Frank Chodorov Quotes

There is now a strong movement in this country to bring the public school system under federal domination. The movement could not have been thought of before the government had the means for carrying out the idea; that is, before income taxation. The question is, have those who plug for nationalization of the schools come to the idea by independent thought, or have they been influenced by the bureaucrats who see in nationalization a wider opportunity for themselves? We must lean to the latter conclusion, because among the leaders of the movement are many bureaucrats. However, if the movement is successful, if the schools are brought under the watching eye of the federal government, it is a certainty that the curriculum will conform to the ideals of Big Government. The child’s mind will never be exposed to the idea that the individual is the one big thing in the world, that he has rights which come from a higher source than the bureaucracy.

There cannot be a good tax nor a just one; every tax rests its case on compulsion.

The real reason for withholding taxes is the unwillingness of workers to share their incomes with the government and the consequent difficulties of collection. To overcome this handicap, the government has simply impressed employers into its service as involuntary and unpaid tax collectors. It is a form of conscription. Disregarding the right of privacy, which is an essential of liberty, the government’s agents may, under the law, invade the employer’s office, demand his accounts, and punish him for any infraction which they believe he has committed; they can impound his property and inflict a penalty for not having collected taxes for the government.

There is no such thing as free schooling; it must be paid for and, taking the school system as a whole, its cost is defrayed by the toil of those who are under the delusion of ‘free’ education.

Dependence on the State became a virtue; dependence on oneself was derided as ‘rugged individualism.’

Neither thieves nor officials produce a marketable good to offset what they take; they contribute nothing to the purchasing power because they contribute nothing to the general fund of wealth.

[E]very soak-the-rich tax must become in time a soak-the-poor tax.

For, it must be kept in mind that individualism is the modern radicalism. In the true sense of the word, individualism is always radical, for it rests its case on root ideas; I delves into the nature of things for basic causes; it rejects the idea that man is best served by a series of expedients.

The ultimate of taxation-for-social-purposes is absolutism, not only because the growing fiscal power carries an equal increase in political power, but because the investment of revenue in the individual by the State gives it a pecuniary interest in him. If the State supplies him with all his needs and keeps him in health and a degree of comfort, it must account him a valuable asset, a piece of capital. Any claim to individual rights is liquidated by society's cash investment. The State undertakes to protect society's investment, as to reimbursement and profit, by way of taxation. The motor power lodged in the individual must be put to the best use so that the yield will further social ends, as foreseen by the management. Thus, the fiscal scheme which begins with distribution is forced by the logic of events into control of production. And the concept of natural rights is inconsistent with the social obligation of the individual. He lives for the State which nurtured him. He belongs to the State by right of purchase.

Compulsion means force; there must be a policeman to see that the individual does not follow his own inclinations. But policemen must live. Since they do not produce a thing by which they can live, others must support them. Hence, the planners must have the means of getting at the production of the very people who are to be improved by the policeman. That means taxes, and the more taxes the greater the number of enforcement agents, and therefore the more comprehensive the plan. No plan can be bigger than its bureaucracy. The income tax is the ideal instrument for the planner.

Private Capitalism makes a steam engine; State Capitalism makes pyramids."

The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as 'free education' is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned institution; it is socialized education—just like socialized medicine or the socialized post office—and cannot possibly be separated from political control.

Freedom is essentially a condition of inequality, not equality. It recognizes as a fact of nature the structural differences inherent in man — in temperament, character, and capacity — and it respects those differences. We are not alike and no law can make us so.

The State is that group of people who having got hold of the machinery of compulsion, legally or otherwise, use it to better their circumstances; that is, by use of the political means.

The path of skullduggery is made easier with a coating of morality, which is aptly applied to an established custom, by the lawyer and the professor of economics. And so, the business of taking what does not belong to you has been well obfuscated by a ‘philosophy’ of taxation’.