In praise of... taxation

    Give to everyone what you owe: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.       - Romans 13.7

Thank God for taxes
Taxation: as inevitable as death, and usually about as welcome. Both major parties in Australia have promised large tax cuts at the start of their respective campaigns, and the electorate rejoices in its new-found wealth.

But before joining the celebration, spare a thought for the cost of these cuts. Taxation is a good thing. "Taxes are the price we pay for civilisation", according to US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The creation and enjoyment of wealth is not possible without stable society, which, in a world riddled with mistrust, requires effective government, and thus taxation. The government is not stealing "your" money; it is creating the conditions of possibility for an effective economic system at all. It makes no sense to speak of the money you would have had if the government did not levy taxes.

Ethicist Peter Singer considers a hypothetical corporation producing automobiles:

...the corporation could not make its cars without a legal system that fosters and protects mining rights, private ownership of land, an accepted currency, systems of transport, the production and sale of energy, the existence of an educated labour force, corporate oversight, the protection of patents and the prevention of monopolies, judicial resolution of disputes, national defence and the protection of trading routes. Even if it could make them, without security and at least a moderate degree of prosperity, few people would buy them. In other words, without taxes, and the system of regulation that could not exist without taxes, the corporation would not be able to pay [its employees] and if, somehow, [they] did get paid, the money would be of little value because [they] could not be secure in [their] ownership of anything [they] bought with it.

Herbert Simon, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, has estimated the proportion of income in wealthy countries that is the result of social capital - including technology and organisational and governmental skills - rather than individual effort. Given the enormous differences betrween average incomes in rich and poor countries that cannot be explained by differences in effort, he suggests that social capital is probably responsible for at least 90 percent of income in wealthy coutries like the United State.

- Peter Singer, The President of Good and Evil, 16-17.

Of course, there is such a thing as intolerably high taxation, which ends up detracting from the common good. And of course, there are no guarantees of efficiency, especially when governments value re-election over public service. Nevertheless, taxes are fundamentally a blessing towards the common good, for which we ought to give thanks. Let us praise what is good.
Eight points for the country in the picture. Or twelve for the building, a national seat of government. But please don't guess both.