Extreme Equivocation
The image below was posted as if it somehow constituted a rebuttal to the argument that taxation is involuntary, coercive theft while employment is fundamentally a voluntary choice. While this is an incredibly inept attempt to make a meme, it does reveal a popular misconception that need to be addressed. I guess I need to join the "The Left Can't Meme" bandwagon...
Consumption requires prior production. This is how reality works, no matter what the Zeitgeist/Venus Project people claim. Employment is a voluntary and cooperative productive activity. So is homesteading. So are cooperatives. Socialist communes can even fit under this umbrella.
In the free market, absent governmental distortion, division of labor and mechanization multiply the productive capacity of individuals while simultaneously reducing the cost of the goods produced. This is a double benefit to the market economy. This is why being employed by those who have accumulated the capital to organize and mechanize a large productive operation can be highly beneficial for everyone involved. On the one hand, the employee does lose out on the potential profits of entrepreneurship. On the other hand, he invests no capital directly before being hired, he avoids the logistical nightmare of complex economies during production, and he surrenders the risk of loss incurred by misallocation of resources by the employer.
Meanwhile, taxation is political plunder of those engaged in productive activity, and is not necessary or beneficial to human progress and well-being. There is nothing about engaging in a voluntary, productive activity that necessitates or justifies taxation by a third party. "'Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes," wrote Christopher Bullock in The Cobbler of Preston (1716), but death is a fact of the universe, while taxes are entirely the result of malicious human action, and not at all a requirement of the universe or an inevitable outgrowth of voluntary human association or production.
Short version:
Job: "Hey, I'll pay you X if you will do Y for me. Is that cool with you? All I need is verification of these necessary skills."
Tax: "Hey, pay us X or we'll do Y to you. Don't like it? FUCK YOU! Pay up or we'll take even more, and kill you if you resist!"
Thanks for the write up, I hate this stupid meme. One is 2 people agreeing on terms and the other is 2 people agreeing on terms with a third unnecessary person butting in. Not even close to the same thing.
The market economy is a network of A to B exchanges, and government needs to C its way out.