always be spent so that some people in the community become net payers of tax funds, and the others net recipients. Calhoun defined the latter as the "ruling class" and the former as the "ruled." Thus: „Few, comparatively, as they are, the agents and employees ofthe government constitute that portion of the community who are the exclusive recipients of the proceeds of the taxes.... But as the recipients constitute only a portion of the community, it follows ... that the action of [the fiscal process] must be unequal between the payers of the taxes and the recipients of their proceeds. Nor can it be otherwise; unless what is collected from each individual in the shape oftaxes shall be returned to him in that of disbursements, which would make the process nugatory and absurd.... It must necessarily follow that some one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives in disbursements, while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes. It is, then, manifest ... that taxes must be, in effect, bounties to that portion of the community which receives more in disbursements than it pays in taxes, while to the other which pays in taxes more than it receives in disbursements they are taxes in reality burdens instead of bounties. This consequence is unavoidable. It results from the nature of the process, be the taxes ever so equally laid.... The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the fiscal action of the government.... For the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss of the other, and vice versa.... (John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government [New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1953], pp. 16-18)_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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