Libertarian Case For Tariffs

By Tom Rhodes, 3/16/2018

Government is a necessary evil. All the Utopian thinking will never make anarchy in any form a viable way to protect the freedom and liberty of society as a whole. Taxes to fund government are also necessary. There is no argument, tariffs are a form of taxes. When talking about taxes, we are discussing the funding government. Contemplating all revenue sources, tariffs should be rationally considered. If you want to fund government with just voluntary contributions you might as well believe leprechauns mix pixie dust with unicorn farts to turn into gold that you can find in pots at the end of a rainbow.

Governments exist for a lot of good reasons, including common defense. Governments have historically done a better job of defending borders than any other form of organization, and are certainly a damned sight better at it than international corporations. Those international corporations are government-created entities. In essence tariffs are a form of border defense. They can and do protect a nation from influence and actions of other nations in more ways than one.

Government is funded by taxes. Taxes can come from usage fees, sin taxes, tariffs, licensing fees, or direct taxation of individuals and/or corporations. Those direct taxes can come from income, or consumption tax, or taxing accumulated wealth. All taxes “manage the economy, ” tariffs are no more so than any other form of taxes.

Fundamental libertarian philosophy is that the less involved government is in an individual’s life the more liberty and freedom that individual has. Comparing different tax types, tariffs are considerably less intrusive, and cause less economic disruption, than any of the direct taxation alternatives; income taxes, consumption taxes, and wealth taxes. Publisher and author, Theodore Beale asks, “If you believe that government is a terrible way to get things done, why would you rather have it interfere on a holistic and daily basis with the economic activity of every single domestic citizen rather than on a far less frequent basis with the cross-border shipments of a limited number of foreign corporations?”

The large sway in US national politics from statist and government nanny Obama, to close down the EPA, Trump, is evidence that government is far more controllable by the people than international corporations like Google or Apple. Even knowing that the government is somewhat corrupt and clearly non efficient, having Government convey legal advantage to manufacturing companies that employ large numbers of people in a tariff system is far better than conveying advantage to Wall Street financial companies that do not in a free trade system.

The idea that all taxes are evil and society can exist without taxes and/or government is juvenile and absurd and is no more realistic than socialism with total control of the economy by some few ruling elite and just as dangerous. Government, and therefore taxes, are a necessary evil. Tariffs put more of the taxes on big companies that did the importing than direct taxation. Those big companies own the media, and buy off politicians. They have convinced so called “conservatives” and worse yet libertarians, that free-trade between nations is better, because it forces the individuals not big corporations to pay most of the taxes.

What’s better for a hundreds fat cats and international corporations on Wall Street is free-trade, that’s worse for millions of average workers in industries that were moved overseas to fatten the wallets of those same fat cats and international corporations. As a country we survived and thrived using tariffs not direct taxation on individual income until 1913. Tariffs as a system of taxation to fund that government is far less intrusive on individuals, than any direct taxation system. From a libertarian point of view, that alone makes it superior.

Before you start yelling “FREE TRADE” answer the question posed near the beginning of this article, “If you believe that government is a terrible way to get things done, why would you rather have it interfere on a holistic and daily basis with the economic activity of every single domestic citizen rather than on a far less frequent basis with the cross-border shipments of a limited number of foreign corporations?”