Techpoint
Slavery of the Willing? Deliberate measures of taxation by the governments have introduced the concept of ‘slavery of the willing’. Simultaneously, corruption, politics, and inegalitarian methods of compensation have worsened the economy 50 | October 15, 2011
ecently, I read a news item that beggars had come to a panchayat auction in Thirunallar to maintain commercial complexes, night shelters, and toilets in the temple complex so they could keep begging in and around the temple. The minimum amount that needed to be paid was `10,000 to become a bidder in the auction. Three of them paid up easily and though they eventually lost the bid, it makes one wonder as all 3 claimed to have enough money to pay for the entire auction that runs into almost `1 crore—something that an average techie cannot make in a year. Then there are e-beggars of China, who have several online begging sites. It is weird—they beg for money for everything from buying an apartment to feeding their children. Are these beggars audited and do they pay tax? The answer is no. This made me wonder about tax system of our country and government tax is just plain stealing. Also, is this stealing by the governments of the world the cause of the current state of world economy? Taking what doesn’t belong to you from another is called stealing. Individuals are punished for this, but strangely we accept it when governments do this and get away with it. The government does it in 5 major ways and we don’t even recognize that we are being robbed.
High Taxes Some individuals seem to embrace the weird idea that by simply being born into this world, we enter into some form of legal contract with the government of the country where we are born. Also since humans are interdependvisit www.dqindia.com
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ent and live together, we accept that we owe money in the form of our labor to the government of the country we live in—in our case India, an amount that can be arbitrarily determined by politicians because they are democratically elected. It’s worse in communist and dictatorship countries, but let’s not get into that. For example, take Value Added Tax (VAT). What it essentially boils down to is that if we invent ideas and make the product more useful, then we have to pay more to buy it. VAT is applicable from something as essential as food items and medicines to high-end luxury products. How did this come about? Well, the government isn’t productive but needed more money for politician new freebie schemes to attract more votes during elections and bureaucratic high expenditure at higher levels. So they decided to bring in arbitrary changes in the tax structure so people would pay more tax. This leads to increase inflation that in turn leads to higher production costs, but short-sighted politicians don’t care as they can only think of the next election. As for the bureaucrats, well they can only think of pleasing politicians, so their promotions aren’t held up.
Increased Government Spending, Higher Taxes The government uses it to finance wars and bribes through their corporate surrogates and non-profits. NATO and the US government went
to war with Iraq with a triumphed up charges of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Saddam’s so called ties with Al-Qaeda who they claimed might use it against USA and Europe. But after the death of Saddam Hussein, they changed it to righting human right infringements as they couldn’t find the WMDs to justify their presence in Iraq. However even though the people of the democratically elected governments of the various countries of Europe and USA protested, they could do nothing as the Iraq war happened and ironically the various governments could finance the war thanks to the very tax the people paid. While some private corporate players made a killing during the war as did defense companies, the overall economy of these countries headed for ruin.
Freebies and Welfare Schemes The average Indian worker toils for 12 months, and has no legal claim to the results of her/his labor for that period. This is because central, state, and local governments take what she/he produces through the tax system. A small portion of the fruits of her/his labor is used for the constitutional functions of government. Most of what is taken, is given to some other Indians in the forms of farm and business subsidies, welfare schemes, and hundreds of other government freebies and perks enjoyed by politicians and bureaucrats. If you thought freebie
schemes were invented to help the poor, think again. Government officials enjoy everything from free vehicles, telecommunication systems, office space, and fuel charges apart from priority in processing of documents by other government departments. In PSU banks, bank employees get a higher deposit interest rate than the regular bank customer. Why? Just because they work for the bank and it is all legal.
Corruption Politicians get salary and perks that are higher than what a high-school teacher or a college professor or even an engineer who add value to the work they are doing—be it in education, invention, or manufacturing—is getting. As if that is not bad enough to cause concern that needs to be straightened out, we also have corruption. Add corruption to the mix and 99% of politicians are not in government or power to do their work as elected representatives but to make more money and bankroll themselves and their entire families for generations. It’s not suprising that politics has become hereditary where the political family only keeps getting richer, almost no one gets caught and even if they do, their court cases drags on for years or lifetimes? Many politicians make more in a year illegally than Premji or any of the other IT pioneers company makes legally. It reminds me of the movie Pretty Woman where Richard Gere’s
A COUNTRY CAN DEVELOP ONLY WHEN ITS RESOURCES—NATURAL AND HUMAN—ARE USED TO THE MAXIMUM AND THIS IS WHERE WE COME IN. HOWEVER IF WE HAVE TO SHELL OUT MORE IN TAX BECAUSE WE WORK HARD WHILE THOSE WHO DON’T WORK PAY NO TAX BECAUSE THEY ARE LAZING AROUND, ISN’T THEN TAX LITERALLY STEALING BY THE GOVERNMENT? DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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October 15, 2011 | 51
Techpoint character is richer because he sells scrap by cutting up and selling bits and pieces of the company while the companies he buys actually build something but are put in trouble thanks to the corrupt politicians he knows in the senate.
Compensation—Physical vs Mental Labor Creation is considered superior to repetitive work. Creation could be a new idea, product, company, or a new way of doing things more efficiently. But what happens when there is a mismatch or when using your brain to create new things is not rewarded or paid much less than the person who just shows up for work like the Parliament and sits quietly and leaves? This is also true in the technical world. Take Warren Buffett vs. Bill Gates. While Buffett just buys up shares
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of other companies and sells them at a profit, whereas Gates’s company actually does work by creating software and has changed the way we communicate. However most of the times Buffett makes more money than Gates. Isn’t this a mismatch? The same is true for Azim Premji vs. Indian politicians. This in turn decreases creativity and the will to create new products. You might ask what has all this got to do with lowly techies like us who work for a living? It does, because a country is considered developed only if its citizens understand and use more technology and not because it has mineral wealth or mountains of gold. A country can develop only when its resources—natural and human—are used to the maximum and this is where we come in. However if we have to shell out more in tax because we
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work hard while those who don’t work pay no tax because they are lazing around, isn’t tax then literally stealing by the government? It’s slavery when a person, group, or government claims it owns your life. Slavery of the willing is when an individual, group, or the government claims it owns a portion of your work even if they don’t compensate you for it. By allowing the government to function in the ways mentioned above, we are accepting that the government can steal money from us, so tax is a system of slavery of the willing, is it not? In this process are we not primarily responsible for the current state of the economy? n DEEPA KANDASWAMY The author is the foundermoderator of the IndianWISE e-group maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
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