by Benjamin Marks, editor-in-chief of Economics.org.au,
publisher of Maxwell Newton

If Murdoch journalists and editors had any balls, they would stop grovelling to the world, retracting articles and closing down newspapers. If they had any appreciation of the art of journalism, they would go on the attack and throw more punches than they receive, rather than staying down for the count like the fight is fixed.

Murdoch’s Australian journalists especially have no excuse not to step up, as they are not implicated in the phone hacking scandal and there is an easy target to crusade against in Australia, which is sure to sell papers and divert attention from, or share attention with, the phone hacking scandal. I’m talking, of course, about how the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is funded.

The ABC commits far more dubious activities than Rupert Murdoch, and constantly continues to do so, largely in full public view, and, also largely, in secret.

No matter how much Murdoch may try to cosy, pal and suck up to governments, he has not directly received money from them, except — admittedly, this is a gargantuan compromise — when government departments, candidates and parties advertise on his networks and in his newspapers. But mostly Murdoch gets money by satisfying advertisers by satisfying viewers. The advertisers volunteer to pay to advertise.

In contrast, the ABC is funded by government through taxes. In other words, the ABC is in the pay of government. The ABC is hardly going to speak out against taxes. They are not independent of taxes. They are biased in favour of their source of income. And taxes are not voluntary payments. You do not choose where your taxes go. The government does not even know where you want your taxes to go.

Consider the shroud of secrecy surrounding government claims to be representative. It is secret what each individual votes for, as parliamentary elections are via a secret anonymous ballot, meaning what each individual voted for cannot be known. Since the voters who did get their way at the expense of other voters are not individually identifiable, they cannot be held accountable.

People say we have taxation with representation. The lie is shown to this by the fact that many people vote against the candidate/government that wins power. It is wrong to say they are represented by what they voted against. There are only two responses people ever have to this (except for changing the subject).

First, they say that at least it is what the majority want. That’s the philosophy of the pack hunt, the lynch mob and the gang rape.

Second, they say that public companies are run by shareholder majority vote too. But shareholders consented to the arrangement when they bought their shares and they can always sell their shares. This is not the case with how we “acquired” our “share” of government, and we cannot sell this share if we no longer want it and pocket the proceeds.

It is now clear that tax is theft.

It is now also clear that you don’t need to hack phones to get a massive scoop.

Moreover, since people have been convicted of crimes relating to phone hacking, this can be used as a precedent for crimes related to taxation. Phone hacking entails gaining access through fraudulent means and trespassing on private property. Collecting taxes entails the same, plus, unlike phone hacking, the property of the victim is taken away from them — victims of taxation can no longer use the property confiscated through taxation, whereas victims of phone hacking can still use and access the messages in their phone.

If only the ABC hacked phones rather than received tax revenue, as tax revenue is largely based on the hacking (or threat of forced acquisition) of personal financial accounts, the data from which is then used to justify further violations of private property — namely, taxation.

So, whatever the Murdoch empire loses in the phone hacking scandal, they should be able to take even more of their competitors down with them, and other arms of the empire (or heads of the Hydra) of Murdoch will benefit for it and catapult News Corp into a better position than ever.