A protection racket provides no services, it merely means the mob won't actively attack you (probably). This is what you seemed to mean by comparing government

A protection racket provides no services, it merely means the mob won't actively attack you (probably). This is what you seemed to mean by comparing government to the mob, and indeed the protection racket<->taxation analogy is plausible, except that in the US and other functioning states you get much more for your money than left alone. To the extent that you don't, I'd argue it's mostly because of political pressure to reduce taxes by first crippling services and make them seem not worth what they cost.