CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
TAXATION
Taxation
is the largest single source of evil. Why? Because it reverses the paternal role
of the state into a rapacious one. Rulers love power but it costs money to
secure and maintain it. The more money they have, the merrier they feel. As a
result, legislators, judges and civil servants use such corrupt practices which
are beyond the ingenuity of Lucifer. All this is done in the name of law, duty
and welfare. These attitudes turn the state into a Mafia Organisation whose vice
ranks as virtue provided it maximises tax-collection. This is what makes
tax-gathering the worst method of financing the state.
State, the Taxpayer
Paternal role is the only true role
for the state. As tax-gathering turns the state into a Mafia Organisation, it
ceases to be the proper way of financing the state affairs. Again, the state can
be truly paternal only if it relieves people from the yoke of taxation. In other
words, it is not for the people to pay taxes to the state, it is for the state
to pay taxes to the people.
Yes, it is not for the people to
pay taxes to the state; it is for the state to pay taxes to the people. Why?
Because taxation, especially the abject-taxation, has the most dehumanising
effect on mankind. How? To answer this question, I shall analyse the reality of
taxation with reference to various aspects of life.
The basic premise
I may start with the premise that
taxation and liberty exist in inverse ratio: the higher the incidence of
taxation the lower the magnitude of liberty and vice versa.
Peck order and Len behaviour
The type of people whom I have
labelled as members of the gubernatorial class Suffer from the burning passion
to dominate the masses. They pick on others not because they have done them any
wrong. In fact, it is an expression of the law of the jungle known as
"might is right". The evil nature of the dominance-urge is exhibited
by the dominance-hierarchies found in domestic fowl, birds baboons, bumble bees,
crabs etc. Take chickens, for instance. They demonstrate what is called the
"peck order". If you watch them play, it will not go unnoticed that
the bird "A" pecks the weaker bird "B" and "B"
pecks the still weaker bird "C". Under such conditions, it is not
necessary for "C" to be always pecked by other chickens. If it becomes
strong, it will peck other birds including "B" and "A". This
aggressive behaviour does not require an external cause; it springs from the
dominance-urge which seems to be a remnant of the most primitive conditions of
life. An even better understanding of this concept is provided by the "lek
behaviour" which refers to a communal area where two or more males of
a species fight ferociously to establish their dominance for securing priority
to sex, food and water. This is what dominance is all about - the mania of
self-preference to the total exclusion of others.
Wheel of History
In the previous chapter I stated
that civilisation is an annotation of the continual strife between the
Gubernatorial Will (of the elite) and the Instinctive Will (of the masses). Now,
I may restate the same truth differently and add that the wheel of history is
turned by the friction between the tax-gatherer and the taxpayers. Have I
changed my mind? Not at all. In this context "gubernator" does not
mean anybody who holds a high position in the administrative hierarchy such as a
minister, judge or top civil servant, but the real governor and the actual
members of the tax-gathering fraternity.
Taxation versus liberty
The reason for the restatement is
simple: the gubernator uses taxation as the tool of dominance. Why? Because
wealth or the worldly possessions of a person have the same significance to the
liberty of a person as power of attraction has to a magnet, wings to the flying
ability of a bird or roar to a lion. It is difficult to subjugate a wealthy
person because he can find means to fight the aggressor the only way to crush
him is by paralysing his source of defence which is his financial ability.
Again, an ordinary worker works
hard to secure a certain amount of freedom from hunger and illness; he may
improve his skill through education or apprenticeship, or he may work much
longer hours. The purpose of this drudgery is to earn more money for extra
security by way of buying a house or saving for old age, and even providing
oneself with leisure for enjoying life. Here, the real point is not earning
extra money but keeping it. It is obvious that if a person can keep what he
earns or spend it the way he likes, he becomes independent. And we know that
independence is another word for liberty. As there is a basic co-relationship
between wealth and liberty, the most effective way of usurping one's liberty is
through usurpation of one's wealth. Since dominance is all about usurping other
people's liberties, the gubernator uses taxation as the tool of dominance with
the same instinctive fervour as a dog pounces upon a cat or a cat chases a rat.
Thus the real strife comes to exist between taxation and liberty because
dominance and taxation become synonymous. It clearly shows that the magnitude of
liberty depends upon the corresponding retention of one's wealth.
Taxation and Plunder
To explain this point further, I
must add that the initial purpose of military campaigns of the conquerors was
more than a search for prestige or economic benefits. It sought gratification of
the dominance-urge by plundering the vanquished. Plunder is a form of
tax-gathering. If you don't believe me, look at modern Britain where Income Tax
rate rose to be 98% And this was m addition to the many other enormous taxes. If
this is not plunder, then what is it? After the preliminary depredation, the
victor would subject the vanquished to an annual payment of tribute. The safety
of the conquered depended upon payment of this imperial imposition. If he did
not, the conqueror returned with a vengeance to give the defaulter a blood bath.
This punishment was not indicative of financial loss to the emperor but a symbol
of frustration which hurts the urge of dominance most rudely. After all,
submission which gratifies the dominance-urge is confirmed by the promise to pay
tax or tribute. No tax, no submission, no gratification of the dominance-urge.
Once the dominant has established his right to collect taxes, the economic
benefits and prestige follow automatically.
This trend is equally visible in
the relationship between the state and citizens who are called taxpayers.
Non-payment of the levies is deemed a crime against the state though, in fact,
it amounts to an act of defiance against those who run the affairs of the state,
because the state is representative of the Gubernatonal Will.
Taxation and Robbery
There is no difference between
taxation and robbery. When a thug extorts money out of you under the threat of
violence, it is called "robbery" but when the state wrings wealth out
of a citizen under the threat of legal violence through a "judicial"
process enforceable by police and jail wardens, it Is described as taxation.
In fact, taxation is worse than
robbery. If you empty your wallet to the robber, this is usually the end of the
matter because he may not come back for more. But it is entirely different with
the state. Once you have paid one tax demand, it is likely to be followed by yet
another.
Satisfaction value of taxation
Why does taxation gratify the urge
of dominance more than anything else? It is because the tougher the barrier of
resistance a dominant breaks down, the more elated he feels. It is an open
secret that people have tremendous love and reverence for their wealth because
of the security and dignity it offers. Therefore, they hate parting with it.
