To add to that: There are also "compounding effects" from investments made by tax money, just as for any other investments, the difference is that the compounding gains are collectively owned and not controlled by an individual.

In a healthy society that's the case. In an unhealthy one, who knows.

I think that’s their justification in the abstract, not the justification for most individual tax items.

There again you might pay a lot of taxes and not get the services and have questionable societal stability. Ask some Brits about that.

You can still collect taxes without taxing people who have already been taxed in the form of needing to exchange a large fraction of their life for the wage.

But the amount of tax we pay is because of inefficient, corrupt and incompetent government.