April 15 Reminds Us of How Unfree We Are
Paul Craig Roberts
Citizens of democracies think of themselves as free. This belief reflects their indoctrination, not the facts.
Historically, the definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. A serf and a slave did not own their own labor, and neither does a citizen of a Western democracy today. Today, April 15, is a good reminder of that fact.
Once upon a time April 15 was the deadline for paying one’s taxes for the prior year. This imposed a burden on taxpayers not to spend all of the prior’s year income, but to set aside the share of their earnings that belonged to government, just as serfs had to set aside the proportion of their labor that belonged to feudal lords, the government of that time. Initially, only the federal government owned part of an American citizens income, but then states followed as did the city of New York. Americans who pay federal, state, and city income taxes are actually taxed higher than Medieval serfs and 19th century slaves on Southern cotton plantations, which means that Americans are less free than serfs and slaves.
Today April 15 is the deadline for filing your tax return, but for most Americans the taxes have already been paid by the withholding tax on wages and salaries and by quarterly estimated tax payments by those with income from investments that are unpredictable such as stocks and bonds. The withholding tax is paid by that part of your wage or salary that you never see. The quarterly estimate is paid by the person writing a check based an an accountant’s estimate. Many Americans might be unaware that the government claims the monetary value of 30-40% of their labor. They never see the money as employers pay it directly to the government. Many Americans are overwithheld. Instead of having to pay the IRS, they receive a check from the government.
As I remember from my study as a graduate student of the medieval economy in Europe under the direction of University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Economics Henry Rosovsky, later Dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, the highest tax rate that could be extracted from a serf was 30%. Generally, it was lower, but 30% was the maximum, the reason being that agricultural technology in those days was so low that if serfs lost more than 30% of their labor, they could not reproduce. On 19th century plantations, such as those in the Caribbean and southern United States, agricultural technology permitted 50% of a slave’s labor to be a return to the slave’s owner on the slave’s purchase price of $63,500 in 2025 dollars.
A plantation owner with 30 slaves as field hands, blacksmiths, and carpenters had $2,000,000 in today’s money invested in his labor force. How likely is he to demoralize and alienate his labor force and give them incentives to run away by beating them with whips, raping their wives, and working them to death in harsh conditions, thus destroying his investment? The slave owner was vastly outnumbered by his slaves, many of whom were warriors captured by the black King of Dahomey in slave wars. Good relations were in the slave owner’s interest.
Yet the propaganda “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” constitutes the education of generations of Americans and the content of university Black Studies programs.
Perhaps we need another Harriet Beecher Stowe to chronicle the treatment of Americans today as human property, not the property of an individual but property of the state, just as was 30% (maximum) of the serf’s labor a property of the state of that time.
Unlike taxation today, which serves little, if any, of the interests of those taxed, serfs gained protection in exchange for their labor. In Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire free men farming for their existence were subject to raids from Vikings, Saracens, Magyars. The raiders came by boat, by horse. The isolated free farmers were helpless.
A would-be strongman appeared with a deal: Supply me with your labor and I will construct a fortress and employ men-at-arms to protect you against raids. You can come to our defended walls and be safe. These protectors became the aristocrats, and the free men became the serfs. But the feudal lords kept their promises as it was in their interest to defend the people. I remember reading historical accounts of how what became the aristocracy bred large war horses that could carry armored knights and were capable of overriding the smaller horses of the Magyars who attacked Europe for a century.
A serf was tied to the land and could not be bought and sold. Medieval serfs paid their taxes in kind–in their labor–initially for protection and then as an inherited obligation. Over time, some of the serfs’ labor obligation could be converted into delivery of products of the serfs’ labor.
The 19th century slave paid his tax to his owner in his labor time as a return on his owner’s investment.
The difference today is that a “free” American pays his slavery in the form of a monetary payment equivalent to government’s share of the monetary earnings of his labor–not in kind in direct labor service.
As Americans pay in money and not directly in labor, the illusion of a free people is created. A “free” American is like a serf. He cannot be bought and sold, but his failure to deliver the monetary value of government’s claim to his labor is harshly punished. Most would prefer whippings to imprisonment.
Until the Reagan marginal tax rate reductions, high earner incomes were taxed at 50% on wages and salaries and 70% on investment income. This put them in the slave class. The rest of Americans are in the tax position of medieval serfs. The difference is that Americans today get nothing for it except wars they do not want and masses of immigrant-invaders to support.
The United States government today stands in extremely poor comparison with the feudal lords of the Medieval Era. And so do the governments of every European democracy.
Today there are no Americans alive who were not born under the income tax. All Americans alive today were born into slavery. But when I was young, there were millions of Americans who had lived most of their lives as free people. These were the last free Americans.
The US income tax came into being in 1913–a deception of the citizens like everything else the US government has done, such as the wars on Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Vietnam. The first income tax rate–1%–only applied to very high incomes. The top tax rate of 7% was only for tycoons. As hardly any Americans were subject to the income tax, the Constitutional amendment allowing an income tax easily passed.
The income tax became law on the eve of World War I, a war America had no business being involved in, and the income thresholds were quickly lowered and the tax rates quickly raised.
The United States dating from the Declaration of Independence is 250 years old. The US income tax is 113 years old. The US has existed for more than twice as long as the income tax.
The US never needed an income tax and does not need one now. The liberals wanted an income tax so that they could redistribute income. An income tax is not needed for the normal functions of government such as roads, bridges, social infrastructure. Modern Monetary Theory has demonstrated that government can finance these operations by creating money as the productive investments raise GDP and pay for themselves in rising output.
Welfare was the province of churches and private charities like the Salvation Army.
In place of a good society, the income tax has brought us endless wars and generations of a welfare class that exists on redistributed income confiscated from working people.
Serfs received protection for their taxes. Slaves received housing, food, and medical care. Post 1913 Americans receive wars.