Some Americans see taxes as patriotic. Others see them as optional, immoral, or insulting. According to Ruth Braunstein, a scholar of religion (and occasional Substacker) who studies taxation as a ritual, these (invariably strong) beliefs ladder into a manichaeistic conception of taxation as sacred or profane. For some it’s a sacrament. For others, not so much. But those groups don’t sort in the ways you might expect.
Upper Middle spoke to Braunstein about why argument for profane is winning. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The old phrase you borrowed for the title of your book – My Tax Dollars – is odd because the point of taxation is that they aren’t my dollars. Why do we think we retain some kind of ownership over government money?
The anti-tax movement has successfully framed taxation as a profane threat to something sacred: individual freedom. The argument is profoundly effective because we live in a consumer society. We equate our tax payments to other monetary exchanges we have individual control over. We want to ensure we're getting a good ROI. This leads to a transactional view of citizenship, where people want to know exactly what they're 'buying’ and has been so popularized at this point that progressive politicians hesitate to make a moral case for taxation.
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