Taxation in Nature

In commemorating the dreaded tax day, the NYT is running a fascinating articlethis morning on the presence of taxation methods among most species in nature. It turns out that our abstracted and sophisticated tax code is not all that dissimilar to the tax codes present in many animal kingdoms on the planet. For example, researchers at Harvard have discovered that when rhesus monkey finds high quality food (such as ripe coconut) he/she is supposed to give a characteristic food call to fellow monkeys. This means that the food will be shared. What happens if the monkey doesn't follow the proper tax procedure? Well, call it an audit: if the cheating monkey is discovered as having not shared his/her food, the group will not only take away all of his food, but the most dominant among them will beat him mercilessly in front of the group. Not that different from an IRS audit I guess.

Benjamin Franklin may have compared paying taxes to dying (although the wonderful thing about Franklin is you never know when he was being serious), but toll collection is widespread in nature and seems to be an integral part of survival. Each individual has to contribute to the group. Another fascinating example are the bell miner birds of Australia. In preparing the nest for the young ones, the pairs of breeding adults are helped by male youthful helpers who provide a steady supply of nest-making material, and food for the young. In return, they get to stay within the well-protected colony of their fellow species. Not much different than us paying taxes to the Pentagon, I guess.

According to human behavior scientists, humans have had different kinds of elaborate taxing schemes for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, taxation seems to have become a part of our survivalist DNA. So, what do we do with those idiot "tea party" protesters? Should we follow the example of rhesus monkeys?