MURRAY I. FRANCK responds to Larry Sechrest's article "Rand, Anarchy, and Taxes" . Franck further develops his thesis that because minarchist government is essential to civil life including the market economy and because government requires material support to operate, taxation is moral. Against anarchist objections, Franck notes that taxation for legitimate purposes, though coercive, does not constitute the initiation of force.

DANIEL UST argues that Larry Sechrest's valuable contribution to the debate on anarchism uses certain "unobservables" to bolster the case against taxation in an uneven and contradictory manner.

LARRY J. SECHREST offers an economic analysis of the Objectivist case for minarchy with emphasis on how such a limited government would be funded. Ayn Rand's original proposal that citizens' contributions to the public treasury must be voluntary avoids the problem of redistributing income or wealth, but it is likely to prove infeasible due to the problems of declining contributions, rising costs, and inefficiency. Murray Franck's alternative suggestion that compulsory taxation is necessary and moral avoids the free-rider problem, but it (...) faces the problems of inefficiency and the redistributive phenomenon known as the non-neutrality of taxes. Neither approach presents a convincing rebuttal to the case for anarchy. (shrink)

LARRY J. SECHREST replies to critics of his Fall 1999 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies article, "Rand, Anarchy, and Taxes." Sechrest argues that none of the critics provides an effective counterargument to his claim that all known taxing schemes redistribute income and wealth. Sechrest reviews some recent research, which strongly suggests that complex legal systems can exist and have existed without the benefit of being either established or enforced by government. He concludes that, insofar as the anarchy versus minarchy debate (...) is concerned, the preponderance of evidence is on the side of anarchy. (shrink)