Brian tried to be a little more positive and, in fact, as they first entered the argan area, there appeared to be few goats around, no aggressive harvesting of any sort – and it was even unscarred by litter, which was very encouraging indeed. But it couldn’t last. As they approached the first settlement in this area, it was the normal picture of casual neglect and determined disfigurement. It was a bit of a mess, not helped by the emergence of fruit growing – in the form of large orange groves surrounded by stands of conifers or very tall walls. And then the walls were everywhere, along with the unmistakable signs of a large conurbation up ahead: much more traffic, cyclists, signs – and... well, more bloody rubbish.
Well, that was it. Brian promised himself that, for the rest of the day, he wouldn’t be just positive in his outlook but also infuriatingly sunny. And as they approached their next hotel – in the middle of the conurbation (a town by the name of Taroudant) – it looked as though he might actually succeed in his quest, because this hotel was built within an ancient “summer palace”, a giant compound surrounded by grand and elegant walls, and it all looked rather splendid. So too did the reception area inside, as the Nature-seekers made their way in – and the luxuriant gardens beyond. And there was even another blue, frogless swimming pool within these gardens. At this rate, thought Brian, there could even be some non-tajine tucker as well.
Their room was a little ordinary (and, with a room-numbering system devised by an innumerate madman, almost impossible for Brian and Sandra to find). But pre-dinner drinks were consumed in a sumptuous lounge and the dining room was indeed tajine-free. Instead, there were some tasty and varied comestibles and some very good wine. Brian was now on a roll, and there was still the crystal ball stuff to come. And this commenced just as soon as he and his sounding-board wife had tracked down their bedroom again, outside which, clearly enjoying the verdant nature of the hotel’s gardens, were a number of quite tuneful birds, albeit no obvious jirds.
‘May I start?’ enquired Brian. ‘On you know what?’
Sandra regarded her husband with a look that was somewhere between resignation and dread, but nodded her acceptance of his proposal. She clearly knew it was futile to do otherwise.
‘Right,’ he started, ‘you may have been wondering how, in the impoverished future, there are still welfare payments and a National Health Service and a huge bureaucracy – when all these things need so much money.’
‘Well, no actually. I hadn’t. I just thought...’
‘Tax. We still have tax. Or, more precisely, as revealed very clearly in my taxation crystal ball, we have more tax than ever.’
‘Really. I would have thought we’d have had less tax. After all, from what you’ve already told me, I would have thought that there’s so little wealth around in 2050 that people might rather object to paying any tax at all.’
‘Ah. Interesting observation. But what you have to remember is that there’s been another forty years to reinforce the myth of taxation, and by the middle of the century there are now fewer people than ever who see tax for what it really is, and therefore only a handful of people who might question it as a concept.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you? Well, in that case, before I address the position in 2050, let me just enlighten you on the history of tax – and on its real nature.’
‘Brian, we’re on holiday.’
‘Now, come on, this won’t hurt. And you might even enjoy it.’
Sandra quite clearly doubted this statement. But she just took a deep breath – and her husband began.
‘Have you ever heard of the term “corvée”?’
‘No.’
‘Right. Well, corvée was the earliest and most widespread form of taxation, levied on people who were too poor to pay other forms of tax. And what it was, of course, was just unpaid, forced labour. The state or an aristocrat, or whoever happened to be wielding power at the time, would require the peasants and the landless to work for maybe a few days or even a few months every year, either for nothing or for very little indeed. In fact, this corvée stuff only differed from slavery in that the worker was not owned outright and, in theory at least, was free in all other respects. Even if that was only free to have a miserable life and to die prematurely. But anyway, this sort of taxation was really common. It helped in the building of the pyramids, for example. And much later on – in Medieval times – it was widespread in Europe, where work would be demanded of the vassal types by their feudal lord, or of the plebs in general by their incumbent monarch. In fact, this corvée existed in France almost up to the end of the Eighteenth Century, and was so resented that it played an important part in causing the French Revolution...’
‘Well, fascinating. But I’m not sure...’
‘The point is that this form of taxation – and it was just one form of taxation – is unquestionably an exercise in one group of people – the ruling elite and their hangers on – imposing their demands on another group of people against their will. Through force, they are relieving them not of their money but of their labour. But it’s all just the same, whether it’s money or labour. It’s all still robbery.’
‘What? You mean...?’
‘Yes. There was an academic who used two scenarios to illustrate the true nature of tax. In the first scenario, a certain Sam Slime wants £50 – and mugs a person in the street to get it. In the second scenario, Mr Slime votes for a politician who taxes someone for £50 – so that this amount can be redistributed to the “disadvantaged”. That is to say, to Mr Slime. Now, both these examples involve the use of force (albeit different forms of force). And what’s more, our perceptive academic then argued that the second scenario is actually worse than the first, because, through the state, Mr Slime is now empowered to repeatedly take other people’s money without even the effort of having repeatedly to mug them...’
‘Yes, but hang on...’
