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Anti-tax academic Former Fraser Institute senior economist Walter Block, who heads Loyola University New Orleans’ economics department, believes a world with no taxes is possible and desirable
Mission: To convince people that paying zero dollars in tax is viable Assets: PhD in economics from Columbia University; job as endowed chair and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans’ business school Yield: Outside-the-box views and an eagerness to defend them
 Glen Korstrom With the HST stoking tax anger to a blaze, it’s instructive to reflect on ideas from longtime North Vancouver resident and internationally acclaimed libertarian economist Walter Block. Block wants zero dollars in taxes and the complete abolition of government. That sounds incredible to some. Most fiscal conservatives accept that there are some goods and services where pooling resources for the common good makes sense. Fraser Institute founder Michael Walker believes governments should finance roads, insure health services, police society, defend sovereignty and provide a social safety net for those who can’t look after themselves. Block, however, is convinced that society will function smoother and be wealthier with 100% private: •roads; •courts; •police and fire departments; and •money supply. He fills his summer touting his new book, The Privatization of Roads and Highways, debating on theTyee.ca blog with well-known local commentator Rafe Mair about the merits of voluntary slave contracts and lunching with friends. As the endowed chair and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans’ business school, Block has the luxury of time to think. “I’ve reached the apex of academia,” he said. “There are lecturers, instructors, assistant professors, full professors and then endowed chairs. It means I get a higher salary and lower teaching responsibilities so I can do more writing and interviews like this.” Walker told BIV that he recruited Block in 1979 to be the Fraser Institute’s senior economist because Walker wanted to have a libertarian thinker on staff. Block left the institute in 1991 to return to teaching and pursue some of the controversial topics he broached in his 1991 book, Defending the Undefendable. There, he defended everyone from the prostitute to the drug pusher to the person who yells “fire” in a crowded theatre. “He’s a very intellectual guy and very capable, but he’s marginalized because these ideas are perceived to be radical,” said friend and fellow libertarian Morgan Poliquin, who is president of Vancouver’s Almaden Minerals Ltd. (TSX:AMM;AMEX:AAU). “Loyola University is not exactly Princeton University. Walter has the capacity to be a professor at Princeton but his worry is that he be true to his ideas, not to be academically motivated.” Block opposes the HST but his reasoning differs from most; he believes it is a more efficient tax. “Do we really want to do evil more efficiently? Suppose that I came up with a way to run Nazi concentration camps more efficiently. Would implementing it be a clear benefit? I think not,” he said. Born Jewish, Block lives the curiosity of being a “devout athiest” while teaching at a Catholic-associated institution – one of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities’ 28 higher-learning sites. He maintains both Lower Mainland and New Orleans homes. Block attended Brooklyn College in 1963 when laissez-faire philosopher Ayn Rand visited and gave a lecture. Block considered himself a socialist and went to heckle but wound up agreeing to future chats with Rand and her followers. He was eventually converted to the wonders of the free market. Now he describes himself as “radical” and as an “anarcho-capitalist.” Homelessness and poverty will not run rampant in his dream society, Block believes, because: •the root causes of homelessness (lack of education, physical or mental illness, drug addiction) will be resolved better by the free market; and •private charity will flourish. “Another cause of homelessness is publicly owned sidewalks. You should have private sidewalks like in malls. Then you wouldn’t have homeless people running around interfering with people,” Block said. “At one time, before the government got into the business of welfare, [the plight of the homeless] was much better.” Taxes are Block’s biggest bugbear. He perceives them as necessarily coercive because those who don’t pay Canada Revenue Agency go to jail. “How did we get these sandwiches?” Block asked during a lunch at a West Broadway Subway restaurant. “Did we say, ‘Give us sandwiches or we’ll shoot you?’ No. We said, ‘We’ll give you money. Do you agree?’ They agreed. Why can’t we do that for forest fires?” A society with 100% privately owned forests would still have fires but Block believes private owners would have more of a vested interest in minimizing damage than politicians who face an election once every four years. Private residential developments would evolve much as condominiums have, Block said. “I could build 100 houses and charge more if I say, ‘You can buy a house and rest assured that everyone has agreed to pay private fire insurance, not to paint their house pink or blue polka dots and not to have skunks or pigs or whatever it is in the backyard,’” Block said. He envisages private street owners co-operating much like banks do when broadening debit services to customers. Tollbooths would not dot each corner, because time is valuable. Instead, all cars would have magnetic stickers that street sensors would read. “Your gasoline price already includes a certain amount per litre in taxes that is spent for road-building and maintenance,” Block said. Business owners would settle disputes in private courts that competed with each other for reputations for fairness. If litigants don’t agree on a court’s impartiality, each litigant could submit a list of alternative courts until one is found to be acceptable to both. “Had [U.S. Congressman] Ron Paul won for president, he probably would have appointed me head of one of the departments – housing, urban development or the Federal Reserve System. His advice would have been to get rid of that department within six months,” Block said. Curiously, the only kind of property that Block does not believe should be protected is intellectual property. Lengthy arguments buttress his belief that copying intellectual property does not harm the original creator. Perhaps his most popular argument on that front would be that it would lead to fewer lawyers. Given his stance, however, it is interesting that Block is selling his book for US$19 via the Ludwig von Mises Institute store. True to his principles, however, Block openly tells people that a free link is available: http://mises.org/books/roads_web.pdf. •
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This article from Business in Vancouver August 18-24, 2009; issue 1034 Photograph:Dominic Schaefer |
