“Tolerated theft” is what many people think when they scowl at their paychecks and note how much of it has been appropriated by the taxman. But even if formal taxation serves a similar redistributive purpose to demand sharing, “consensus-based command sharing” is probably a better description of government taxation systems—at least in functioning democracies. Unlike demand sharing, where the link between giver and receiver is intimate, national taxation systems are shrouded in institutional anonymity and backed by the faceless power of the state, even if they draw their ultimate authority from
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