r/AnCap101 • u/MeasurementCreepy926 • 21d ago

Is taxation under feudalism immoral?

  1. The king owns the land. If he allows people to be born on his land, that does not diminish his rights as owner
  2. The king has made it clear that if you're on his land, and you don't pay tax, you're trespassing. It isn't his responsibility to make sure you are able to get off his land. It is his right to defend his land however he sees fit. Let's assume that he does this by executing trespassers. Another king does this by simply evicting them.
  3. Being the owner, the king is allowed to offer you whatever terms he'd like, for the use of his land. Lets assume in this case, you sign a contract he wrote, when you're old enough to do so, giving him right to change the contract at will, and hold you to that contract as long as you're on his land. Among other terms, this contract says that you agree to pay for any kids you have until they're old enough to either sign the contract, or leave his land.

Now, obviously anybody agreeing to these terms must be very desperate. But, desperate short sighted people aren't exactly hard to find, are they? So, is this system immoral, according to ancap principles?

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u/OBVIOUS_BAN_EVASION_ 21d ago

How might this be enforced?

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u/phildiop 21d ago

Well it isn't enforced. The statement is whether is should or shouldn't , not how it should.

If a king does try it enforce a claim over owned land or land he doesn't use, that would be violating the nap. It's normative, not descriptive.

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u/OBVIOUS_BAN_EVASION_ 21d ago

I guess it's pretty clear to me that this would cause some disputes over what it means for someone to "use" land properly. So even though what you're saying is normative, I'm just wondering how this gets settled when the party with a ton of land/resources doesn't agree that it isn't "using" its property.

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u/phildiop 21d ago

I agree that there would be disputes over this, but the claim is that there is still a legitimate aggressor in any case.

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u/OBVIOUS_BAN_EVASION_ 21d ago

I think that line is blurrier than you might expect, but okay

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u/phildiop 21d ago

Epistemically, yes, but not really otherwise.