Now, it Is obvious that what people don't want or care about has no satisfaction
value to the urge of dominance because it involves no resistance or breaking
down of the barrier. Since dispossessing people of their wealth involves a real
struggle, taxation has the greatest satisfaction value to the gubernator. The
tendency of the gubernator to express his dominance through the mechanism of
taxation, and the tendency of the masses to evade payment of taxes through all
sorts of ruses including armed conflict, create an eternal abrasion between the
tax-gatherer and the taxpayers and thus moves the wheel of history because in
the main, history is a process of a conquest and submission, which turns on the
polarity of tax-gathering and tax-evasion. Even the major social events such as
the Magna Carta, the American, French and Russian Revolutions emanate from the
friction between tax-gatherers and taxpayers.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great provides a good
example of this fact. Of course, historians have invented many stories for his
conquest of the Persian Empire; one of them being that he wanted to avenge the
Greek honour. He was a Macedonian, therefore, avenging the Greek honour was less
important to him compared to the desire of amassing the dazzling Persian
treasures of gold and diamonds. Before he started bus campaign, he was a debtor
to the tune of 500 gold talents. At Susa (the Persian capital) alone, his
pillage came to 50,000 gold talents, a staggering amount both by the old and
modern standards. Through pillage, he grew so rich that he arranged a funeral
ceremony for his deceased friend Hephaestion costing 10,000 talents This rite
which was performed in the autumn of 324, was so expensive that it has not so
far been excelled by any person or nation. The majesty of this tax lord can be
gauged by the fact that his ordinary dinner parties involved an expenditure of
£400 every day. To realise the worth of this sum in terms of time, think of
Edward the Black Prince of England who received only thirty shillings a day for
his expenses, and that was around 1367. What would be the value of £400
seventeen centuries earlier?
To evaluate the magnitude of
dominance-urge, we should know that Alexander the Great believed in the
institution of universal monarchy; he did not think that there was enough room
for two kings on Earth at the same time. This is the reason that he claimed that
he was God. This is the last boundary of dominance because there is nothing
beyond Godhead. Thus he demanded deification i.e. the right to be treated and
worshipped as God. His wish was carried out throughout his Empire.
Alexander the Great achieved the
ultimate desire through his power of tax-gathering. He was not the only one to
become divine through the right to levy and collect taxes; the Pharaohs of Egypt
had attained this position long before him by saddling their subjects with the
heaviest burden of taxes as well as through a process of plundering their Asian
colonies. All Roman Emperors were apotheosised i.e. proclaimed gods, at death,
and this honour emanated from their ability to reduce foreigners to the status
of tributaries.
Divinity and Taxation
Divinity is the apogee of the
dominance-urge. This is the stage where a gubernator wants to appear as a
symposium of most brilliant virtues Irrespective of what he really is. He wants
to be treated as divine so that people should obey his laws as a matter of
reverence and obedience to him long after he Is gone. It shows that the urge of
dominance does not perish with the gubernator's death because he wants to
command people even from his grave! Strange as it may seem, Divinity or
Godhead Is grounded in the right to levy and collect taxes.
Religion and Taxation
Since divinity belongs to the realm
of religion, and this is what this book is all about, I should explain the
concept of taxation and divinity with reference to religion:
Jewish tax philosophy
Jewish claim to tax-collection was
based on the pretext that God wanted then. to take over foreign lands through a
system of taxation based on genocide.
Chapter 31 of Numbers and Chapter
20 of Deuteronomy clearly state that the Jewish tax philosophy consists of the
following:
1. Give a city the option to become
Jewish tributaries i.e. taxpayers who should serve their Jewish masters, and if
they don't,
2. Murder all the men and take over
everything as spoils, including women, infants, cattle etc. The Book of Joshua
lays down that in relation to foreigners, genocide is an integral part of
tax-gathering: all the cities such as Al, Makkedah, Hebron, Jericho, Libnah,
Lachish, Eglon, Debir etc., that Joshua conquered, he utterly destroyed them
including the infants (Josh 10, 28-42).
3. While the two rules referred to
above explain the Jewish tax philosophy in the exotic lands, its internal canons
of taxation discriminate between the Children of Israel and the non-Jews.
Some of the Amorites, Hittites,
Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites had managed to escape the Jewish campaign of
genocide. Solomon levied the tribute of bondservice on their children (I Kings
9: 20-22).
It implies that a function of
taxation is to keep Israel a racist state by discriminating between the Children
of Israel and those who are not Israelites even if they were born in Israel.
They are required to pay taxes as a bondserv~ce and not in cash or kind. This is
what Jews themselves were required to do m EgsP
Widsom of Solomon
We hear a good deal about the
wisdom of Solomon yet his tax policies led to the destruction of Israel and its
people. On the one hand, the tax treatment of the non-Jews contributed to their
disloyalty, and on the other, the Jews themselves were unhappy with the state
because they were made to carry an excessive burden of taxation to build the
Temple, Solomon's palace, Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.
Solomon's Life-style
Maybe Solomon's own house was far
more expensive to build and run because it heaved with the fragrance of seven
hundred wives and three hundred choicest concubines whose beauty and delicacy
stood far above the imagination of a poet, skill of a painter, and adroitness of
a sculptor. These one thousand beguiling females equipped with the erotic charm
far more lethal than the thunderbolt of Zeus, must have demanded a very high
standard of living compatible with their royal station. With jewels, pearls,
rubies, amethysts, and costly apparel went not only a host of maids, servants,
cooks and cleaners, but also an army of chamberlains who managed the royal
bedchambers. Besides these costs of gaiety, were the expenses of royal grandeur
associated with the gratification of dominance-urge which required the most
expensive maintenance of the cities which Solomon needed for keeping his slaves,
chariots and horsemen. In addition, he carried out extensive building works
throughout his dominion.
Christian tax philosophy
Jesus had no particular love for
the tax-gatherer. In fact, he thought of them as psychologically diseased people
prone to sin and perversion. This is the reason that the publicans or
tax-collectors of his time were hostile to him.
1. Matthew 9: 10-12 clearly states
that: People of that time, as of all times, thought it odd that a good man like
Jesus should share the eating table with such a debased person as a
tax-collector.
2. Jesus ate or mixed with the
tax-gatherers because he believed that they were morally perverted and
spiritually diseased people and thus needed him for his healing powers.
