The state system’s growth undermined,
in the public opinion, the understanding of the fundamental truth about
taxes and the state. Lysander Spooner’s parable that the government is like
a „highwayman” is sugestive, with the essential difference that the latter
at least recognises the robbery and the unfairness of his actions. Beyond
the fact that ethical arguments can be presented against taxes, the government’s
decisions regarding the tax system are easily criticised by economic criteria.
Any tax system’s reason cannot be an objective, scientific one, because
it serves the interests of the politicians, although most of the economists
are illusorily talking about the „optimal tax system”. It is quite clear
that the real problem is not the method of taxation - progressive or flat
tax - but whether such a tax system socialises as little private property
as possible or not.