PPI, tax - remedy and redress - lawful direct action

[anarchomedia]

I've just had brain wave for a kind of direct action. It is inspired by the PPI claims that are going around at the moment. PPI for those that don't know stands for Payment Protection Insurance and it is (or was) a financial product sold on top of loans and other credit agreements. Well I suppose someone must have taken a claim to court that PPI constituted a fraud or was otherwise mis-sold and the court ruled in the claimant's favour. Now a precedent is set anyone who claims that they were misold PPI can take that claim direct to the lender and be pretty sure that they can get redress without even going to court as the lender won't have much expectation of winning in court.

Could something similar be done to challenge the lawfulness of taxation? And in the process get some or all of the tax you paid returned... :lol:

Some suggestions: -
- Make sure to take your claim to a common law court where the verdict will come from a jury not a judge.
- Focus on one specific tax rather than the whole gamut; it will only confuse the case and if you win the other taxes will be taken care of by precedent anyway.
- If you are in the US don't even bother trying to challenge a federal tax or you will end up on the presidential kill list. Stick to state level or lower to start with.
- In principle tax could only be lawful on a contractual basis (it would be just extortion otherwise) so challenge it on the basis of a faulty contract. You could try to assert it is extortion (and that is what most people believe is the basis of tax) but governments generally use various underhanded dubious contracts to legitimise taxation so that is what you have to challenge first. If you win on that then tax can only be extortion and a subsequent criminal case filing the charge of extortion will be on surer ground once it is established in law that tax is not genuinely contractual.
- Make sure any representatives you use are on board with the anarchist / libertarian cause to minimise the chance of them 'throwing' the fight.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Anti-tax activism? Good sir, perhaps you have us confused with the Tea Party? You can usually tell them from us because of phrases like "Dat durn big gubbermint!!111!!11!!!"

Besides, I already got a tax rebate of nearly £600, and I might be getting another one worth £400. So...

[anarchomedia]

Isn't anarchism supposed to be about voluntaryism, regardless of whether you are a lefty or a righty? Tax is the lifeblood of oppression, it is oppression itself but more than that it pays for all the other kinds of oppression - war, police etc.

Great you got a rebate, they gave back some of what they stole, how kind they are to their little pet!

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Isn't anarchism supposed to be about voluntaryism, regardless of whether you are a lefty or a righty? Tax is the lifeblood of oppression, it is oppression itself but more than that it pays for all the other kinds of oppression - war, police etc.

Great you got a rebate, they gave back some of what they stole, how kind they are to their little pet!

So I assume you are not in receipt of any kind of benefit from any local authority or government? You refuse to pay taxes within the current confines of the economic system we have and also refuse any payment back?
How do you live? Genuienly curious about how you function if you're against the tax system in every form it takes and role it plays.

[helot]

How is this anything to do with direct action? I may be a bit mistaken but i've always been of the impression that direct action is action undertaken by ourselves to solve our own problems without any recourse to representatives, governments or leaders. Court cases, while may be useful, aren't based on our own empowerment.




Isn't anarchism supposed to be about voluntaryism, regardless of whether you are a lefty or a righty? Tax is the lifeblood of oppression, it is oppression itself but more than that it pays for all the other kinds of oppression - war, police etc.



Anarchism isn't voluntaryist, which is a liberal ideology based on a right to private property.

As Rudolf Rocker put it in Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism "In common with the founders of Socialism Anarchists demand the abolition of economic monopoly in every form and shape and uphold common ownership of the soil and all other means of production, the use of which must be available to all without distinction; for personal and social freedom is conceivable only on the basis of equal economic conditions for everybody."

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Isn't anarchism supposed to be about voluntaryism, regardless of whether you are a lefty or a righty? Tax is the lifeblood of oppression, it is oppression itself but more than that it pays for all the other kinds of oppression - war, police etc.

It also pays for a lot of things which I use or may end up using in the future which are free at the point of use - roads, schools, the National Health Service, ambulance crews and firefighters, legal counsel (got busted for cannabis possession once and couldn't afford my own solicitor)


Great you got a rebate, they gave back some of what they stole, how kind they are to their little pet!

