This paper traces the historical origins of the non-aggression princi- ple. The central thesis of this paper is that a large and diverse group of history’s most eminent thinkers have expressed ideas very similar to the non-aggression principle. The rudiments of the principle were known to the ancient Egyptians around 2000 BC, the ancient Hindus around 1500 BC, and the ancient Hebrews around 1000 BC. Around 500 BC, the ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers expressed the underlying logic of the principle. Cicero came close to articulating the principle in its modern form. Thomas Aquinas reasserted something strikingly similar to non-aggression after the Dark Ages, and the scholastic philosophers carried the idea into the early modern period. During the seventeenth century, the non-aggression principle rose to the pinnacle of Western philosophy. JEL Classification: B11, B12, K00, P14 Keywords: Non-aggression principle, ethics, libertarianism Resumen: Este artículo traza los orígenes históricos del principio de no agresión. La tesis central es que un amplio y diverso grupo compuesto por algunos de los pensadores más importantes de la historia ha expresado ideas muy similares al principio de no agresión. Los rudimentos de dicho principio eran conocidos por los antiguos egipcios hacia el 2000 a. C., por los hindúes hacia el 1500 a. C., y por los antiguos hebreos hacia el 1000 a. C. Hacia el 500 a. C., los antiguos chinos y los filósofos griegos expresaron la lógica subyacente del principio. Cicerón se acercó a la articulación del principio en su forma mod- erna. Tomás de Aquino reafirmó algo sorprendentemente similar a la no agresión después de la Edad Oscura, y los teólogos católicos llevaron la idea hasta el periodo moderno. Durante el siglo XVII, el principio de no agresión se elevó al pináculo de la filosofía occidental. Clasificación JEL: B11, B12, K00, P14 Palabras clave: Principio de no agresión, ética, libertarianismo “No one may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defen- sively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no vio- lence may be employed against a nonaggressor.” — Murray N. Rothbard 1974, 116 “The use of coercion can be justified only where this is neces- sary to secure the private domain of the individual against inter- ference by others … coercion should not be used to interfere in that private sphere where this is not necessary to protect others.” — Friedrich Hayek 1976, 221
In December 1974, the economist Art Laffer had dinner at a Washington D.C. restaurant with Jude Wanniski, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. The tax rate was so high in the United States, Laffer argued, that reducing the tax rate would increase government tax revenue. As legend has it, he drew the Laffer Curve on a napkin to illustrate how reducing the tax rate would raise tax revenue. The Laffer Curve has been a mainstay of Supply-Side Economics ever since.The Laffer Curve relates government tax revenue to the tax rate. Figure 1 is the Laffer Curve (Laffer, 2004). The x-axis shows tax revenue and the y-axis shows the tax rate. The Laffer Curve plots the relationship between the tax rate and tax revenue. As figure 1 shows, tax revenue is maximized, or optimal at RO, when the tax rate is TO. [Fig 1: LAFFER CURVE] Further, the Laffer Curve illustrates that tax revenue decreases as the tax rate rises above the optimal tax rate. For example, imagine the tax rate is suboptimal at TS. At this tax rate, government revenue is suboptimal at RS. Even though the tax rate TS is higher than TO, tax revenue RS is actually lower than RO. In this case, government can increase tax revenue by reducing the tax rate. Generally, government can increase tax revenue by lowering the tax rate whenever the economy is located on the downward sloping part of the Laffer Curve. In short, the Laffer Curve suggests that extremely high taxes are counterproductive even from the government’s own perspective.Murray N. Rothbard stressed that Laffer’s analysis contains a hidden value judgement: maximizing government tax revenue is desirable. Rothbard writes,“Laffer assumes that what all of us want is to maximize tax revenue to the government. If—a big if—we are really at the upper half of the Laffer curve, we should then all want to set tax rates at that “optimum” point. But why? Why should it be the objective of every one of us to maximize government revenue? To push to the maximum, in short, the share of private product that gets siphoned off to the activities of government? I should think we would be more interested in minimizing government revenue by pushing tax rates far, far below whatever the Laffer Optimum might happen to be” (Rothbard, 1984: 17-18; Block, 2010).Economists who use the Laffer Curve conduct their analysis with a fixed curve. However, in a progressing economy, the Laffer Curve is constantly expanding. Put differently, the Laffer Curve is always shifting to the right in a progressing economy. Advocates of the Laffer Curve fail to realize that the position of the curve is far more important than the economy’s place on a given curve.The position of the Laffer Curve depends on the stock of accumulated capital. As economists underscore again and again, capital accumulation is the only way to raise overall living standards. Ludwig von Mises writes,“there is but one method available to improve the conditions of the whole population, viz., to accelerate the accumulation of capital as against the increase in population. The only method of rendering all people more prosperous is to raise the productivity of human labor, i.e., productivity per man hour, and this can be done only by placing into the hands of the worker more and better tools and machines.” (1951: 282)Significantly, capital accumulation and hence overall living standards depend on the tax rate. As economists have known for centuries, high taxes impair capital accumulation:“If the funds which the successful businessmen would have ploughed back into productive employments are [taxed and] used by the state for current expenditure or given to people who con-sume them, the further accumulation of capital is slowed down or entirely stopped. Then there is no longer any question of economic improvement, technological progress, and a trend toward higher average standards of living” (Mises, 1955: 51).
This paper examines John Maynard Keynes’s ethical theory and how it relates to his politico-economic thought. Keynes’s ethical theory represents an attack on all general rules. Since capitalism is a rule-based social system, Keynes’s ethical theory is incompatible with capitalism. And since socialism rejects the general rules of private property, the Keynesian ethical theory is consistent with socialism. The unexplored evidence presented here confirms Keynes advocated a consistent form of non-Marxist socialism from no later than 1907 until his death in 1946. However, Keynes’s ethical theory is flawed because it is based on his defective logical theory of probability. Consequently, Keynes’s ethical theory is not a viable ethical justification for socialism.
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