One way I see this is that there is no symmetry. Going bust because of bad luck might be deserved, or it might not: you could not foresee, nor insure yourself against bad luck. There is a market failure: markets are incomplete.

Merits, in a Hayekian sense has noting to do with $$ outcome. Still, it is clear that we should not redistribute according to merit. However, there is here powerful moral claim for taxation. We could all be better off with some re-distribution, some social net.

Of course, this argument could be disproved too.

Maybe in the case of a person hiring a craftsman to do a certain job for a fixed price your point holds.

But what about a case like Michael Ovitz and Disney? His pal Michael Eisner hires him then fires him a year later and gives him $140 million. The shareholders of Disney disagree and a decade long court battle ensues. Even if Disney loses, it’s the insurance companies that will have to pay.

Or consider a televangelist who shows his viewers pictures of starving children to raise money for his church, then spends the money on mansions, jets, hookers, etc. for himnself.

In most cases, the person who assigns you your wage is not the person that has to pay for it. The ‘wage setting agent’ is using other peoples money to pay your wages.

The government pays a huge portion of wages in today’s economy. Ideally, the people should get to say what those wages are, but in reality they don’t. At least in the case of people paid by the government, some form of desert could be applied through voting…

The claim “I deserve my income,” as applied to an individual’s pretax income in free market economies, has considerable intuitive force. If true, it suggests a powerful moral claim against taxation for redistributive purposes, on the intuitively plausible supposition that a just economic order ought to ensure that people get what they morally deserve.

And then she’s arguing: not true, right?

I’m not arguing that there “I deserve it” is a sufficient argument against taxation. I’m arguing that Anderson fails to undermine the “I deserve it” argument on the terms she sets for herself and thus fails with this argument to undermine the intuitive “powerful moral claim against taxation for redistributive purposes.”

Still, markets ARE incomplete, you can’t foresee all the downside and cannot insure against all you would wish too. This is the universe we live in, which makes room for a government to provide the so-called social net. This is the point for taxation that is not being addressed. see?
(as I understand it, at least)

Right, the argument is that you can’t object to taxes because you don’t deserve your income. I argue that one obviously can deserve one’s income, and that Anderson’s thoughts about labor prices fail to establish otherwise. How is that off the mark?

Everyone starts out life thinking they are going to get rich, win the noble prize, be well respected for their sharp wit, etc. In reality, a very small percentage of people reach these goals. It’s easy to be a libertarian when you are young.

If the odds hold, even 2/3 of libertarians will be dependant on Social Security to live when they retire. Social Security is there to protect them from their irrational exuberence.

I know, I know, you and Will really are special…

The fact that the government decided to steal some taxpayers’ dollars and use it to fund basic research (which I did not ask it or want it to do, by the way) in no way precludes my use of technologies that take advantage of some of that research, but would undeniably exist in some similar form today regardless.

We aren’t talking about the “real world” here; we are talking about the logical veracity of the above mentioned left2right post, which, until someone corrects me otherwise, is not about externalities. Further, when you get out into the real world, you will discover that such a creature as a government which can solve more public goods problems (of which externalities are a type) than it creates does not exist. Rational ignorance of the electorate, of course, being the largest public goods problem of all.

I’m glad you are able to remind us that all taxes are theft using the government built internet from your government funded school.

As you say, of course Will is talking about contracts with no externalities. When you get out into the real world, you will discover that such a creature doesn’t exist.