I didn't even notice the money was gone at the time that they took it. You Americans pay less tax, yet because you get price displays showing taxes you lot think you're heavily taxed.

[anarchomedia]

@Dennis - I am self-employed worker that owns his own means of production (:cool:) that said I am fuckin poor but I don't take any benefits off government. I do pay lots of tax but I don't get any say as to how much is taken from me, or how it is spent, which in my book makes government the shitest kind of capitalist of them all. Which is the point tax is forced consumption which is every bit as bad as forced labour which I hope your not going to tell me is also now ok in neo-anarchoism. Its like McDonalds saying to me 'ok I know you prefer to spend your money on healthy food but if you don't buy my shit-burgers I might go out of business so what were going to do is this: you're going to pay me say 20% of your income on my burgers, its allright you don't have to eat them, see how nice I am? but you do have buy them, like it or not. If that don't seem a good deal then I gots some tough guys who can 're-educate' you on this matter. WTF? (btw - I frankly baffled to find anarchists who don't get this - is this some kind of test?)

@helot - I dunno under some over-precise defo of direct action maybe it don't qualify but taking a claim to a common law court isn't like begging for permission from your master its more going to your peers and saying 'hey mates is this right or not whaddya think?' you know as equals. You should look into common law, it is very cool, like a scientific way of discovering moral law, its very egalitarian too, no wonder corporate government have been trying to subvert it and bit by bit abolish it.

Okay Anarchism means no-rulers which is another way of saying it is voluntaryist, different words for the same thing. You do what you what you think is best not what some piggish commander / owner / master / commissar commands you to do.

Rocker is okay but I don't see how this quote suggests he was in favour of slavery, perhaps I'm not interpreting it correctly.

[helot]

@helot - I dunno under some over-precise defo of direct action maybe it don't qualify but taking a claim to a common law court isn't like begging for permission from your master its more going to your peers and saying 'hey mates is this right or not whaddya think?' you know as equals. You should look into common law, it is very cool, like a scientific way of discovering moral law, its very egalitarian too, no wonder corporate government have been trying to subvert it and bit by bit abolish it. except, if i recall the British legal system correctly, it's crown court that has a jury. Most cases are in front of a magistrate, it's mainly the serious cases that arent.




Okay Anarchism means no-rulers which is another way of saying it is voluntaryist, different words for the same thing. You do what you what you think is best not what some piggish commander / owner / master / commissar commands you to do.
It's not another way of saying voluntaryist as voluntaryism is a particular ideology influenced by the likes of Murray Rothbard which possesses a belief in an unalienable right to private property. This is different to anarchism which seeks common ownership due to regarding freedom possible only in the context of equal economic conditions for everyone while private property results in unequal economic conditions due to it being the basis of a class society.



Rocker is okay but I don't see how this quote suggests he was in favour of slavery, perhaps I'm not interpreting it correctly.
Rocker of course wasn't in favour of slavery, he was a comitted anarcho-syndicalist. The quote was as a little bit of evidence to back up my point that anarchism and voluntaryism are not the same thing due to the former's advocacy of common ownership, along with other socialists.

[l'Enfermé]

So you're a petty-bourgeois. :D

[anarchomedia]

@helot - crown court - you may be right about that but then couldn't fraud or extortion be considered a serious crime?

I thought voluntaryism was kind of neutral / agnostic on the whole common vs private property debate. From other forums I have been on with a more diverse crowd of posters including voluntaryists that was the impression I came away with.

The funny thing about an-caps like Rothbard is that they are in favour of common property for information and natural resources. Well they don't like to call it common property instead they like to say they are 'unownable' but it amounts to the same thing. If everyone has an equal right to use something then its common property whatever else you call it.

In debates with an-caps I have been working on them to get them to see the merits of extending the concept of the commons to manufactured physical stuff too.

