“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.”
It’s the kind of phrase that sounds profound… until you think about it.
This quote, popularized by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., has been repeated like gospel to justify everything from bloated budgets to bureaucratic overreach. But libertarians reject this premise—not because we oppose civilization, but because we understand what actually builds it.
What Is Civilization?
Civilization is not asphalt, paperwork, or a government paycheck.
It’s the spontaneous order that arises when free individuals cooperate, trade, build, and innovate. It’s art, philosophy, markets, families, and voluntary associations.
Civilization is the product of liberty—not coercion.
To suggest that civilization requires taxation is to confuse the gardener with the weeds. Governments didn’t invent progress; they taxed it.
Coercion vs. Cooperation
Let’s call taxation what it is: the forcible extraction of income under threat of penalty.
Imagine if any other institution operated this way—demanding your money, not as an exchange for a good or service, but as a condition of existing in its territory. It would be called extortion. Yet when government does it, we’re told it’s the cost of being “civilized.”
But morality demands consent. Civilization built on force is not civilization—it’s subjugation with a pretty façade.
Who Builds the Roads?
The classic retort: “But who would build the roads?”
Answer: the same people who build smartphones, skyscrapers, and AI—entrepreneurs, engineers, and free markets. Infrastructure can and has been developed without taxation, through voluntary associations, toll systems, and private innovation.
Government doesn't produce value. It redistributes it—and often poorly.
The Price of Control, Not Civilization
Taxes don’t buy civilization. They fund the machinery of control:
• Wars without consent
• Surveillance without a warrant
• Subsidies for the connected
• Bailouts for the irresponsible
• Programs you never asked for—and can’t opt out of
That’s not civilization. That’s the invoice for centralized power.
Final Thought
Civilization flourishes when people are free—free to build, trade, speak, and live without coercion.
It is liberty, not taxation, that makes civilization possible.
So no, taxes are not the price we pay for civilization.
They're the price we pay when liberty is denied in the name of order.
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