No, it has to be someone human. Without taxation, people would consume a certain amount. When you tax, someone's consumption has to go down, in order for the

No, it has to be someone human. Without taxation, people would consume a certain amount. When you tax, someone's consumption has to go down, in order for the government to have something to redistribute/spend. In your example, when you "emancipated" the robots, you effectively taxed whoever owned them at the time. If not for the emancipation, the owner would have received the income that the government was receiving. in other words tanstaafl