@L'Enferme - I knew someone was going to call me that! Bastards! Look a bastard red 'intellectual' showed up at work and said 'workers should own the means of production!', so I thought 'he's right!' - so I worked my guts out and scrimped and saved until I had enough money to buy my very own 'means of production'. The red boffin turned up again and I thought he'd be dead chuffed to see me a worker with my very own means of production but instead he sneered and spat 'capitalist scum - give that means of production back to the workers!' WTF? :(

[helot]

@helot - crown court - you may be right about that but then couldn't fraud or extortion be considered a serious crime?

The exact list of charges that are covered by crown court i do not know and tbh i'm too lazy to find out at this time.



I thought voluntaryism was kind of neutral / agnostic on the whole common vs private property debate. From other forums I have been on with a more diverse crowd of posters including voluntaryists that was the impression I came away with. I wouldn't say they're neutral when it comes to property, they're constantly going on about some unalienable right to property, it takes precidence for them over human life. Their claims, iirc, are pretty much "as long as you leave our property alone we'll leave yours alone". It's fraud because they know the majority of people don't have any property and that the property that's currently owned will not change hands to working people.




The funny thing about an-caps like Rothbard is that they are in favour of common property for information and natural resources. Well they don't like to call it common property instead they like to say they are 'unownable' but it amounts to the same thing. If everyone has an equal right to use something then its common property whatever else you call it.

In debates with an-caps I have been working on them to get them to see the merits of extending the concept of the commons to manufactured physical stuff too. I'd advise not debating with them. It's the same arguments over and over again and their rejection of empirical evidence just drives me insane.



@L'Enferme - I knew someone was going to call me that! Bastards! Look a bastard red 'intellectual' showed up at work and said 'workers should own the means of production!', so I thought 'he's right!' - so I worked my guts out and scrimped and saved until I had enough money to buy my very own 'means of production'. The red boffin turned up again and I thought he'd be dead chuffed to see me a worker with my very own means of production but instead he sneered and spat 'capitalist scum - give that means of production back to the workers!' WTF? :(

That's because you did it wrong. You're supposed to take the means of production that your employer has a legal right to :p


You shouldn't be getting hostility for being self-employed though. It's one thing if you're an employer as small businesses are just as if not more exploitative than a larger capitalist firm but if you're just working for yourself?

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

"then I gots some tough guys who can 're-educate' you on this matter."

Haha, is like a threat or something?
'You strugglin to see my point of view, I gots some guys who can re-educate your dumb ass'.
Silly rabbit.

[Blake's Baby]

He was taking about the state's coercive arm, Dennis. You know - 'help help, I'm being repressed!' and all that.

Anarchomedia - no, you're not petit-bourgeois unless you employ other people. The essence of a 'small capitalist' is that they subsist partly from the profits of the exploited surplus-labour of others (this is the root of the capitalist-worker relationship) and partly through the independent application of their own labour. If you own your own (as it were) means of production but don't pay wages to others, you're an independent producer but more like a small peasant than a petit-bourgeois - you may engage in 'simple commodity production', but unlike any kind of bourgeois, don't also subsist on the expropriated surplus-value of others.

Now, getting back to the question of why you think forcing people into unequal agreements is inherently good, and people taking the necessities of life when they are (due to 'the law') classified as 'someone else's property' is inherently evil... do you want to explain why?

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

He was taking about the state's coercive arm, Dennis. You know - 'help help, I'm being repressed!' and all that.


If this is the case, apologies anarchomedia, mis-read and jumped the shark there.

[anarchomedia]

Blake's baby - I don't employ anyone, but for a couple of years I did lease out my capital to another self-employed bloke. I didn't make any money off it though which is why I canceled the arrangement in the end. He had the chance to buy the capital before I did and had more money than me cause he was much older and had some fancy jobs in the past, but he didn't want to own it just lease it, he didn't want the responsibility and commitment I suppose. That is as close as I have ever come to employing anyone. I don't like the idea of employing people for much the same reason i don't like to be an employee. Since I hate to just follow orders I would feel a hypocrite if I attempted to make someone else follow my orders...

