Taxation Is Theft, Apple Is Great

Whenever the word "tax" or "taxation" is mentioned, there's a certain type of people that will exhibit the immediate Pavlovian response that is the title of today's post. This is yet another sad indication of how well the capitalist propaganda has worked over the past decades, as no one seems to notice how radical this point of view really is.

_{Image by mohamed hassan - source: PxHere}

I'm not going to throw around labels or ideologies, as most people don't even agree what they mean; you know who they are, the ones that shout that taxation is theft and that government is too big. They put on their victim-mask and lament on how taxation is actually violence as the government "puts a gun to your head to take away your well-earned money and give it to the undeserving." This train of thought is poisonous in its very core, but its what has been drilled into many minds through years of idolizing the individual and their role in the free market economy. Yes, my dear brainwashed friends: crony capitalism IS the free market ideology in action. In this game, it's every player's duty to maximize their own profits, and if BUYING the government aids you in that goal, you'd be stupid to not do it. It's capitalism's complete focus on the individual and the maximizing of one's own private property that is the root of the problem here.

Taxation is born from the opposite world-view, namely the realization that no one is an island or a hermit, it's based on the real world reality that we live together in groups, families, cities, nations and the world, and that whatever freedom exists, it exists in those groups. "Individual freedom" does not exist, unless you ARE a hermit, living alone on an island, making everything you need in life yourself. Taxation is the simple recognition of these simple to understand facts of life. But capitalist propaganda has made you, dear tax-hater, believe that you are alone, that everything you have is yours and yours alone and that you owe no one, not a soul on this planet, anything at all. And that all others are alone too, so if they don't earn enough money, it's their fault, and their fault alone. Unless of course you decide to be charitable, when you decide to part with a portion of your wealth, for the benefit of the people you find worthy of your generosity.

Now Apple has decided that the homeless people in California are worthy of their generosity, and of course they shout it from all rooftops: Apple commits $2.5 billion to combat housing crisis in California is the title of the press-release they published 4 November 2019, a headline that's been repeated over and over again in all mainstream news-outlets. Isn't Apple great?

No, Apple is not great; they're crooks. Apple is one of the biggest tax-evaders in the world and that company is one of the reasons California's housing-crisis exists at all. Every chance they get to NOT contribute to the community in which they made their riches they grab with both hands. And the 2.5 billion dollar they pledged here is but a small fraction of all the dollars they didn't pay in taxes, taxes that could have been used to build affordable houses for example, IF the government wasn't owned by Apple and its ilk. They don't care about the homeless in California or anywhere else, and they aren't the first to make this vapid gesture; Google and Facebook also pledged money to help correct the problem caused by Silicon Valley itself. Lucky that we have Bernie Sanders to remind us all what's really going on here:

“Apple’s announcement that it is entering the real estate lending business is an effort to distract from the fact that it has helped create California’s housing crisis—all while raking in $800 million of taxpayer subsidies, and keeping a quarter trillion dollars of profit offshore, in order to avoid paying billions of dollars of taxes,” Senator Sanders said in a statement emailed to Gizmodo. “Today, more than 134,000 Californians are homeless and renters need to earn $34.69 per hour to afford the average two-bedroom apartment. We cannot rely on corporate tax evaders to solve California’s housing crisis.”
_{source: Gizmodo}

Apple is not great and taxes are not theft. And Apple certainly is not generous or committed to any community in any way, shape or form, which makes this a vapid gesture any way you look at it. Heck, 300 million of the pledged dollars is simply land that Apple owns, which they now make available to build affordable housing on. "Here's some land I don't use for anything, so if anyone wants to build there, have at it!" So cheap. If you really want to remedy the problem here, look no further than Bernie:

“When we defeat Donald Trump, we are going to make companies like Apple start paying their fair share, so that we can finally start making massive long-term investments that guarantee Americans affordable housing,” Sanders concluded, alluding to his Housing For All plan that would earmark $2.5 trillion over the next decade for the issue by taxing the wealthiest tenth of the 1 percent.
_{source: Gizmodo}

I don't really care about the exact details of this scheme by Apple, and neither should you; their bottom-line is all they care about, nothing and no one else.

_{Bernie Sanders Calls Out Silicon Valley}

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