You have so many topics going at once in your thread you might want to consider breaking them up. Do you want to discuss tax reform, crime and punishment, food additives, or energy costs?
Well, the discussion seems to be centred around taxation (and whether it is good or bad).
I do know this but it is your backward logic that obfuscates the truth. Taxes are the price we pay for the rule of law, a contract if you will, the result of rather than the reason for peaceful society. Taxes in and of themseves do not a just society make.
There is nothing backward about it. Taxes fund services such as police force, defense, education, roads, infrastructure, scientific research etc. These things lead to better standard of living, better quality of life. Hence, taxation is indirectly responsible for higher living standard and a better quality of life. This is not backward logic, this is deductive logic.
Some seem to reason that if we raise taxes good things follow.
Not at all. Reasonable amount of taxation, wise use of the taxpayer's money and good things will follow (and good things have followed).
In addition to the taxes you support for infrastructure, education, the good life, we have a plethora of user fees for services that were once covered by taxation, and taxes haven't gone down. When government becomes the largest single employer, or worse, employing up to half or more of the taxpaying workforce, we have a problem. Governments do not create wealth, they are a consumer of it. It cannot be all things to all people, though too many rely on the nanny state for just that. Many governments have fallen or are in such deep debt that quality of life suffers. Just take a look South to see how big government, even in a free country, is set to implode under its own weight. Raising taxes seems to be the only tool on governments' shelves, because they are loathe to cut the fat in their powerhouse.
What you are talking here is prudent fiscal management. And I quite agree, prudent fiscal management is necessary. But that is apart from taxation.
Do you think medical advances were made because of taxes? They were either made for profit or out of necessity. Why do you think drug companies have 20 year patents? Electricity? I don't know about you, but I pay for mine, it too is a profit driven enterprise.
Have you heard of a little organization called National Institute of Health (NIH)? They have poured billions of dollars into medical research, research that has immeasurably benefited the drug companies.
And not only medical sciences, government sponsors basic research in all the physical sciences, research that companies are unwilling to sponsor (because it doesn't have any immediate, applicable benefits). What drug companies, petrochemical companies etc, do is applied research.
Applied research takes the knowledge gained in basic research and applies it to make a better product or a new product. But without the foundation of basic research, there can be no applied research.
So yes, taxpayers money is indirectly responsible for medical advances (and indeed, many other scientific advances).
Who's to say that 200 years from now our standard of living will appear appalingly low? It is subjective, maybe the standard of living was quite adequate for the times.
It probably will. I am an optimist, I have faith in science and technology to better the living conditions for humankind. Just as you or I wouldn't want to go back to Boston Tea Party days, I imagine somebody from 200 years into the future wouldn't want to return to the primitive world of today.
I still fail to see how taxation can advance technology and the economy in any substantial way.
I think I have already explained this in reference to medical research. Taxaton funds basic research, based upon which private companies develop the technology, by doing applied research.
Technology is again either out of necessity ond/or profit driven. Although most major advances are made during wars, (which of course we do pay for), do you think Edison relied on taxes? Bell? Gates? Profit is a great motivator. Government grants and support are motivators for lethargy, in any industry. Hey, it's free money right? Let's milk this cow for all she's got.
Let us consider this. Edison relied on theories of electromagnetism (Maxwell theory etc.) to develop a working model for producing electricity. Without theories of electromagnetism, he would not have been able to develop a thing.
Such basic research is mostly sponsored by the government, not by the industry. Bell relied on theory of sound propagation to develop the telephone; again he relied on basic research. Gates relied on theories of computers, computer languages etc. which were developed in the universities, with government money.
Government grants support basic research at universities, which is the foundation upon which industry bases its applied research and technology development. Take out government from the mix, and industrial progress and innovation will freeze almost completely, without any basic, fundamental research.
