Commentary
According to St. Paul, Jesus Christ said that it is more blessed to give than to receive: But we have changed all that. In the modern state, it is more blessed to receive than to give, and possibly more common too.
Giving in the modern state is compulsory and the donors have no choice in the matter, either as to the quantity or the destination of their gifts, these perhaps better known as taxes. Of course, in the process of distribution, a proportion of their gifts do not reach their ostensible recipients, for distribution itself does not come as a gift but as an additional reason why the compulsory gifts must be so large. Assuming, for example, that the 87,000 proposed new IRS officials in the United States themselves receive compulsory gifts of the taxpayers (also known as their salaries) of $50,000 a year, a $4,350,000,000 compulsory donation will have to take place in the United States just to meet the cost of them….