Cash should flow to those who provide goods and services their neighbors freely choose to purchase. Many private sector cash flows are clean and directed by the free choice of those involved.
Coercion makes money dirty. Dirty money first contaminates, and eventually kills, its recipients. Taxation coerces money from taxpayers. In democracies, even pretend ones, citizens have the notion that they are able to exchange coercive officials for those who will protect individual rights. As we see some taxation as theft, we see more clearly.
Theft is the diverting of cash into the pockets of those who reward their own physical or political strength with another’s work. Those who take from others always become cruel. Cruelty is the hallmark of Communism, Socialism, and all lesser organized crime.
Unfortunately, some people are unable to earn money in a free market. Such lost souls have to be taken care of. It used to take the 10% tithes of believers, collected and distributed by priests, rabbis, and ministers to maintain such people. Now that charity has become a government project, it takes coercion to maintain a growing number of people who do not produce goods or services that anyone would freely choose to buy.
Cutting off cash flows to those addicted to obtaining what they have not earned is difficult. Few elected officials are up to it. So, democracies are eventually replaced by Caesars.
Sometimes, that works better. For awhile.
