Sperry UNIVAC

Prologue by Ankapan-tyan
We have a new author’s column on our channel, here we will butcher the sacred cows of libertarianism. Because readers complain that it’s boring to comment on me, Bitarkha is tired of it, well, here’s food for discussion.

Yesterday I had a dispute that prompted me to write this post. I ironically described that the Viking warriors were not a professional army because they didn’t live off salaries but from what they could plunder, which elicited an ironic comment about how our modern professional army lives off what it plunders – so the difference is zero. Basically, soldiers on government service get paid a salary, the salary comes from the budget, the budget comes from taxes, and taxes are essentially theft. That’s exactly the sacred cow I want to poke around at a little.

A libertarian’s understanding of taxation is usually like this. I started working for Uncle Joe, bent my back, Uncle Joe gave me $100 for my efforts, then this left-wing (in every sense of the word) guy comes along with a stick, whacks me over the spine, takes $20, and runs off to give them to a sneering bum on the corner who didn’t work a day in his life. SOCIALISM IS THEFT! In this framing of the question, of course, it’s theft. The standard arguments defending taxes – that they will build roads – we all know, and there’s no need to discuss them. I want to approach things from another angle and show that, in some sense, any corporation steals the same $20 from every salary, and thus performs exactly the same governmental role. And so, “fair,” i.e., theft-free distribution of earned money – is much more similar to socialism than state taxation, and you don’t need to automatically shudder when you hear that word. The fact that they take our money always, everywhere – it’s inevitability; they take it with communism and with the Ancap – there isn’t really any difference between state taxes and corporate extortion.

Как это работает на практике? Возьмем случайного человека, который где-то добыл $10к и организовал, скажем, завод стульев. Он нанял 2 квалифицированных сотрудника (допустим, юриста и бухгалтера) и 8 неквалифицированных, которые клепают стулья, купил станки, помещение, доски и работа закипела. Пока все идет по плану. Допустим, все хорошо, и фирма принесла сходу чистую прибыль в $11к. Вопрос, как ее делить? Социалист сказал бы: на 11 частей, каждому по $1к, все справедливо. Но мы не социалисты и учтем, что рабочий не квалифицирован и является бурерожденным (и не вложил в то, чтобы перестать быть бурерожденным, ни копейки), а значит, легко заменяем любым бурерожденным. Значит, он заработал меньше всех, хоть и пахал с утра до ночи. Бухгалтер и юрист — не бурерожденные, их заменить сложнее, и они вложились в свое образование, возвысившись над бурерожденным, значит, им платим больше. Ну и, наконец, босс, его заслуга в том, что он выцыганил у кого-то $10к на бизнес, не каждый на такое способен, значит, ему платим больше всех. В итоге рабочие получили, условно, по $100, белые воротнички — по $500, а все прочее боссу в карман.

На практике, однако, наш эталонный план не взлетит. Почему? А потому что быть бурерожденным никому не нравится, как и видеть, что ты сорвал спину, таская доски и занозил руки, пиля их, и так 30 дней, а получил за это в 10 раз меньше того, чья работа сделать пару звонков корешам-богатеям и пару раз подмахнуть ручку. Так что работать такая схема будет только при условии того, что рабочим вообще больше податься некуда — все работодатели вокруг такие же гниды, а на заводе дежурит ЧВК, всегда готовая вломить дубинкой по почкам тем, кто заикнулся о ереси социализма, то есть о профсоюзе, праве на забастовку, праве на защиту труда и хотя бы на один выходной в неделю.

Были ли такие примеры в истории? Неоднократно, в основном в эпоху дикого капитализма 1880 – 1920х. Union Stock Yard & Transit Co — Чикагские скотобойни; United Fruit Company, устроившая натуральный ГУЛАГ на плантациях в Гватемале и Колумбии; угольные титаны США, дубинками полицейских забивавшие под землю рабочих. Я уже вижу, как анкапы торжествующе потирают руки: так их, давить этих комми-паразитов, расстреливать из пулеметов, чтобы неповадно было воровать у босса честно заработанный навар. В общем, да, ровно так это и было, Банановая бойня в Колумбии закончилась тем, что UFCo попросила правительство послать солдат с пулеметами и расстрелять нахер всех бастующих и требующих человеческих условий труда, что и было проделано. И это не единственный случай. Но постойте… попросила… э-э, кого? Правительство? Разгоняли демонстрации у нас кто? Полицейские и армия…? Компании, при этом, налоги-то щедро отстегивали (а кроме налогов, еще и на лапу президентам банановых республик и их государственным генералам и солдатикам, чтобы веселее стрелялось в народ).