Forcing people into unequal arrangments? That's tax isn't it? and I am against that.

Dennis - no worries - btw love your work on that Monty Python sketch.. hilarious.:laugh:

[Blake's Baby]

...
Forcing people into unequal arrangments? That's tax isn't it? and I am against that...

It's any contract under an unequal system. You seem to be in favour of them, if this post on the 'gift, exchange and revolution' (or whatever it's called) thread is anything to go by...


... Is this wrong (and why)? Voluntary gifts most virtuous. Voluntary trade next most virtuous. Involuntary transactions for example theft least virtuous (actually evil)....


So, as you're claiming to be an Anarchist and at the same time advocating using the legal process to claim back taxes, perhaps you could actually address the question of property. Do you think that you should have exclusive rights over any kind of property? Or do you agree that when property is collectivised (in your terms) or abolished (in my terms) what you make will be no more 'yours' than it will 'anyone else's'?

[anarchomedia]

Blake's baby - unequal contracts - tax is intrinsically an unequal contract the clue is in the fact you don't get a choice, why make it compulsory if it was fair? Mutually voluntary contracts - depend on the circumstances whether it is fair or not, I don't see how I could answer for all possible contracts - is it fair for a customer of mine to ask me to lower my price because a competitor is offering to do it cheaper? Is it fair if my regular supplier puts his prices up due to an increase in his costs? Fact is if you have a choice as to whether you enter into contract or not then it can't be that unfair or you wouldn't do it.

Property - By aspiration I am a communist (believe it or not) so I am comfortable with most stuff being common property, however you will have to kill me if you want me to let my body enter into the commons, at least that much must remain my private property, I won't be a slave sorry.

[Blake's Baby]

Blake's baby - unequal contracts - tax is intrinsically an unequal contract the clue is in the fact you don't get a choice, why make it compulsory if it was fair? Mutually voluntary contracts - depend on the circumstances whether it is fair or not, I don't see how I could answer for all possible contracts - is it fair for a customer of mine to ask me to lower my price because a competitor is offering to do it cheaper? Is it fair if my regular supplier puts his prices up due to an increase in his costs? Fact is if you have a choice as to whether you enter into contract or not then it can't be that unfair or you wouldn't do it...

You have the choice of pay tax or go to prison. It can't be that unfair, or you wouldn't do it. All contracts made in capitalism are made on the basis of unequal power. none are valid. But, of course it's 'fair' for a customer to ask you to lower your prices, exactly as 'fair' as it is for you to set a price in the first place. Whoever gives in is the one who needs the contract most, which means, the one at a disadvantage is the one that loses. That's the point about unequal power.


Property - By aspiration I am a communist (believe it or not) so I am comfortable with most stuff being common property, however you will have to kill me if you want me to let my body enter into the commons, at least that much must remain my private property, I won't be a slave sorry.

You don't exist seperately to your body. Nor does anyone 'own' it, even you, because you are it - if it's your private property, then you can alienate it, transfer it to someone else. You can't alienate it, therefore it's not your 'property'.

I was asking why you think it is 'evil' for me to steal medicine (or food, or whatever) from you, if I need it and you have it. Nothing to do with your neuroses about how we're going to use you after the revolution.

[anarchomedia]

Let me get this right - I dig up a kilo of potatoes and you dig up a kilo of cabbages. Neither of us wants to eat only potatoes or cabbages we'd like a little variety in our diet.
Definitely I want some cabbages to go with my potatoes. What should i do to get some of your cabbages?
- Offer to give you half of my potatoes and hope that you offer to me half of your cabbages.
- Offer to swap half of my potatoes for half of your cabbages.
- Smash my bag of potatoes on your head and take all of your cabbages and keep all of my potatoes.
Which offer would you prefer? Which offers are unfair and which is fair?