Why does the Bible treat
tax-collectors as evil people? It is because they are inclined to overassess
people. John told them not to make improper demands on people (St. Luke 3:
12-13).
John the Baptist
John the Baptist has very aptly
pointed out the taxman's disease: it is the impulse to over-collect coupled with
the authority to plunder, and is akin to the sharp beak and talons of a falcon
powered by the tremendous ability to fly which makes it a bird of prey. Not only
in the past but in modern times, every state has set up special departments
variously known as Investigative Bureaux or Enquiry Branch to hound people on
the pretext of tax-evasion, whereas the truth is that such tax officers are
nothing but glorified thieves who specialise in over-assessing taxpayers and
then shooting them down with their diabolical powers through the due process of
law,'. In ``Taxation and Liberty", I examined in detail this due process of
law in a chapter headed: "Gubernatorial Law" which reveals the evil
nature of tax laws and the high-handedness of those who adjudicate and enforce
them.
Reality of overassessment
Over-collection or overassessment
is an act of state-theft because it makes undue tax demands on the taxpayer.
This is exactly what is meant when John says: "exact no more than that
which is appointed you".
The Bible guides not only as to the
methods of tax collection but also lays down the principle of tax-fixing. Sadly,
it has become the most forgotten Christian rule but it is there in St. Luke 20:
21-25:
When Jesus was asked about the
legality of paying taxes to Caesar, he remarked that as Caesar is the lawful
ruler, render him what is his, and to God what belongs to Him.
The fact that the questioners were
being crafty and wanted to trap Jesus, clearly establishes that he looked down
upon the tax-gatherers for their malpractices, and they were hostile to him.
Since the coin of the realm bore
the image of Caesar, it proved that he was the lawful ruler, and thus entitled
to taxes according to the custom of his time because the administration of
government costs money. However, he could not claim the lot because God was yet
another claimant, thus the government's share of taxation was restricted.
However, a government cannot claim taxes just for being the government. The
Bible is quite explicit about what makes this entitlement legal.
Biblical Canons of Taxation
Romans 13: 3-7 states that a ruler
is God's minister for doing good work and deterring the evil. Therefore, render
him the due tribute and customs.
Here are the Biblical canons of
taxation:
1. The basic function of government
is to fight the evil and establish the good. Unless a government is righteous in
deeds, it is not a Christian government and thus not entitled to taxes.
2. A Biblical tax demand is not a
command of the ruler to the ruled; it is payment of a due, that is, something
owed as a return for the services rendered. Thus legality of tax demand is
intrinsically connected with the performance of government s duties.
3. Since a Christian tax is a due
and not a command, it is not an arbitrary imposition but subject to certain
objective measures. Therefore, it anticipates a regular, reasonable and
respectable machinery for calculating the size and nature of taxation.
4, It follows that not only the
determination of actual taxes is subject to regulations but their collection,
and any disputes arising from collection and enforcement are also the problem
for a judicial machinery which will be guided by the rule of righteousness and
not by the needs of convenient legality.
Papal violation of Christian
canons of taxation
If it were not for the gross
violation of these Biblical canons of taxation, Christianity might have become
the vehicle of righteousness in the world affairs. What did go wrong with
Christianity?
Simply stated, the excessive power
which Matthew 16: 18-19 bestowed on popes the successors of Peter, the rock, on
which the Christian Church was founded. Thus, a Christian's entry into heaven or
hell came to depend upon Pope's pleasure.
Pope, the representative of Peter,
claimed to be invested with all these powers, and a lot more. As the papal grip
over Christianity strengthened gradually, up went the papal claim to divinity.
Popes asserted that they had greater power even than the Christ Himself, and
people began to believe in their infallibility, that is, the Holy Father cannot
do anything wrong in relation to the faithful, because whatever he may do, is a
matter between him and God. This became the basic principle of the faith and it
controlled the entire psychological mechanism of every Christian. They all
looked to him for secular and spiritual guidance, and disobedience to him meant
disobedience to God. A noble, prince, king or even an emperor held his power
subject to the pleasure of the Pope.
Pope, the Secular Prince with
divine powers
Had popes stuck to their spiritual
authority, matters might not have deteriorated as much as they did. The rot
started with popes becoming secular princes in their own right when in 755,
Pepin the Short, laid the foundation of the papal state by giving the Church all
those territories that he had won from the Lombards. Stephen II was the first
Pope to become a mundane ruler. However, temporal powers of popes soared high
when at Reims in October 816, Stephen IV crowned Louis I the Pious, and his
wife, as Emperor and Empress because this event gave the pope the exclusive
right of anointing a Christian monarch, thus making papacy not only the medium
of king-making, but also laying down the principle that the ruler anointed by
the pope was his lieutenant and the secular arm. The reality of papal power
revealed itself when St. Nicholas I (The Great) claimed the right to legislate
for the entire Christendom and asserted to be the supreme judge with final
authority to settle all doctrinal disputes.
During 1050-60, the Roman curia
took on royal splendour and Lateran palace, that is, the papal residence was
reconstituted; the chancery, the treasury and the judicial tribunals - along
with an army of officials, were given a new outlook which favourably compared
with the elegance, grandeur and sublimation of any royal court - Christian or
pagan. Papal expenditure rose and means had to be found to meet it. The Spanish
prelate Alvaro Pelayo wrote On The Lamentation
Of The Church, that, whenever he
entered any of the ecclesiastic chambers, he found brokers and clergy engaged in
weighing and counting heaps of money which were large and plentiful.
Pope, the feudal landlord
Where did this money come from?
Originally, the Pope had enhanced his moral authority during the 6th Century by
acting as protector of the civil population of Rome against extortion by the tax
collector and abuse of power by the government. An act of 554 by lustinian
acknowledged this fact. But now the defender become the aggressor because his
needs resembled less the former and more the latter. The loving rule of St.
Peter was converted to the loathesome function of a feudal lord. Acting as his
representative, the Pope entered into contracts which gave protection to his
vassals in return for military services o money payments. By the beginning of
the 13th Century, the Pope became the largest feudal lord in Europe: Sicily,
Sweden, Denmark, Arragon, Poland, England and Ireland were parts of his feudal
empire.
