A Challenge to the Libertarian Challenge

The “Libertarian Challenge” to redistributive taxation is given as the syllogism: Property is justified; taxes reduce property; therefore, redistributive taxation is unjustifiable. In this article, a challenge to the Libertarian Challenge is presented via the simple rejection of such Libertarian definition of money as entirely equivalent to property. The value of money is shown to be relative based on the holder. For example, the wealthy accumulate money for-exchange while the poor apply money for-use. Thus, to the wealthy money yields a “positional preference” in terms of the total accumulated amount relative to other wealthy persons. Taxes do generally oppose such accumulations just as stated in the Libertarian Challenge. However, a form of redistributive taxation could be applied which would levy tax yet maintain such “positional preference” of the wealthy vis-à-vis one another in terms of total money accumulations. This approach defeats the Libertarian Challenge because the tax is paid proportionately out of money accumulations. Such approach also yields a Pareto optimal result where money is transferred to the poor but no wealthy person is made worse off on a relative basis