Here is my answer to the medicine dilemma you posed to me. Basically if I didn't need it I would certainly give it to you. To the degree that I had made some expense to get that medicine I would like you to return the favour at some point but maybe you are selfish and don't want to do that in which case I'll forgive but not forget and will be reluctant to do any work for you in the future as you would be an ungrateful selfish scrounger in my book. If I wouldn't give you the medicine (that I didn't need but your life depended on) then I think as a matter of self-defence you would be justfied in stealing it. Okay? Stealing is bad but of course there will be circumstances in which it is justified. If stealing is always good then why do you complain about capitalists 'stealing' the workers surplus value?

[Blake's Baby]

Let me get this right - I dig up a kilo of potatoes and you dig up a kilo of cabbages. Neither of us wants to eat only potatoes or cabbages we'd like a little variety in our diet.
Definitely I want some cabbages to go with my potatoes. What should i do to get some of your cabbages?
- Offer to give you half of my potatoes and hope that you offer to me half of your cabbages.
- Offer to swap half of my potatoes for half of your cabbages.
- Smash my bag of potatoes on your head and take all of your cabbages and keep all of my potatoes.
Which offer would you prefer? Which offers are unfair and which is fair?

Why are they the only options? Do you mind if I come up with some of my own?

They aren't my cabbages, they aren't your potatoes. We take some of the potatoes and cabages, cook up some bubble and squeak and leave the taties and cabbage we don't eat for the other people we live with.


...Here is my answer to the medicine dilemma you posed to me. Basically if I didn't need it I would certainly give it to you. To the degree that I had made some expense to get that medicine I would like you to return the favour at some point but maybe you are selfish and don't want to do that in which case I'll forgive but not forget and will be reluctant to do any work for you in the future as you would be an ungrateful selfish scrounger in my book. If I wouldn't give you the medicine (that I didn't need but your life depended on) then I think as a matter of self-defence you would be justfied in stealing it. Okay? Stealing is bad but of course there will be circumstances in which it is justified. If stealing is always good then why do you complain about capitalists 'stealing' the workers surplus value?

I didn't say 'stealing is always good', I have no idea where you got that particular strawman from, I said 'good' and 'evil' in your description were 'entirely circumstance dependent'. You're still claiming it's 'bad' (it isn't, sometimes it's good, there is no inherent quality of goodness or badness involved), sometimes it's the legal possession that's bad in which case theft is good.

What if you gave it to me but i was unable rather than unwilling to 'pay you back'? Would I still be a 'selfish scrounger' in your book?

[anarchomedia]

In this instance sharing is the same as swapping isn't it? So option 2 is okay yes?

Let's say we don't live with each other I don't know you and don't want to know you, okay I'm a miserable misanthrope but I don't mean any harm - can we just fucking trade our surpluses or not? I haven't got all day! I see someone else further away with some cabbages it would be a pain to walk over to him to trade when you are standing right there with cabbages ready to go but since you are being weird I think a walk might do me some good.

[Blake's Baby]

Fine, I don't really care, me and the other guy at the food distribution centre have the same cabbages, because we live on a commune, talk to him if you like it makes no odds to me. He's not going to 'trade' either, he's going to to let you have some cabbage, but we're going to think it very odd if you don't hand over the excess potatoes. We'll probably let you off a couple of times, but if you have the opportunity to share your potatoes but don't, we're going to think you're an 'ungrateful selfish scrounger' (or at least, an anti-social arsehole). Sooner or later if you keep it up (taking from the community without attempting to give anything back) I'd think we'd cut you off.

How is 'sharing' the same as 'swapping'? They aren't your potatoes, they're everybody's potatoes. If you have potatoes it's your duty to share them, because they aren't your potatoes, you have the 'right' to approximately 1/7,000,000,000 of every potato that exists - but in practice, it's easier if you have the ones on your plate not 1/7,000,000,000 of a one from Kabul and 1/7,000,000,000 of one from Brazillia and 1/7,000,000,000 of one from Addis Ababa etc. But you don't have the right to say 'all these potatoes are mine'.

It's our duty meanwhile to share the cabbages.

Does the expression 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' have any meaning for you?