‘Look. Let me put it this way. If a bunch of heavies demanded 30 or 40% of your income every month and threatened you with dire consequences if you didn’t comply with their “request” – and you didn’t also accept an offer of “protection” they made – you’d know what was going on, wouldn’t you? It would be robbery. Real daylight robbery. But that’s exactly what’s going on in Britain with taxation. Only it’s not a bunch of heavies in the conventional sense, but a much bigger bunch of heavies who are running a state-sized protection racket but are immune from the law – because they just happen to make the law as well. But it doesn’t remove the fact that both bunches of heavies are seizing our property without our consent, which is unquestionably theft. So, just to be as clear as I can: tax is theft because it is a government transgressing the property rights of an individual by enforcing compulsory taxation. And this “morally criminal” behaviour results in an un-free society in which the individual is condemned to tax slavery, where he has to work to enrich the government and the recipients of largesse rather than for his own benefit.’
‘Blimey. How long have you been storing this one up?’
‘Oh, only most of my lifetime – as you well know.’
‘Well, I knew you weren’t too keen on tax, but I’m not sure I realised your views were quite so... well, quite so resolute.’
‘Well, now you do.’
‘Yes...’
And here Sandra hesitated. She may have been weighing up the danger of getting too involved in her husband’s tale, in that it might well delay its conclusion by quite some time. But she clearly needed to make a few points herself, which might just undermine that resolution of his...
‘Brian,’ she began, ‘it’s all very well to characterise tax as a form of robbery. But don’t we need it – at least to a degree? I mean, someone has to pay for the police and the roads – and for the National Health Service.’
‘Yes. That’s what everyone believes. But just imagine you live on a little island – in a little town there – and one day a guy turns up with a machine gun and forces off t
he island all the shopkeepers and all the various tradesmen, and then begins to rob the remaining islanders. But, to be fair to him, in return, he does supply them with the essentials they need, all the stuff they formerly bought in those shops – but all of very poor quality. And it’s the same with all the services that the trades-people formerly provided – again all of very poor quality, and generally you have to wait ages for whatever you want. Now, as one of those islanders, do you think you’d be particularly grateful for what he was doing, whilst, at the same time, he was preventing any competition from coming back onto the island? And, of course, the reality is that it is in no way any different with our government. They hold out that they can be the only providers of a whole raft of services, when we all know that if these services were opened up to real competition, what would be demonstrated very clearly and very soon was that the only thing that they were providing superbly was a bloody rotten deal. I mean, just think of a public service and what comes to mind?’
Sandra responded immediately.
‘Waste. Red-tape. Inefficiency. Featherbedding. Errh... poor quality. Delays...’
‘You’re getting the idea.’
‘Yes, but some stuff... you know, like schools and roads...’
‘Throughout history, there are numerous examples of private enterprise supplying everything from schools and roads to hospitals and even law courts. Yet consistently, that big bunch of heavies, otherwise known as the state, has fought to collect to itself more and more monopolies in more and more areas of civil life – and has then gone on to screw them all up...’
‘What about the poor?’
‘What indeed? Because, clearly, if you were robbed by a mugger who told you that he’d be giving some of your money to the needy, you’d be almost happy that you were being robbed.’
‘Well, no I wouldn’t – obviously.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, because it would still be theft. It would still be an appalling transgression of your property rights. And nobody, not even the desperately poor, has the right to help themselves to what is properly yours – just because they’re poor. Essentially, helping others at your own expense is a choice that should always be made by you and you alone. And people do that all the time – through charities – and when there was a lot less tax taken off them, they did it an awful lot more...’
‘I’m not sure you could replace the welfare state with just charity.’
‘Well, you may have a point. But I wonder just how much the need for welfare would be reduced if the government let us keep what was ours and thereby enabled us to make our own provision for ill-health and old age? And how about them not devaluing our money through rampant economic mismanagement and constant inflation? And they could even stop stifling economic growth and prosperity by perpetually meddling in our affairs, distorting things through subsidies and grants – and loading everything with far too much tax!’
‘So, Brian. How is all this getting us any closer to 2050?’
‘Good question. Well, just staying on this money for the needy point for the moment, it’s important to remember that it’s not the needy who do the taxing, it’s the state. And it’s the state that maintains all those monopolies, and generally forces itself into our lives whilst, at the same time, forcing itself into our wallets. And, guess what: it is the state that is the principal beneficiary. And by the state, I mean the government, the Civil Service, all those buggers in quangos and all those other powerful groups that both support the state and ride on its coat-tails. And this state – in its widest sense – is, in essence, the same sort of beast as the one that got all those Egyptians pushing stones up pyramids, and in no way is it any different from all those other bastards throughout history who, through the exercise of power, have forced all those without power to keep them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. Yes, the state is a modern despot, and however it may seek to conceal it, a supreme thief in the way that all despots are thieves. Although, of course, we mustn’t forget that this particular modern despot is a thief with a difference. And this point is very important. Because, you see, over the years it has diversified. Yes, it is no longer just a plain robber – of billions every year – but it is now also a very very accomplished confidence trickster. Because, quite simply, it has convinced virtually every member of our society – through the promulgation of a bogus ideology – that taxation is a valid aspect of a modern society and not an exercise in extortion on an unparalleled scale. People might moan about tax, but almost always only as they might moan about the weather, in the sense that there will always be tax just as there will always be weather – and it is just its intensity that might ever change. They will never question whether it should ever exist at all. And I tell you – if that isn’t the result of the most successful con in the history of mankind, I don’t know what is. The mugger has convinced his victim that being robbed is actually OK. God, I despair...’