It appears that to establish an ideal benchmark Ankap—where the boss takes 99% of the profits and the commoner works from dawn till dusk for UFCo brass tokens, not even receiving a penny (when previously they exchanged tokens for a bowl of porridge in the cafeteria – and continued working)—we would require the most powerful repressive apparatus to instill fear of Henry Ford in those unconverted to capitalism. This would ultimately result in something suspiciously similar—like that very socialist Gulag which capitalists frighten us with—while simultaneously having precedents for constructing even worse projects, such as rubber plantations in the Amazon. We would need to divert enormous sums from this apparatus, otherwise we’d have to sleep with a saber by our bed and a pistol under our pillow, awaiting the arrival of slaves. It is preferable to use a state that we want to eliminate, which feeds its army through taxes.

Let’s remove these horrors and consider it from another angle: we are good and principled Ankapists; we don’t desire a repressive state apparatus nor do we wish to decimate our workers weekly with police force and feed them plastic porridge. We believe that in an ideal Ankap world consisting entirely of corporations, suppressing worker unrest would cost us more than creating human working conditions—it’s a debatable point, let’s just ignore it for now. And there are so many companies that if we offer miserable work for pennies, even the last bum will be hustled by a neighbor-corporat who splashed out on gloves for him to avoid scratching his hands from logs. Consequently, we would find ourselves without workers. This is the main point of those who argue that the state with its leftist unions, taxes and laws about an 8-hour workday spoils everything; in Ankap each worker will live like a king. Let’s assume this is true, okay.

But what does that mean then? It appears we would need to invest in a safe lathe, goggles from sawdust, gloves from cuts, a respirator from the smell of glue; and if we are building a complex company with complex labor, it’s desirable for our workers to have everything, including a fitness center, free psychotherapist and dentist for their son—otherwise smart people won’t come to us, they’ll go to those with better conditions. We see that Apple and various other IT giants actually compete to offer their expensive employees even more bonuses (let’s not discuss the fact that workers in Amazon warehouses will be fined half their salary if they went to the bathroom longer than once a day). But these same bonuses for employees—medicine, vacation, even education—they come from somewhere? Yes, they come from profit, that very profit which could be spent, for example, on the same wages.

So it turns out that, taxes…? Well, basically yes, a corporation can, let’s say, add +10% to everyone’s salary, or not, but open a fitness center for everyone. And yes, maybe I’m a lazy bum and don’t want a fitness center; I want to blow my 10% salary at the bar instead of jogging on a treadmill. But nothing was asked of me – let Vasya handle it, we’ve decided for him, he contributes from his salary to cookies for everyone in the office, we’re creating positive vibes of kindness, don’t be stingy. But, forgive me, what’s the difference between this and a state sports complex built on my taxes? I just wanted a state tavern, didn’t I?! The only objection here is that if you don’t like it when a corporation deducts your salary for a fitness center – well, go to whoever deducts salaries for bars. Okay, but:

1. They’re deducting anyway, and maybe I want industrial cleaner!

2. They deduct +/- equally: on medicine, education, sport – yes, in general, the same as with the state, i.e., it’s all the same.

3. If you don’t like the tax policy of a super-socialist state – okay, bug out to another one where it’s different, like Argentina, which got rid of all social benefits completely, and that’s just the way it is, paradise! The truth is, taxes now go to Milei in his pocket, as well as funding the state police and security services to suppress criminal plots dreaming of state medicine – thieves, scum!

And people dream of living somewhere like Scandinavia, and their happiness index is practically the highest on the planet.

Therefore, we come to the conclusion: it’s not so important what kind of regime we have. They will steal everyone and always, if stealing means distributing money that doesn’t suit you personally, dear reader. The other thing is that all libertarians believe they will manage to get into a future where their (!) distribution will suit them. For example, if they have a child and want a good dentist for him, a therapist for his wife, and themselves – a weightlifter after work – all free of charge – then it’s reasonable to complain about the corporation that provides all this for their efforts. But this doesn’t cancel out the principle: not everyone in the world wants exactly what you want. In any case, someone will take money from someone (no matter how they are called: contributions, taxes, insurance, etc.) for something that is useless to them personally (or they prefer to take it and deal with it themselves, but they don’t let them). So, my dears, don’t panic over the word “tax,” it’s just one form of extortion that will always be with us, under any regime and any economic formation. Because the alternative to such soft power through fitness centers and free cookies – is a soldier with an M1919 Browning, a barbed wire fence, and a brass token for porridge from sawdust in the cafeteria. Inevitably, they’ll get to us forcibly—the difference is only whether it’s on a fist or a velvet glove.