Taxation as a Horizontal Contract: A Libertarian Defense of Progressive Taxation
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Libertarianism faces a fundamental dilemma: its core tenet holds thattaxation must not constitute coercive expropriation, yet progressivetaxation seems to possess an intuitive legitimacy that transcendsarguments from distributive justice. This paper seeks to provide a noveljustificatory path for progressive taxation without recourse to anydistributive justice discourse. The central argument is a redefinition ofthe nature of taxation from "an act of extraction by the government fromindividuals" to "a collective contract concluded among all taxpayers."Within this framework, the government is merely the executor of thecontract, and public goods are the collective property of the taxpayercommunity. Any person who enters the country and enjoys its publicgoods and legal protections, by that very act, tacitly consents to this taxcontract. The progressive rate is a core term of this contract.Consequently, the obligation of the wealthy to pay higher taxes derivesnot from a moral "ought to pay more," but from the legal fact of "havingconsented to this contract." The essence of progressive taxation is thusnot distributive justice, but contractual performance. This paperfurther develops a theory of the exclusivity of taxpayer collectiveproperty, establishes the boundary of rights between taxpayers and nontaxpayers, and institutes a constitutional self-preservation mechanismto prevent governmentalinterference in contracts. This theory achievesa structural breakthrough beyond the traditional social contract andtaxation theories of Hobbes, Locke, Nozick, Rawls, and Hayek
Author: Hou, Bowen
Institution: Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship 2.0
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7201985334