> - buyers and sellers (trade) create markets. Nope, markets are created by governments. > - Taxation can happen via either currency or goods. It's true that

> - buyers and sellers (trade) create markets. Nope, markets are created by governments. > - Taxation can happen via either currency or goods. It's true that many early currencies are named after some commodity (shekel being a good example) because governments imposed a tax in a commodity and that then became the unit of account. It's the same principle though. > - Governments manage societies, most happen to fund themselves via taxes. Taxation is the sole means by which a government provisions resources away from the private sector, and to the public sector, unless your society is simple enough that you can run it without money (which is a pretty small society). > I'm not sure what you mean by public purpose. Things that we get by dint of belonging to a society, such as schooling and libraries.