>Seems to me that a society that has to rely on confiscation is a very sad society, whereas a society that has to rely on taxation is trying to set predictable costs of participation and tends to be a democracy- and I can think of no democracies whose peaceful running does not rely on predictable taxation rates. Not on confiscation- unless you have an example in mind. Needless to say, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.

Do you mean to say democracy was tried?