[juniperus]

You're missing the point, language can be tricky. Technically, the state confiscating wealth derived from your labor through taxes is a form of robbery and slavery. It used to be called corvée. But the words being used have a connotation of something much more brutal and unrewarding. This isn't a political statement, I'm not a libertarian who believes all taxation is evil robbery and needs to be abolished. I'm just pointing out by the definition of slavery aka forced labor, and robbery aka confiscation of wealth, the state employs both of those tactics to fund the programs you described.

[andrepd]

> Technically, the state confiscating wealth derived from your labor through taxes is a form of robbery and slavery.

Without the state, you wouldn't have wealth. Heck there wouldn't even be the very concept of property, only what you could personally protect by force! Not to mention other more prosaic aspects: if you own a company, the state maintains the roads that your products ship through, the schools that educate your workers, the cities and towns that house your customers... In other words the tax is not "money that is yours and that the evil state steals from you", but simply "fair money for services rendered".

[juniperus]

To a large extent, yes. That's why the arrangement is so precarious, it is necessary in many regards, but a totalitarian regime or dictatorship can use this arrangement in a nefarious manner and tip the scale toward public resentment. Balancing things to avoid the revolutionary mob is crucial. Trading your labor for protection is sensible, but if the exchange becomes exorbitant, then it becomes a source of revolt.

[cataphract]

If the state "confiscated" wealth derived from capital (AI) would that be OK with you?

[motorest]

> You're missing the point, language can be tricky. Technically, the state confiscating wealth derived from your labor through taxes is a form of robbery and slavery.

You're letting your irrational biases show.

To start off, social security contributions are not a tax.

But putting that detail aside, do you believe that paying a private health insurance also represents slavery and robbery? Are you a slave to a private pension fund?

Are you one of those guys who believes unions exploit workers whereas corporations are just innocent bystanders that have a neutral or even positive impact on workers lives and well being?

[juniperus]

No, I'm a progressive and believe in socialism. But taxation is de facto a form of unpaid labor taken by the force of the state. If you don't pay your taxes, you will go to jail. It is both robbery and slavery, and in the ideal situation, it is a benevolent sort of exchange, despite existing in the realm of slavery/robbery. In a totalitarian system, it become malevolent very quickly. It also can be seen as not benevolent when the exchange becomes onerous and not beneficial. Arguing this is arguing emotionally and not rationally using language with words that have definitions.

social security contributions are a mandatory payment to the state taken from your wages, they are a tax, it's a compulsory reduction in your income. Private health insurance is obviously not mandatory or compulsory, that is different, clearly. Your last statement is just irrelevant because you assume I'm a libertarian for pointing out the reality of the exchange taking place in the socialist system.