Obelix Shrugged

[Update: As of December 29, it has come to my attention that the tax in question has been scrapped by order of the French Constitutional Council.]

"If you saw Obelix... knees buckling, sweat running down his chest, still trying to keep that pointy, gargantuan boulder up with the last of his strength; what would you tell him to do?

I'd ask him where he's carrying that god-damn thing all the time. Or I'd ask the writer what the hell he's doing. Obelix isn't supposed to complain. It's half his personality, you know? That and his boar-only cuisine."

It is likely to assume that Friedrich Hayek was not very influenced by Randian ethics. In his colossus The Constitution of Liberty, the Austro-English-American economist opens the chapter entitled "taxation" with an apology, where he states his views are likely to be so unpopular among his readers and inflame his critics that he juxtaposedly wishes he had not included it. Yet, he stresses it holds beliefs he considers almost factual (in the discipline of economics, hardly anything is) and important in understanding the message as a whole. In time, a sufficient millions of readers seemed ready to forgive.

I will myself follow with an apology to the French people. A French citizen I would, alike Marine Le Pen (if she stuck to her promise) not have voted in the second round of last presidential election, and I claim to have good reasons for it. Sarkozy's outspoken economic agenda might be closer to mine, but in a weak field Hollande would be the more statesmanlike character, with a hope for broad support and joint efforts to reorganize the bloated French bureaucracy and slash its unmeagre deficit. As it is, I cannot bring myself to condone either (though I might have, if Marine or her spry-to-be-84 father was the alternative) and I believe in George Carlin's unorthodox statement that those who jam in their votes are more responsible for what comes out, as opposed to the commonly stated opposite.

As it came to pass, and against the expectations (or express wishes) of many, Hollande won, and his Parti Socialiste could rejuvenated and merrily ride into Chamber and Senate on a wave of massive opposition to Sarko, clearly the greatest mistake ever to head the Fifth Republic (now in a strong field - though I can hardly say I "admire" either De Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard-d'Estaing, Mitterrand or Chirac, they were all statesmen). Now, as part of the package to save the republic, the great-great-great-grandchild of the revolution has offered a claim on up to 75 % of every French income, compared to a marginal rate of 50-something in Scandinavia (reformed in Sweden in the late 1980s under the principle of "keeping half your wage"), 45 % in Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia, 35 % in the United States (federal; excepting state taxes), 33 % in New Zealand, 29 % in Canada (federal), 15 % in the Czech Republic and 11 % in France's trilingual neighbour, Switzerland (federal). Fringe candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who crusaded against laissez-faire under the chants of "Robespierre!", "Saint-Just!" and "Humans first!" (what would we put under the guillotine secondly? Goats?) in a campaign which saw him tearing at Le Pen in an apparently engaging third-party debate - every extreme in France seems equally happy to compete in praising its sanguinary revolution for its ultra-radical and nationalist zeal  - stated he would gladly enact the free world's first maximum wage by confiscating all incomes over 360 000 euros. Quite a blade of steel in the neck of the French economy as we know it. But that was the deliberate message.

"I get to keep one half of the last ones? Sacre-bléu! I emigrate to the Belgae!"

Unsurprisingly, Frenchmen who either didn't vote for Hollande or now realize their self-sacrifice refuse to take part of the burden. Business magnate (Luis Vuitton) Bernard Arnault did not wait long to fly the border into Belgium, the kingdom erected in the aftermath of the Vienna Congress to keep the French and the Republican at bay. In this bastion of reaction, the top rate is a meagre 50 cents per euro. Days ago, renowned actor and Academy Award nominee Gerard Depardieu followed, shunning the politics of his lifelong home by departing it.

I am absolutely convinced the illustrious actor will not starve even if every one of his many annual euros left a mere 25 cents for personal use. But I am also convinced that he would do just as well without a few of his fingers. Who, I must ask, is fit to bring such an evaluation into practice?