Papal impositions
Over centuries, papal attitudes
like everything else had been subject to the law of change. But as an overall
picture of their monetary measures, it is correct to say that their exactions
were far more severe than their royal competitors. When Henry II of England
heard a complaint against the malpractices of the Archdeacon of York, he said
sorrowfully that archdeacons and rural deans extorted a lot more money every
year from his subjects than what he himself received in revenue. A reference to
the Avignon Popes gives an idea of the papal rapacity. Each time a bishop or
abbot was inaugurated, he had to remit an inaugural fee to the Curia. This sum
was colossal because it amounted to one third of his estimated income for the
year, besides, he had to pay considerable sums of money as gratuities to those
who had acted as his intermediaries in recommending his nomination. Though
elevation to the dignity of an archbishop carried a mark of blessing, it also
proved an ambassador of financial blight because he had to pay heavily for the
archiepiscopal palluium which constituted the insignia of his office. What a
price for a circular band of white wool it was! Clergies at all levels prayed
for the long life of the pontiff, but not out of love or sincerity but because
his death hit them financially: the election of the new pope involved every
ecclesiastical benefice in the payment of a holy tax more suited to the
infidels: it was called annates and equalled the full revenue for one year
though thereafter it dropped to a tenth of the annual income. However, in an
emergency, such payments became automatically payable, and were frequent because
political activities of popes had given emergency the status of normality. Death
duty seems a papal invention because at the death of an ecclesiastical dignitary
such as an abbot, bishop, archbishop or cardinal, all his property reverted to
the Church. During the vacancy of such posts all revenues went to the pope who
deliberately prolonged the interval for gaining the maximum financial benefit.
Worse still, the new appointee was held responsible for all the financial dues
that might not have been paid by his predecessors Papal justice was a specimen
of holy extortion: people had to employ lawyers to plead for them and they
demanded heavy remuneration because pleading in the papal court involved hefty
licence fees. Every judgement carried a hidden charge by way of gratification
because the winner had to grease the palm of the Curia officers for admitting
and directing his case. It cost money even for obtaining permission to be
ordained.
The Christian monarchs whose own
salvation depended upon the favourable attitude of the Pope, wondered at his
salutary ways and practiced them with impunity. The Christendom breathed in a
sinister environment: the pope could not admonish them but could pardon them for
a gift of money. This was the major cause of the feudal tax rapacity and low
morality.
Papal extravagance
The lifestyle of these holy men was
surprising and sordid. For example, Pope Clement VI had a retinue of some four
hundred persons whose deportment was the envy of the royal households; they all
were laden with diamonds, rubies and furs, and acted as knights, squires,
chaplains, chamberlains, musicians, poets, chefs etc. Though their salaries were
very high, yet they were low compared to their extremely exaggerated tastes
which, in addition to pretty nuns, secretaries and maids, required an
establishment of jesters, falcons and dogs. Cardinals, who happened to be the
princes of the Church, vied with one another in displaying their splendour whose
kink was killed by a kaleidoscopic hypocrisy.
Papal character
Pope was the spiritual master of
the Christendom, and the spiritual piety required a sense of humility, crowned
with frugality, sincerity and probity. Of course, these are the virtues of
devoutness but there is a contradiction between piety and mastery. Masters
cannot be humble because they belong to the gubernatorial class, and therefore,
they must be assertive and dominant. Thus, Pope was a secular ruler who suffered
as much from the urge of dominance as any mundane suzerain and wanted to extend
his domain of influence. As taxation Is the tool of dominance, popes needed a
pretext to impose and collect taxes. So, they thought of crusades, the holy war
against the Moslems which raged for centuries. It is amazing how every Christian
became a beast of tax-burden and lived and died for paying the holy impositions
to eradicate the infidels for securing a seat m the Heavens! I have given the
details of these taxes and methods of Collection in "Taxation and
Liberty,,. Here, it should suffice to highlight the character of a few popes
though some of them were really fine men.
Pope Sixtus IV
Status IV (1471-84) was very fond
of Pietro and Girolamo. He called them his hoes. But it was also believed that
they were his lovers, and rightly or wrongly, e was reputed to be a sodomite.
Pope Innocent VIII
Innocent VIII (1484-92) had at
least one son and one daughter though the real number of his children was
thought to be considerably more than this. Of course, the Romans were
broad-minded enough to tolerate weaknesses of the human flesh despite the
Christian doctrine of celebacy. However, the whispers turned into a roaring
laughter when the marriages of his children and grandchildren were celebrated in
the Vatican.
The Pope's son, Franceschetto Cibo,
was a well-known scoundrel. Using his father's authority, which always came to
his rescue, he made it a habit to force his way into private homes for
deflowering virgins; ecclesiastical courts deliberately imposed big fines so
that he could have the lion's share. He was a compulsive gambler, one night he
lost 14,000 ducats or nearly $250,000 to Cardinal Raffaelle Riario and
complained to the Pope that the Cardinal had cheated him. The Pope intervened
but to no avail because the Cardinal had already spent the money on his palace.
Pope Julius II
Guiliano delta Rovere secured
papacy as Julius 11(1503-13) through conspiracy and bribes on 31st October,
1503, but his coronation was postponed until November 26 on the advice of
astrologers who predicted a propitious junction of stars for that day.
Julius II had three illegitimate
daughters. He was a stern man and felt happier during war than in peace. Though
a sexagenarian, he was a warrior; he was usually clad in a military uniform and
it was rare to see him dressed up in papal robes. A man of tremendous courage
and physical strength, he was immune to the rigours of fatigue. Even during
illness, he mounted campaigns to the utter surprise of his enemies. He loved to
erect camps, besiege towns, and train guns at his opponents. This apostle of
Christian love was the most foul-mouthed person of his age because his tongue
knew no bounds of rudeness. One wonders at this divine emblem of mercy because
he rode in front of his troops fully dressed as a warrior, with a sword dangling
at his side. He found the art of mixing divinity with a military necessity:
before encountering the enemy, he would issue a bull of excommunication against
them and offer a plenary indulgence to any man who should kill any of them!
