How America Prospered Before the Introduction of the Income Tax in 1913

Recommendable! Food for thought! Yes, one can argue that the introduction of the income tax by the US in 1913 was a huge mistake and it enormously fostered the expansion of Big Government in the following decades and until now!

However, on the other hand the article is quite naive! "Before 1911, the U.S. federal government raised almost all its tax revenue from customs duties (tariffs) on imported goods and domestic excise taxes" (Google Search).

Or in other words, how is the federal government to generate sufficient revenues to operate and fulfill its government functions (like defense, law enforcement)? Of course, less government revenues also means less or smaller government!

Naivete is a very common criticism of classical liberalism!

"The power to tax is the power to destroy" is a famous quote from Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1819 U.S. Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland" (Google Search)

"‍Taxing labor has deterred American growth and prosperity. It has exacerbated income inequality. Most importantly, it is immoral.

Ratified in 1913, the Constitution’s Sixteenth Amendment enabled the federal government to levy an income tax. That amendment should be repealed. It conflicts with the Thirteenth Amendment, which bans slavery and involuntary servitude. When you work until May [Tax Freedom Day] every year to pay off your burden to the government, you are in a form of involuntary servitude. ...

It would also unleash capital formation throughout the economy. Every business startup needs capital to fund growth. Before the Sixteenth Amendment, Americans saved much more of their income.

The average savings rate in the nineteenth century was somewhere between 10 percent and 14 percent; today the rate is about 4 percent to 7 percent. ..."

How America Prospered Before the Income Tax — The Coolidge Review