> Believe it or not, taxes are not necessary for running a government. I think even proponents of modern monetary theory even think taxes are necessary, althou

> Believe it or not, taxes are not necessary for running a government. I think even proponents of modern monetary theory even think taxes are necessary, although from the perspective of MMT governments can fund programs by printing money and only need to use taxes to control inflation. I suppose under that perspective the government could simply print extra money and distribute it selectively to control who is affected by inflation, but that would be a fairly unusual approach even by the standards of MMT which is fairly controversial. Otherwise, you need some type of taxes for anything that requires government spending, and essentially everyone who believes that governments should exist wants at least some forms of government spending.