Self-study
The government has no right to tax earnings from labor. ████████ ██ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ █ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████ ████████ █████ ███████████ █████████ ███ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ████ ██ ███████████ █████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ██ ██████ ████████ ████ ██████
Argument Summary
The author concludes that the government has no right to tax earnings from labor. Why? Because taxing earnings is pernicious. And why is it pernicious? Here, the reasoning works by analogy: taxation forces the laborer to work, in part, for another's purpose. Involuntary servitude is defined as forced work for another's purpose, and involuntary servitude is pernicious. So taxation must be pernicious too.
"Forced Work" Means Different Things Here
The analogy hinges on the claim that both taxation and involuntary servitude involve
With involuntary servitude, someone compels you to labor. You have no choice about whether to work. The work itself is coerced.
With taxation, nobody makes you work. You choose to work, and the government takes a cut of your earnings. You could stop working entirely and owe nothing. The government isn't forcing you to work; it's claiming a share of what you earn from voluntarily working.
In one case, the work is forced. In the other, the work is voluntary but a portion of the earnings is redirected. These two situations might share a surface-level description, but it's not reasonable to think of taxation as "forced work" in the same way as involuntary servitude is.
26.
Which one of the following ██ ██ █████ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
It ignores a ██████████ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ██████
This captures the flaw. The argument uses "forced work for another's purpose" to link taxation and involuntary servitude, but that phrase applies differently in each case. In involuntary servitude, the person is forced to work. In taxation, the person works voluntarily but is forced to surrender part of the earnings. The argument ignores this difference, which is why it tries to transfer the moral judgment ("pernicious") from one to the other.
b
It does not ████ ████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ██ █████████ █████ █████████ ██ ███████
The argument's flaw isn't about how much labor is taxed. It's about whether taxation and involuntary servitude are truly analogous. Different tax rates for different income brackets is beside the point.
c
It mistakenly assumes ████ ███ ████ ██ ██████
The argument says
d
It ignores the ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ █████ ██████ ████ ███████████
Whether the government also taxes investment income doesn't affect the argument's reasoning about labor income. What the government does with investment income is an entirely separate topic.
e
It treats definitions ██ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██████ ████ █████████ █████ █████ █████████
The argument does rely on a definition, but the problem isn't that it treats the definition as subjective. If anything, it treats the definition as objective and then applies it too loosely. The real problem is that "forced work for another's purpose" doesn't apply in the same way to taxation as it does to involuntary servitude.