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Triumph of Reason: Taxation
by Groff Schroeder
| Jesus Christ may be only person in history who did not complain about taxes. If everyone hates taxes - why then, do they exist? |
From the smallest hunter-gatherer tribe to the planet's largest city, individuals living in societies depend upon the group for things they cannot obtain alone. A society provides safety, resources and infrastructure to individuals, who support the society and its members (including themselves), through their contributions. Societies not providing for their members cannot retain them, and non-contributing members may lose societal benefits, either through rejection by contributing members or through the collapse of the society. |
Societies depend on their members' contributions to meet needs and advance goals. You can consider any individual contribution to a group as taxation, and members of the earliest human societies probably grumbled as they delivered the spoils of their hunt to benefit the group rather than keeping it themselves. The unhappy hunter surrendered his rabbit to feed the group on one day, but on days when his hunt was unsuccessful, he and his family benefited from other members of the society who were also willing to support the common good, surrendering their kills to feed the group. These group-centered actions appear to have led to the development of "experts" within early societies, who honed various abilities important to the continued existence of the group. Together, they survived and even thrived through cooperation in pursuit of common goals, eventually making our modern technological life possible. |
Today, members of societies contribute not cold dead animals, but cold hard cash, and it can be difficult to connect monetary contributions to the benefits they fund, even when they are spectacular works of engineering bridging seemingly impossible expanses, free breakfast programs for kids or instrumented rovers exploring Mars. While the unlucky hunter could see the rabbit parts his cohort contributed to the stew, it can be more difficult to find the $494.40 the 4.944 mill levy on your $100,000 home contributes to your child's public school district every year. However, it should not be too difficult to recognize that the value your child's school provides far exceeds $494.40 yearly. Because most Americans recognize the value of providing a good education to our children, we work together to achieve it, a cooperative effort that separates our nation from the second and third world nations that do not. |
Some humans have probably been unhappy about taxes (pooling individual resources for mutual benefit) since the first societal meal. Without them, there would be no America - no states, no soldiers, no voting machines, no Internet, no representatives, no highways, no police officers, no firefighters and no public school teachers. Few of us could read these words, count our wages or calculate the taxes withdrawn from them. |
Few enjoy paying taxes, but pooled monetary resources provide crucial societal advantages that benefit everyone. Cooperative societies where individuals contribute to the common good by pooling assets can achieve monumental works that are all but impossible for individuals or competing groups. |
America can still recover the can-do spirit of innovation, citizenship, camaraderie, cooperation, shared societal responsibilities and mutual benefit that once bonded her citizens' in shared responsibilities to freedom, the rule of law, fellow citizens and those less fortunate. However, first we must identify the numerous benefits that stem from our contributions to common good, and recognize the great value they provide. |
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