‘But I notice you don’t get much nearer to 2050.’
‘Ah well, I was coming to that. Because what I’m saying is that this idea of taxation being acceptable – and unavoidable – is already embedded in the psyche. And, as I said to start with, by 2050, it will have had another forty years to get embedded even deeper. So that when 2050 arrives, even though most people are poorer than ever, they still accept the need for tax, and, even worse, the need for more and more tax, and more and more forms of tax. And nobody seems to notice that the main beneficiary is still the state, now in the form of a bloated bureaucracy and a very holy health service...’
‘Right. I’m with you. What you’re saying is that people are now being clobbered with more taxes than ever. And, you know what? I have a horrible feeling that you’re just about to tell me what some of these new taxes are.’
Brian beamed.
‘You know me so well.’
‘Better than you know yourself. But I’ll deny that under questioning. And anyway, get a move on. I’m a sounding-board, remember, not a therapist.’
‘Certainly. And to start with, I should make it clear that all the taxes that exist now still exist in 2050, except things like airport tax – on account of there being no planes anymore. But that, on top of all these taxes, there are quite a few others as well...’
‘Such as...?’
‘Such as a sleeping tax – which is designed to tax what is otherwise a very long period of economic inactivity. And this has given rise to the design of “shaking beds”, where one can get a certain amount of rest without sleeping – thereby avoiding the tax – and where one can also spice up a stale and dry marriage if one is that way inclined...’
‘Rubbish. Next one.’
‘OK. How about an evacuation tax – following the principle of the polluter pays – with a pay-as-you-pee facility, appropriate anti-avoidance legislation built in – and some marginal scope for withholding arrangements...’
‘Worse. Next one.’
‘Uh... a “peaky tax” – which is an advance on death duties if you’re looking just a little bit peaky. And a “we’ll-get-you-anyway-tax” – which taxes the benefit of your not paying enough tax through all the other taxes.’
‘Streuth!’
‘And then there are a couple of taxes which they tried but had to abandon...’
‘Yes...?’
‘The orgasm tax – which was too open to false declaration – especially by women...’
‘Brian...’
‘And the masturbation tax. With that one, they could never decide on an appropriate rate – and they couldn’t work out how to collect whatever had been raised...’
Sandra closed her eyes.
‘Well, in my opinion...’ she started slowly, ‘it is just possible that your book doesn’t actually need a chapter on taxation. And if it does... Well, maybe you should think about starting again.’
‘Oh, don’t you think it’ll work?’
‘No. It’s probably got about as much chance of working as you have of convincing anybody of your i
dea that tax is theft. Although I suppose I should admit that you’ve just about convinced me. Probably because I didn’t need that much convincing. And I certainly don’t need any more.’
Brian absorbed this brief demolition job by his wife but remained sunny. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear but, there again, he appeared to have recruited at least one new disciple to his cause – and this was most gratifying indeed. And so gratifying that he didn’t think that he should risk losing his single disciple by telling her about one last new form of tax in 2050. This was where the tax collectors adopted a “Sam Slime scenario one” approach to collecting revenue – by actually mugging people as they went about their daily business. This new tax didn’t have an official name, but it soon became known as “a-tax on the streets”. In a way, it was the most honest tax of them all...
7.
A couple of things became apparent soon after leaving the hotel in the morning. The first was that Taroudant’s walls were impressive. They were enormous and they looked as though they’d been there for years, and probably even longer than the squalor and the rubbish that now encircled them. And then there was the landscape to the west of the town. The desert had disappeared. This was a “productive area”, which, in this part of the world, means intensive agriculture of the citrus variety, and yet more high walls – and, indeed, a general ambience about the place that manages to be the complete antithesis of anything one might associate with a more idealised view of an orange grove. It was all somewhat industrial rather than rural and, under another leaden sky, it put Brian in mind more of Mordor than Morocco. In fact, he half expected to see the fires of Mount Doom on the horizon and a pack of Tolkien’s orcs processing up the highway. But he didn’t. All he saw was more of that leaden sky, unlit by either the sun or a malevolent volcano – and lots of cars on the highway. And this latter aspect of the journey was because they were now approaching the coastal city of southern Morocco, otherwise known as Agadir. Yes, the desert was long gone and “civilisation” was about to appear.
Crystal Balls and Moroccan Walls Page 8