“Tax the rich” is an all too common refrain on the left which, thanks to left unity, has even been echoed by many self-proclaimed anarchists. “Taxation is theft” on the other hand is a slogan many anarchists are hesitant to repeat due to its association with right-libertarians despite it being far more consistent with anarchist ideals. When taxation is the main funding source for the military police state with only crumbs going towards an extremely inadequate welfare plantation system, why would anarchists want any more funding to go towards that no matter who’s fronting the bill?

Things get even more questionable when you consider what people mean by taxing the rich. That is usually proposed in one of two main ways: income taxes and corporate taxes. On the one hand, a negative income tax has been championed by both right and left libertarians as a potential funding source for a (non-universal) basic income system. On the other hand, income taxes, even when progressively tiered, have the issue of directly skimming off the fruits of one’s labor which seems unwise to do for a basic income system that is means tested rather than universal. And sure, most of the rich don’t labor themselves but rather skim off the fruits of others’ labor whom they exploit, but having the government skim more only compounds the issue and makes it worse rather than solving it.

As for taxing corporations, they don’t pay their taxes. They instead pass the tax burden onto the consumer via higher prices, meaning that such taxes hit the working class the hardest. Either that or they relocate to another area with less taxes and bring the jobs with them, known as capital flight, yet again hitting the working class the hardest by increasing unemployment.

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