Election of Pope Alexander VI
One of the most difficult tasks for
any person who claims to be a human Is to surpass Rodrigo Borgia in perversion,
indignity and inhumanity. Known as Alexander VI, he was the most interesting
pope of the Renaissance period. Having become a cardinal at 25 and head of the
entire Curia as the Vice-chancellor at 26, he became the richest cardinal by the
time of his coronation in 1492. The force of wealth removed all the hurdles from
his way to the pontificate. Many God-fearing cardinals who specialised in
preaching grace, were quite happy to have their palms greased by Rodrigo. After
all, if God's grace is good enough for other Christians the grace of a future
Pope, who is God's lieutenant on earth,
should be equally good for the
cardinals, faced with the most difficult task of providing the Lord with a
deputy to guide His Church. All the riches and the promises of high offices that
Rodrigo showered on the cardinals to steady their wandering and unstable minds
for securing their votes, should not count as bribes but grace, because they
resulted in a holiness as great as the pontificate.
Caesar Borgia
The Holy Father had not only
several mistresses but also practiced incestuous relationship with his pretty
daughter Lucrezia, who was also entangled in a love triangle with her two
brothers. His son Caesar Borgia was so wicked, unprincipled, sly, dishonest and
ruthless, that he deserved to become the hero of Machiavelli's
"Prince", the most corrupting and debasing treatise on political
morality of rulers.
There is a strange but true
anecdote connected with the birth of Caesar. Sixtus IV in a bull of August 16,
1482, declared Caesar as the son of Rodrigo (Alexander VI, the then bishop and
vice-chancellor). Alexander wanted to make him a cardinal but as bastards were
excluded from cardinalate by the canon law, he (Alexander) issued the bull of
September 19th, 1493, declaring Caesar the legitimate child of Vanozza and
L'Arignano!
It is amazing how Sixtus IV allowed
Rodrigo to retain his high ecclesiastical office despite his nerve-raking
immorality and how Alexander could tell such a daring lie in a papal bull. Not
only that, Alexander VI was equally involved in all the evil activities of
Caesar, his beloved son, who was the Devil-incarnate.
Alexander VI and tax-gathering
He invented novel schemes for
collecting taxes; he appropriated the estates of the dead cardinals. When
sufficient number of pilgrims failed to turn up for the jubilee of 1500, he
issued a bull on March 4 of that year announcing what payments the faithful
ought to make for securing papal blessings without coming to Rome; giving
dispensations from certain Christian obligations and allowing divorces, became a
part of the invisible papal taxation; even people indulging in incestuous
relationships, and the clergy practicing simony could have their sins pardoned
for suitable sums of money. Alexander started forging extra high offices for
selling them to the highest bidders without any reference to their eligibility:
on September 28, 1500, he created twelve new cardinals and exacted the sum of
120,000 ducats from them; he also named additional nine cardinals and extorted
even greater amounts from them; this year also witnessed the burgeoning of
extorted nihilo eighty new offices in the Curia, each yielding 760 ducats. Yet
another stratagem for widening the tax net consisted of arresting the wealthy
ecclesiasts such as bishops, archbishops and cardinals on trumped up charges;
they had to pay high fines for avoiding the disgrace of going to prison and
losing their lucrative offices Jews who believed that they had the divine right
to hoodwink the Gentile for depriving them of their worldly possessions, were in
turn given a holy dose of the papal medicine which charged them with heresy. It
was a serious offence; Jews were frequently arrested on this charge and were
required to prove their orthodoxy by making heavy payments to the papal
treasury.
Taxation by poisoning
Cardinals were wealthy, for sucking
blood of the faithful and were healthy for eating juicy steaks of the animals
they hunted with Satanic fervour. During the last years of Alexander VI's reign,
the cardinals lost their appetite for wealth and even pretty damsels whom they
regularly seduced as a prevention against the pains of celebacy. They thought
that the good Lord approved of their doings because He was dependent upon them
for preaching, and keeping His name alive. They might have been correct in this
assumption but the good Lord could not afford to sadden His Chief Vicar, the
Pope, to gladden these second-rate creatures. He sided with the Pontiff and
approved of the unusual papal scheme which can only be described as
"taxation by poisoning". He made use of a slow-acting poison known as
Cantarella; it was based on arsenic, and as a powder could be dropped into a
drink or food to engineer precocious and leisurely death which escaped the
highest skills of human detection. Many a cardinal had got used to the uncivil
habit of keeping the good Lord waiting for too long through a plan of longevity
requiring extensive use of wines and brandy, puddings and roast meat and the
choicest sex, preferably the defloration of beautiful virgins. These holy men
despite enjoying life-spans of eighty and ninety still refused to seek a
rendezvous with their creator. Alexander started inviting them to banquets and
administering the Cantarella which favoured both the good Lord and Alexander
because the former was able to enforce a rendezvous on them and the latter took
over all their possessions, according to the canon law which clearly stated that
the property of the deceased ecclesiast would revert to the Church unless the
Pontiff decided otherwise. Some of them, having become wary of the papal
conduct, resorted to the subtlety of securing dispensation by making large gifts
of money to the Pope!
Pope John XXIII
John XXIII was yet another star in
the firmament of inglory; he seduced over two hundred nuns, virgins and
secretaries. Even young widows were not Immune from his sexual tyranny. His tax
rapacity became proverbial: he taxed usury, gambling and prostitution!
It is amazing how the organised
priesthood of Christendom defied its own canons of taxation. But why? It is
because popes also being secular princes, were perpetually engaged in wars for
maintaining and enhancing their dominance. The need for money was further
multiplied by their lifestyle which was extremely sumptuous though sordid in
essence. It was only the abject taxation which could facilitate such colossal
sums. People paid less for fear of physical torture and more for fear of eternal
hell whose leaping flames could be kept at bay by the divine powers of the pope!
One wonders about the potency of faith and its lethal effects on human character
and dignity.
Papal hold over Christian
monarchs
Man is an engine operated by faith.
It is not that the Christian faithful were unaware of the papal character. The
Holy Father had become so holy that even the gross misconduct formed an integral
part of his holiness. The Christian monarchs whom popes fought openly or through
intrigue, despite knowing the truth about the Pontiff, kissed his feet through
the force of faith and for political Convenience because they could not rule
their truly Christian subjects without showing reverence to their Holy Father.
