Taxes are what we pay for living in a civil society.

According to a roughly Rousseauvian way of looking (which the founding fathers of the US&A were steeped in), a government is a contract between people to work together and cede some power to a government that in an anarchist world (move to Eritrea, anyone? didn't think so) would remain the prerogative of the individual.

As such, the government is the instrument of the nation-society acting as a whole. From a communitarian point of view, in addition to individual rights and responsibilities, the nation-society as a whole has rights and responsibilities, which devolve in a slightly changed form onto its members.

The capitalist system creates inequalities of wealth and opportunity in which the wealthy gain power over the non-wealthy which, if not corrected, result in damage to the nation-society as a whole. It is thus the job of the government, as the organ of action for the nation-state as a whole, to readjust the power/opportunity equation and prevent the rich from causing great harm to the non-rich through the exercise of the power that money affords. Or to put it blatantly, the only protection the non-rich have against Big Money is Big Government.

One way we ameliorate the damage of unequal distribution of wealth is through regulation of business and industry, in particular of the prevention of monopoly, which is bad for both the individual and business (all business except the holder of the monopoly). Without regulation there is no free market, because the tendency toward monopoly, which is endemic in capitalist systems/societies, leads to the ultimate non-free market (viz the monopoly).

The other way we ameliorate the damage to the nation-society caused by capitalism is through the social safety net. Since the accumulation of wealth by the wealthy through capitalist means, even when properly regulated, rides roughshod over the needs of the individual, the social safety net acts as a brake against total ruination of people who either through inability or bad luck cannot make a way in the labor marketplace. Yes, it is true that it can also be used by people who through laziness don't want to put in the effort to make a way in the labor marketplace. But the instances of this are far fewer than the shrill voices of the right make them out to be. That the right opposes not only welfare but also WPA-style jobs creation shows what the real issue is -- people not being willing to work is thus shown to be a smokescreen, the ultimate underlying issue being, "I want to participate in the nation-society enough to get rich, but not enough to where it costs me anything in the form of taxes."

And really the corporation is not a basic right. It is a charter granted by the nation-society which supposedly is for the betterment of the nation-society. When it is not acting for the betterment of the nation-society, the nation-society has the right (seldom exercises in the extremest sense/way), to take back the charter. I would dearly like to see more of this in certain instances, such as for entities that are "too big to fail" -- entities too big to fail are too big to exist. Let the nation-society's ability to charter or not charter corporations work for the betterment of the society as a whole, for spending shitloads of tax money to bail out large banks is not for the betterment of the society as a whole if there is another way. And there is.

Thus, since the entire monetary system is a way of ordering commerce (which is in any at the very least a necessary evil in a world where not everybody just eats their own produce and makes their own tools, etc., and is arguably, and I would argue for this, a positive good), and since the monetary system is a function of the nation-society itself and thus ought to be seen as serving the nation-society as a whole and not merely the super-rich, agreeing to take part in the commerce using the monetary system is tantamount to agreeing to take part in the government that makes it possible, which includes taxation. Taxation is a necessary part, from both a makes-it-possible and makes-it-moral point of view, of having a system in which it's possible for people to enrich themselves at all. Far from being "theft", as some demagogues of the right portray it, taxation is a vital part of what makes the system work in the first place. Without taxation there would be no government, and without government there would be no monetary system, and without a monetary system there would be no people getting rich by making (or mining) and selling things.

Thus I feel perfectly justified in telling taxophobes that if you don't like the way our system operates, go make your own, and let's see if you can make one that both has no taxes, and doesn't devolve into a serf- or slave-based economy. Buy an island with all your riches, and persuade people to live there and work in your factories, and so forth. No fair getting help from the outside world, which for the most part operates on principles that are direct outworkings of what you say you despise. A government (and all societies have a government, whatever nomenclature you wish to use) would be one governed not by representatives of the people, but by the rich, whose taxes would be taken out in blood and sweat. (I know I know that sounds Marxist but with only a little thought you can see that it isn't.) Although sadly our own country (US&A) is very rapidly devolving into an oligarchy, in which the elected officials are working not for the society as a whole, let alone the people who elected them, but for the large businesses that fund their election campaigns. And I fear the only thing that can change that, short of a massive outcry from the public resulting in great changes in how campaigns are conducted, is bloody revolution. May it not come while I'm alive.