A policy enacted only to harm for no gain is indeed worse than the sadism whose object is the pleasure of the self. A maximum wage is the beacon of such sentiment, and indeed does little good (compared to the options) to the revenue it would supposedly fuel. Asides from alluded moral objections, it will draconially and gradually diminish the total income of any nation, and I am yet to see credible humanitarian or ecological justifications for an entirely state-dominated economy, or why it would serve any purpose other than increasing the power of the mighty and pleasing the bias of the indifferent. This is, partly, true of excessive marginal rates, as the Swedish Social Democratic government stubbornly put it when undertaking the mentioned reform, raising the "floor" of the income tax considerably while cutting the ceiling to a top 50-51 %, against orthodox Socialist doctrines, and perhaps to the dismay of the "lesser" man. The corporate tax, flat as the floor of Saint Peter's, has seen a cut in the same agenda from 57 to a mere 24,6. The Liberal-Conservative government's proposal trimmed it slightly lower and hence, billionares may now tax a mere 22 % by channeling their incomes through a corporation - remarkably lower than what the quintessential low-income earner pays.

The current path, heralded since Napoleon's non-laissez-faire capitalism and consistently throughout fifty years of big government etátisme under overlapping Gaullist or Socialist administrations, now designed to by "temporary" measures to ensure and secure the financial future of Europe, will lead the French economy to the dry brink of the garbage disposal, unbenownst of what you care of Obelix' back. He can afford it, of that I am certain, but in all honesty, can France? It is indeed revealing that the citizens of every one of France's lower taxed equals has been granted a more efficient public administration, more viable economic progress and a better standard of living for the average man and woman. The unproven axiom of taxation as the fundament of a sound fiscal policy does not fare well when it is France, not Switzerland, France, not Canada, France, not New Zealand, France that suffers from all the symptoms, now labeling some of them medication. If you believe the Swiss are better off for staying out of the EU, or from having "no immigrants" (hence proving you haven't been to Switzerland), or from being a superior species of space aliens, or from an overload of natural resources - all of which hardly needs to be questioned - double or triple the toll mentioned and you will still be far from the draconian rates of France, yet perhaps see some of the universal rashes caused by unsound management. I am yet to see an argument why the principles of economic liberalism could not work as well in France, or Italy, or Sweden. They have before, when we escaped the drought of mercantilist regulation to enter two hundred years of general growth of transactions, the weight of purses, and the quantity and quality of living years.

I believe that the existence of a state warrants physical protection, universal health insurance coverage, and education accessible for all (though I believe that without necessarily harming accessibility, private ownership and tuition fees may provide a better outcome at higher levels). But I am also convinced that, to the benefit of the French privy coffers, progressive brackets ranging from say 20 to 49 percent, properly paid and organized, will fuel its welfare state just as well, and eventually with revenues greater and confidence improved in the ambiguous beacon called "society".

On the long-fought topic regarding the morality of taxation I will add only two brief conclusions. One; human beings are sovereign and must, if considered to be free, decide over the products of their labour as much as over the source of it. Voluntary consent must reign in every non-violent relationship, also those who, no matter how unfeasible, concern economic transactions. Two; states are sovereign over their sphere of recognized authority and may hence tax activities within these boundaries, under any rule the lords of the state may see fit. Taxation is not slavery, for the core of slavery is not the absence of wages (as history has shown, "slave" and "millionare" are congruous not only in logic, but also in experience) but of choice. A law requiring you to perform work, remunerated or not, may be considered forced labour or even slavery. Placing a fee on voluntary labor within a given zone or territory is not. This is one of the points I mean to stress in the opening quote. Atlas doesn't have to carry the earth, and when and wherever he must, I'll be out of there ("Oh no, a gh-gh-ghastly dictatorship" - Woosh!)

Being critical to authority, lest when and by whom it is deemed unbenevolent to all, is not patriotic. But patriotism is not a Swedish virtue, and I do not hold it, for reasons rooted far below those of taxation and the power of the state apparatus.

The question is, how will the Gauls fare? And will we now see a bulk of harsh resistance in Belgica?