It is not surprising that the Emperor Charles IV in 1368, came to Rome in a
humble manner for leading the Pope's horse from Sant' Angelo to St. Peter's and
served him at Mass. Charles VIII of France who intended to depose Alexander VI
and went a long way to execute his plan of deposition, ended up offering three
genuflections to the Pope who graciously stopped him from kissing the papal
feet. Henry 11 of England, had to do penance at Canterbury for the murder of
Archbishop Becket: the English king humbly submitted himself to the lashings
that the sturdy monks inflicted upon him as a part of the divine forgiveness.
Henry IV of Germany incurred excommunication, and as a price of apostolic mercy,
he had to strip off all his regalia, wear woollen clothes and stand bare-footed
for three days before the gate of the castle at Canossa in 1077. It was then and
only then that the burning humility of his sighs and tears broke through the
frigid barrier of papal compassion which took him back into communion and
restored his kingdom. Fredrick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor was required
to kiss publicly the feet of Pope Alexander 111 for the sin of not acknowledging
him as Christs' vicar: just kneeling was not sufficient to secure papal
forgiveness. What a fine example of the dominance-urge it is!
Islamic taxation
Contrary to the Judaic and
Christian traditions, Islam does not have an organised priesthood. Instead, its
appeal is in promising freedom from fear of death, economic misery and sex
starvation. The solution to these three solicitudes is sought through the
doctrine of taxation which is based on a Divine political philosophy:
Islam divides mankind into two
nations: those who believe in Allah and the prophethood of Muhammad, and those
who do not. The former, i.e. the Moslems are Allah's friends and the loved ones,
but the latter or non-Moslems are Allah's enemies and the most despicable
beings. Just confession of faith is not enough to be a Moslem. He must live as a
Mujahid i.e. the divine crusader whose only purpose of life is to smash
non-Moslems by converting them into tributaries:
"Fight those who do not
believe in God and the Last Day . . . until they pay tribute out of hand and
have been vanquished". (Repentance: 25).
Islamic taxation and division of
mankind
These verses clearly divide mankind
into two permanent groups - Moslems as the tax-gatherers and non-Moslems as the
tributaries. This barrier is fundamental:
'Muhammad is Codes Messenger, and
those who are with him are hard against the unbelievers, merciful, one to
another . . ." (Victory: 25).
A Moslem cannot be ruled by a
non-Moslem
One basic characteristic of a true
Moslem is that he does not submit to the tu e of a non-Moslem because this is
sure to reverse their roles in the field of
"O Prophet, fear God, and obey
not the unbelievers and the hypocrites" (The Confederates: 5).
Divine promise of spoils
The Moslems themselves are required
to bear the least burden of taxation. Their obligations for contributing to the
welfare of fellow citizens are moral and their legal obligation is restricted to
the Tithe. Some Moslem scholars believe that the tithe is also a moral tax. It
is the non-Moslems who must pay taxes and their tax obligations are unlimited:
the Mujahedeen (the Moslem crusaders) are entitled to have the conquered as
slaves and their wives, sisters and daughters as their concubines. It is for
this reason that Allah promises:
"With God are spoils
plentiful" (Women: 95).
Ability to extract tribute from
non-Moslems is the proof of Islamic faith.
However, Allah is not prepared to
fight their battles. A Moslem has to be a. least twice as good as a non-Moslem.
Otherwise, how is he going to exact tribute from the infidels?
"O Prophet, persuade the
believers to fight . . . if there be a hundred of you, patient men, they will
overcome two hundred: if there be of you a thousand, they will overcome two
thousand by the will of God; God is with the patient" (The Spoils: 65).
Since nobody likes to part with his
possessions, Allah lays it down:
"It is not for any prophet to
take prisoners until he carries out vast slaughter in the land" (The
Spoils: 65).
Legality of loot and murder
It is to persuade the believer that
they need not have any conscience about the carnage of the non-Moslems. To make
sure that human thoughts of compassion and mercy for one's fellow-beings do not
hinder the faithful to pursue their struggle for spoils, Allah declares:
"Eat of what you have taken as
booty, such as is lawful and good;"
This legalises acts of loot and
murder. Yet Allah claims to be compassionate and the Creator of all beings
despite commanding His followers to plunder and kill those who do not believe in
Him! To encourage them still further, the Koran says:
"God has promised you many
spoils to take;" (Victory: 20).
Laws of distributing the loot
Possession and distribution of
spoils is subject to some basic rules:
1. "The spoils belong to God
and Messenger" (The Spoils: 1).
2. "Know that, whatever booty
you take, the fifth of it is Gods, and the Messenger's" (The Spoils: 40).
(Of course, "Messenger's"
does not imply the personal property of the Prophet but his share of the loot as
the state for spending it on the needy, orphans, those vho lost their loved ones
in the battle, wayfarers etc.).
To make tax-gathering the basic way
of life for every Moslem, the Koran declares:
"Laid down for you is
fighting, though you may hate it.
Yet it may happen that you will
hate a thing which is better for you; and it is possible that you will love a
thing which is worse for you; God knows, and you know not" (The Law: 210).
To enhance the fondness for war,
the Koran decrees that the believer who is killed in a battle against the
non-Moslems, dies not:
"And say not of those slain in
God's way, 'They are dead', rather they are living, but you know not" (The
Cow: 145).
Taxation as panacea
Islam relieves the three
solicitudes of death, economic misery and sex starvation through Jehad or holy
war, that is, turning the non-Moslems into tributaries through determined
fighting. How?
1. If a Mujahid, i.e. the Moslem
fighter, is killed in the battlefield, he goes straight into the paradise where
no fewer than seventy two houries, the most delicate women with wide eyes and
swelling breasts, await him. In addition, there are pearl-like youths and an
abundance of choice food, wines and fruits. He is destined to live forever in
the surroundings which defy the imagination of any poet or artist.
2. If he lives, he gets an abundant
share in the spoils which remove his fear of economic misery. As women of the
conquered people become his property, he can have as many of them as concubines
as he likes. Having sex with them is neither a sin nor a crime. He cannot be
sex-starved.
Plunder, the fountain of Islamic
glory
Now let us look at history to see
how the political aspect of taxation contributed towards the spread of Islam.
