What specific time period and location before "vast income tax regimes and welfare states" are you talking about? And who gave money to what?
Re:US pauses all Federal aid and grants
by pclmulqdq on Tuesday January 28, 2025 @11:25PM
(#42861511)
I'm referring to much of the Western world prior to 1950, and you see this behavior in the middle east today (obviously, they disagree with you about "the right thing"). This is usually enforced socially, by communities and churches.
The social safety net that governments provide today used to be a function of community charities and churches. Even modern healthcare has an analogue here.
What used to happen before vast income tax regimes and welfare states arose was that people who were wealthy would donate huge amounts of money to charities that did what they thought were the right thing. Even the working class donated 10-20% of their income to charities that did the right thing. The way you guarantee that money is spent on the right thing is by having the power to spend it, which means lower taxes.