Let's set aside questions of what a particular person's labor is worth for a moment. One may have all sorts of opinions as to whether someone deserves the wage

Let's set aside questions of what a particular person's labor is worth for a moment. One may have all sorts of opinions as to whether someone deserves the wage they earn, and such arguments are beside the point. Let us also set aside the questions of taxation. One may likewise have all sorts of opinions on this subject, but again, they are a distraction from the central argument. And finally let us set aside the questions of the exploitation of workers. Again, this is important, but it is still a distraction. The central concept behind a wage is this: It is a contractual exchange of X for Y. I am giving you something, and you are giving me something in exchange. The "something" I am giving you is my labor. You consider this a thing of value to yourself or your company. You feel a need for my labor, so you make an agreement with me to give me something of equal value in exchange. "Equal value" in this case is determined by negotiation. If I do not agree that what you are offering me in exchange for my labor is of sufficient value, I can choose to accept the agreement and gain a more limited benefit, or I can reject it. The thing you give me in this case is money. It could be room and board. It could be many things. But unless the thing you give me in exchange for what I give you becomes "mine," the entire exchange is a fraud that no rational person would agree to. To say that the benefit I receive for the benefit I provide is not "mine" in any moral sense is completely irrational. And if it is true that my wages are not "mine" then it must also be true that my labor is not "yours," and you have no right to keep the fruits of my labor. What this article assumes is equivalent to saying that there is no such thing as personal property of any kind, and that includes your own life and energies. If your wages are not yours, then neither is your labor, and thus your labor can be coerced from you just as surely as your money can be stolen. Your life does not belong to you. It belongs "something other." That something other, as near as I can tell from the article, is the collective whole. You are only of value so much as you benefit the collective, and as such you are disposable as soon as you, in the estimation of the ruling authority, cease to benefit the collective. If you want to make a legitimate argument in favor of taxation (and I believe in just and mutually-beneficial taxation, just to be clear), you cannot do so by denying the fundamental and moral nature of labor and wages. Deny that moral principle, and you are ultimately denying the value and dignity of human life itself.