The Prophet and predatory raids
There was an old Arab tradition of
plundering caravans pursuing their legitimate commercial interests. It was
called Ghazwa - pi. ghazwat, and has been translated into English as razzia
meaning a plundering raid. The Prophet Muhammad authorised the continuance of
this tradition. In fact, he himself led three such raffias during 623. Owing to
the betrayal by hypocrites, they all failed but eventually in January 624, the
Moslems successfully attacked a caravan near Mecca, coming from Yemen.
Battle of Badr
In March 624, the Prophet marched
at the head of 315 men to waylay a rich Meccan caravan returning from Syria. It
was led by Abu Sufyan, the head of the Ummayah Clan, and because of its
financial significance, was supported by a force of 800 men commanded by Abu
Jahl,the chief of the Makhzum Clan. Though Abu Sufyan thought it prudent to
escape the Prophet through a devious route, Abu Jahl decided to teach him a
lesson. The opponents, on March 15, 624, had a head-on collision near a place
called Badr. Compared to the 14 Moslems who went to paradise, 45 Meccans ended
up in hell, and another 70 were taken as prisoners.
The loot was divided according to
the Koranic law, that is four-fifths went to the raiders (or in Islamic
language, the Mujahedeen who fight for the glory of Allah) and one fifth to the
Prophet to discharge his public duties. The share of the martyrs went to their
dependents, and the martyrs themselves entered an eternal life to enjoy the
company of houries attended by youths.
Development of doctrine of
plunder
Now, robbing the caravans was
moulded into a basic doctrine of Islam which was at once both religious and
political. Its religious connotations assured martyrdom and paradise, and
successful depredation led to riches and political dominance. Taxation, as
already stated, is a form of robbery. The rapine guaranteed comfort and
suzeranity in this life, and death in search of rapine promised even greater
advantages of paradise.
Battle of Uhud
The Prophet led larger forces to
plunder hostile nomadic tribes. He was also aware of the fact that the the
Meccans would want not only to avenge their defeat at Badr but also take
necessary steps to stop him pillaging their lawful caravans. He was right. He
met a much greater Meccan force of 3000 by the hill of Uhud. This was an
indecisive battle though the Meccans held the upper hand. However the military
leadership of the Prophet was impeccable. The Moslems suffered because they
disobeyed the Prophet's instructions not to abandon their positions. As
different tribes of Arabia started embracing Islam one after another, the
Prophet sincerely enforced the Koranic law which states that Moslems are kind
and brotherly to one another but harsh and hostile to the non-Moslems. It was
impossible for Moslems to plunder Moslems. Therefore, he directed their holy
zeal of tax-gathering against infidels. His greatest razzia occurred at the end
of 630 when he took 30,000 of his followers to the Syrian border. It was a
month's journey. Without doubt, this military excursion had a doctrinal and
instructive value aiming at teaching faithfuls the benefits of disciplined
tax-gathering and political manoeuvering. During this razzia he made agreements
which became models for his followers in dealing with the vanquished people. The
precedent of plundering the non-Moslems was seriously taken up by his followers
when they invaded Syria after his death.
Plunder as piety
All conquerors have been motivated
by their tax-gathering zeal but it was never based on a sense of piety: its
fountain was always dominance but in the case of Islam depriving the non-Moslems
of their possessions, converting their women into concubines and reducing them
to the status of tributaries, was an act of righteousness adored by Allah. Women
were a special attraction to the Arabs whose female population was not large
enough owing to an evil custom which required a father to kill his daughter if
he wanted to avoid the stigma of being a father-in-law. When the prophet raided
Khaiber to plunder the Jews, he beheaded their chieftain Kinana and took over
his seventeen year old fiancee Safiya for a wife.
Taxation and spread of Islam
During his ten years in Medina, the
Prophet had planned no fewer than sixty five campaigns and razzias to train his
followers in the art of tax-gathering which he declared was sacred and pious. At
the death of Muhammad, Arabia had acquired the status of a state and all Moslems
were bound to it by the payment of a religious tax called Zuka or Tithe. Some
Arab tribes which had embraced Islam only loosely, refused to pay this tax and
thus became the subject of apostasy. In fact, it was an act of rebellion as
deliberate non-payment of legitimate taxes will be in any state. When the
Caliph, Abu Bakr, the successor of the Prophet, insisted on payment of the tax,
they marched on Medina but were defeated by the Caliph's hastily-improvised
army. Non-Moslem historians claim that it was an act of forcing Islam on people.
No, it was an act of suppressing the rebellion. There is no evidence that the
Prophet ever forced anyone to believe in his prophethood. He had laid down the
law: "there is no compulsion in religion", and he observed it
sincerely. It is equally unimaginable that his immediate successors, who
believed in him with the utmost fervour, would compel people to become Moslems.
The Islamic military excursions into foreign lands were not meant for converting
people to the new faith. Their true purpose was to turn people into tributaries
for directing the zealous energies of the faithful to a better use. This policy
really worked. The Bedouins, who found it hard to put up with the pangs of
hunger, readily accepted Islam to reap a rich harvest of taxation by carrying
the flag of Islam in the name of Allah. It is not surprising that early in 633,
Khalid, a formidable Arab general, was invited by a nomad frontier tribe to lead
them in raiding a neighbouring community on the other side of the Iraqi
frontier. Khalid accepted the invitation and with a total force of 3,000 men
invaded the Persian soil. However, the real conquest of Persia started in 624
when Muthanna, the general, wrote to Omar the Great, the Second Caliph that
Persia was engulfed by chaos and could be easily conquered. The final battle was
fought at Kadisiya. The Persians fought with their usual velour. Their courage,
tenacity and fearless spirit asserted itself with a vigour rare in history, yet
the Arabs showed no sign of retreat, fatigue or despair. The piety of
tax-gathering spurred them with greater enthusiasm the more resistance the
Persians demonstrated. On the fourth day of this fierce battle, Allah decided to
support the faithfuls for suppressing the Persian infidels. All of a sudden,
there appeared the most vehement sandstorm in the direction of the Persian
stalwarts blinding them with an unknown fury. The Arab warriors fulminated with
their most sacred slogan ``AIIah O Akbar" (God is Great); the skies echoed
with its roar and the Arab sword flashed mercilessly mowing down the Persian
heads. Rustam, the proud Persian Commander was killed and his soldiers
dispersed, enabling the conquerors to enter Ctesiphon which had allured the Arab
tax-gatherers with its mighty arch, marble hall, jewelled throne and splendid
carpets. It took the vast Arab force ten days to carry the loot. When Yezdegird
gathered another army of 150,000 to avenge the Persian honour, be met a disaster
at Nahavand which the Arabs call the "Victory of Victories": 100,000
Persian soldiers fell victim to the Arab sword, sealing the fate of the Persian
glory forever.
