It's the spinning and weaving that's been automated, which was the bulk of the manual labor. Sewing the cloth of a fine dress shirt takes between 30 minutes and

It's the spinning and weaving that's been automated, which was the bulk of the manual labor. Sewing the cloth of a fine dress shirt takes between 30 minutes and 4 hours, says Quora. For that shirt, you work an hour to earn $150, pay $50 in payroll/income taxes, pay $100 for shirt, of which maybe another $20 of that will also be taxes (sales tax at the point of sale, and then income tax on the corporation, not even counting taxes on the materials and wages that they buy with the remaining $80). Figure around half of every dollar you spend is either taxes on the way in, or taxes on the way out. The problem is decidedly not a lack of taxes.