Income tax must go
From Mr David J. Kidd Sir: Both Andrew Gimson (`Tories: don't be slaves to the free market', 26 August) and Professor Tim Congdon (Letters, 9 Septem- ber) are wrong; for both assume that we currently have an institutional arrangement called variously the 'free market' or 'capital- ism'. No such order exists. The term 'free market' has become a cant phrase conceal- ing the reality by which the modern state extends its unchecked power. In the field of taxation it gives its subjects just two alterna- tives: those who will not be its dependants must pay taxes to those who are. Living off what others are forced to pay in taxes from their property is legitimate; refusing to pay those taxes is criminal. Marginally changing this assault on property rights and liberty is called 'thinking the unthinkable'.
The constitutionally vital part of the term free market is 'free', not `market ; the natural propensity of individuals to truck, barter and exchange (in Adam Smith's words) ensures markets arise wherever liberty exists. But defending liberty is something that modern free-market economists find hard to do. They end up defending by default the expan- sion of the predatory state. A striking exam- ple was given in The Spectator not long ago when Irwin Stelzer argued for an expropria- tory inheritance tax (`Gordon's decline is Peter's rise', 17 October 1998), as demanded by Marx in the Communist Manifesto. But one need not seek such egregious examples. Professor Congdon himself opposed tax cuts during the last Tory administration on the grounds that macroeconomic stability is more important than liberty.
It is imperative to leave the socialist 20th century behind and liberate England. Pro- fessor Congdon quotes John Stuart Mill as saying the Tories are the 'stupidest party'. Mill had far more enduring points to make. Along with all politically educated people, he believed that income tax was a war tax for use only in great emergencies and should otherwise be abolished. Both Glad- stone and Disraeli were of the same view. We will finally know we are living in a free country (or, if you like, under a free mar- ket) when we again have a political consen- sus that income taxation should be abol- ished without replacement.
David J. Kidd
London W1
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