[anarchomedia]

You know what's funny? Every time i debate with an an-cap I take a commie position like you but when I debate a commie I take a capitalist position.. Maybe I just like taking adversarial positions.. except I never take a statist position no matter who I talk with.. What does that mean?

But see sharing and trading isn't that much different both carry the expectation of reciprocity and handing over what you don't want in return for what you do want. So it is as I said much earlier in this or another thread:-
Capitalism is defined property and exchange in untrusting relationships
and
Communism is fuzzy property and exchange in trusting relationships

I'm cool with sharing and trading it just depends on who I'm dealing with. If I want something from a trader I'll trade and if I want something from a commie I'll share.

At the moment I have to do the trading thing with almost everyone except my wife and child because no else wants to do the commie thing with me. How about you?

[Blake's Baby]

No it's not trading. If you didn't have any potatoes you'd still get the cabbages.

[anarchomedia]

Yes I'd still get the cabbages on the first iteration but you yourself said if I never reciprocated eventually I'd be cut off. In capitalism that is called 'credit'. I got a bunch of cool furniture all at once from the capitalists even though I couldn't give them any 'potatoes' until later. If I fulfil my end of the agreement then everything is fine but I don't then I get cut off.

[LiberationTheologist]

The answer to the question is that in most all cases you have no shot of winning in a court case, however opposing unjust taxes on the basis of them being used for vile things such as war - both imperialist wars and the drug war is a good idea as a protest even if you don't win. Likewise protesting corporate welfare being used to further enrich trillion, billion and million dollar corporations is a good idea.

This would be a good action, even if only symbolically important, to oppose this vile war system that exists in the USA, England and other imperialist nations. This should be just one tactic.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes I'd still get the cabbages on the first iteration but you yourself said if I never reciprocated eventually I'd be cut off. In capitalism that is called 'credit'. I got a bunch of cool furniture all at once from the capitalists even though I couldn't give them any 'potatoes' until later. If I fulfil my end of the agreement then everything is fine but I don't then I get cut off.

In capitalism the 'cool furniture' would be repossessed and if you didn't give it back you'd be fined and if you didn't pay the fine you'd be imprisoned - as you might be if you actively resisted attaempts to remove 'their' property (the furniture) from 'your' property (your house).

In socialism... not.

The phrase 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' is if you like to see it that way a 'contract'; and if you don't fulfill your end neither will the rest of society; but it's not a 'trade'.

[anarchomedia]

Yes capitalists would likely try to take back what I had on credit if I didn't live up to my end of the agreement. But I am not so sure a socialist 'credit' would be that different. Anyway I not going to argue that because it doesn't matter. The capitalist isn't my friend or family so i don't expect any love from him.

'From each according.. etc' is not a contract its an ideal. A valid contract requires 4 components, offer, acceptance (freely given), understanding (of the terms) and consideration (the terms themselves). 'From each..' has 'offer' and it could be said to have 'terms' or consideration but that is only half a contract. For it to become a valid contract the other party must freely agree with understanding.

If you offer to me a place in the commune and I accept with a full understanding of the terms then that would be a valid contract and yes it would actually be a trade in the most general sense.

Are you trying to sell socialism to me? You needn't I have already bought in.

[Blake's Baby]

Fine, it's not a contract. I said you could see at such if you wished, it was an analogy.

It's got nothing to do with 'offering a place in the commune'. You are a human being, you don't need to be 'offered' it by an external power. You are not seperate to society unless you chose to seperate yourself from it. You can chose to give up a place in the commune, the rest of the commune can chose to expel you, but you start 'in'. Everybody starts 'in'. It's not 'you' versus 'the whole of humanity'.

[anarchomedia]

I am a bit touchy about people calling things contracts when they aren't, any anarchist should be. Modern republics claim the right to the obedience of the masses on the basis of Rousseau's repugnant social 'contract'. A 'contract' to which no one knows the terms and to which no one agrees but 'must' obey anyway is not a contract at all, it is slavery.