[monort]

Imagine you are a Roman and arguing that slave owning is necessary to a functioning society. You are probably even correct and Roman state wouldn't be possible without slaves. Nevertheless, we know that it wasn't an ethical state order. Taxes are similar - they are involuntary, they are required to have a modern state and they are status quo.

Looking at the past, we see that more and more ways to force people do things against their will were discovered as unethical - e.g. slavery, feudalism, divine rights of kings, coverture.

I think there is a non-zero chance, that future people will consider modern taxation (and probably the idea of Westphalian sovereignty) unethical too.

[dsfyu404ed]

That said, taxes in their various forms are as old as slavery and it took several centuries for nongovernmental ownership of slaves to become something that society did not approve of. We still have various forms of slavery even without getting into philosophical debates about free will and false choices.

While taxation may change dramatically in the future that type of fundamental change is not really one that can be forecast so far in advance.

[irb]

I don't think taxes will disappear until money does.