What were the Arabs after? They
were chasing the largest treasure on earth; even more luminous and more dazzling
than the Byzantinian hoards of gold and diamonds. It consisted of nearly five
hundred million dollars - a staggering sum at that time. Of even greater
interest to the Arabs were the Persian women whose beauty had been the source of
verve for poets, painters and sculptors. Their large, dark shooting eyes had
never failed to pierce the most stubborn hearts. The Persian verse based on
courtly love had raised to fictitious proportions the already-stunning facts
about their delicacy, deportment and dalliance. The Arabs would rather have them
than the houries. And so they did. They did not even bother to marry them. They
were part of the booty which Islam had declared sacred and legitimate. Why waste
time in conducting the un-Islamic rites? After all, the Persians were infidels
and deserved no respect. On the contrary, Alexander the Great, was a pagan, yet
he forbade seduction of the Persian women when he conquered this land of the
gallants, centuries earlier. He arranged the greatest nuptial ceremony on earth
by marrying 10,000 Greek soldiers to 10,000 Persian damsels. Alexander obviously
believed that the Persian wealth formed legitimate possession of the conqueror
but the Persian women did not. Alexander, despite being a pagan, knew the
difference between human dignity and lustre of precious stones.
The Prophet's ingenuity
Tax-gathering or booty as a symbol
of righteousness and divine love, was the mark of the Prophet's ingenuity.
Contrary to the opinion of the hostile historians, who say that the purpose of
these wars was to spread Islam, there is sufficient evidence to show that the
conquered people were discouraged from embracing the new faith to maximise
collection of Jaziya, i.e. the Poll Tax. This doctrine served the Arabs very
well for five hundred years but as other warrior races of Asia accepted
Muhammadanism, they realised its dominance-value and showed an intense desire to
practice it.
During the days of the Prophet, it
was easy to direct the combative energies of the faithful against the infidels
for enforcing the Koranic law:
"And whose slays a believer
wilfully, his reward is Gehenna (hell). Therein living forever, and God will be
wrath with him and will curse him, and prepare for him a mighty torture"
(Women: 95).
Rebound of the booty doctrine
Pillage is not sacred but putrid.
It involves violating human rights of possession, life and limb. As the number
of Moslem nations multiplied over a period of time, the respect for booty soared
but the reverence for the Koranic law slumped. However, insult to the Islamic
principles was not direct or open. There grew the art of hypocrisy for proving
the believer as the infidel, and vice versa, by
misinterpreting the Koran for
twisting contemporary events to justify murder of fellow Moslems for the sheer
joy of collecting booty. What had once served as the foundation of Arab glory,
became their bane as the wheel of time gathered momentum.
God and taxation
As stated earlier, taxation is the
tool of dominance. He who can establish the right to levy and collect taxes,
acquires the right to dominate for exposing people to his commands, rational or
irrational. Even God or Allah, as I have demonstrated, depends upon taxation to
make humans carry the yoke of His authority. This is a form of Divine Taxation
though wrapped in philosophical sophistication to give it supernatural
credibility.
British taxation
When talking about taxation, one
cannot ignore Britain which, once, gained saintly status by seeking to regulate
taxation for the first time in history. The Magna Carta represents the English
insight into this subject.
Taxation is despotic by its nature,
and is especially so when a suzerain such as the state or a dictator lays taxes
by command without giving any reason or promise of return performance for it.
When the rate of taxation soars upward of, say 10% it begins to assume the
character of pillage. The British Income Tax which rose to 98~o is not only an
example of inhuman rapacity, but also of first degree treason against the nation
because it destroys the moral fibre and the entrepreneurial spirit, thus
precipitating an economic and moral crisis which leads to social and political
fall. This fact is abundantly proven by the British decline. Having told this
story in "Taxation and Liberty", I hardly need repeat it here.
There is no room for taxation,
especially the abject taxation, in any civilised society. It is too big a source
of evil to have any social validity. However, emergency may be an exception.
Tax-gatherers are a shrewd, sly and sophisticated lot. They do not always use
brute force for collecting taxes but employ such ruses that provoke people to
get entangled in the lethal net of abject taxation as a piece of cheese coaxes a
mouse to walk into the trap. Law is one of such ruses and thus serves as the
tool of taxation; fear of chaos goads people to accept the authority of the law.
Members of the gubernatorial class exploit this fear to spread their net of
dominance around them. To express this fact, I included a long chapter in
"Taxation and Liberty" and headed it "Gubernatorial Law" to
expose the evils of convenient legality.
Law is a potent tool of dominance;
it treats the taxpayer as a crook and thief, inclined to evade payment of taxes.
Therefore, he is presumed to be guilty irrespective of his personal integrity
and honesty. For making it easy to plunder him, he is denied civil rights as a
taxpayer, but on the contrary, diabolical powers are given to the tax officials
who begin to specialise in overassessing people for robbing them legally. As a
consequence, this tax rapacity has given birth to what is called Back Duty. This
phrase refers to the taxes which should have been paid in the past but have been
evaded. In fact, it is indicative of the fact that power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely because these "tax-evasions" represent the
manufacturing skills of the tax inspectors who want to maximise tax collection
for advancing their own careers. Over-assessment by a tax-inspector is an act of
theft by the state, yet the law protects the state-thieves at the expense of the
taxpayer who is usually "guilty of innocence". In Britain, during 1987
recovery of the "evaded taxes" amounted to £750 million but in 1989,
the figure jumped to £2.4 billion! Possibly, the Back Duty is the only
expanding industry left in this country. One ought to applaud the Devil for his
ingenuity.
To avoid the rebellion that direct
force is likely to provoke in tax collection the dominant usually use the
indirect force of socio-economic doctrines which perpetrate harsh systems and
make people carry the slavish burden of abject taxation of their own volition.
I shall discuss this topic in
the next chapter under the heading of "Economics". Usually, taxation
is considered a part of economics whereas the truth is the other way around:
economics is a branch of taxation.
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