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The Primitive Marauder is the Modern State, Evolved
Check out last week’s episode of EconTalk:
The good stuff is in the first 20 minutes. After that, the interview really gets into the weeds about the difference between growing tubers (which can be kept in the ground for a long time but rot quickly once harvested . . . and therefore are tax resistant) and grains (which must be harvested at set times and store well . . . and therefore are ideal for taxing). A culture of tuber farmers has historically had less government intrusion than cultures of grain farmers. It’s fascinating, but as I said, the interview really gets into the weeds.
I recommend the first 20 minutes for the premise described in it (which both economists seem to acknowledge is a fundamental historical truth that pretty much everyone has acknowledged since at least Adam Smith): Taxation arose when the human race shifted from hunter-gatherer to sedentary agriculture.
The reason is simple: If marauding bands descended on the hunter-gatherers every time they slaughtered a bison and took the meat, you’d move away. That wasn’t possible when humans started farming. They were stuck and the marauders could always find them and take everything.
But they wouldn’t take everything. They would, at a minimum, leave the early farmers with enough to survive so they would be alive to…
