The Pizza Theory of Taxation

Okay, say me, you, and Bill Gates are ordering a pizza. The bill comes out to $15. Now, it's quite clear that there's only one fair way to split the bill: each of us pays five bucks.

Is there any real reason that buying a government should be significantly different from buying a pizza? I can't see any, myself.

Ah, but wait, my imaginary interlocutor interjects Bill Gates has, like, a huge amount of money. Which means that he's getting more out of the whole law enforcement side of government that's protecting his property. Which is like him ending up eating nine slices all my himself and only leaving three for us to fight over. So of course he should pay more.

Except that, no. What the government is protecting is our life, liberty, and property. And either one of those two are immeasurably more valuable than any conceivable amount of property. [And nobody here would be so inegalitarian as to suggest that Mr. Gates' life or liberty is worth more than either of ours.] So when summing up what we're getting for our government dollar; how much pizza we're consuming, we each get 20 gajillion units worth of life, 20 gajillion more of liberty, and a comparitively much smaller amount of property in the mix. So the difference in total consumption between us and Mr. Gates is utterly negligible. Maybe he takes one pepperoni that was on the edge between one of our pieces and his and not cut all the way through.

(So this would seem to argue for a poll tax. [in the 'fixed dollar amount per head' sense, not the 'fee required before you get to vote' one] But I'll concede enough to the Willie Suttonist argument to go as far as a flat percentage tax on income over a minimum living expenses deduction. Except that, were I running the zoo, I'd be wanting to tax something other than income. But that's a whole 'nother rant.)