Top Highlights

• The ability to tax is an exercise in economic power over others.
• Tax is accepted if the authority imposing it appears to reflect the society that is paying it.
• The fortunes of a people are, therefore, intimately linked to this process of consensual taxation.
• however much we may grumble, the reality is that tax is actually imposed by consent, and is also paid by consent.
• it does seem to suggest that higher-taxed states are better off, and it’s my suspicion that most people know this.