At the origin of money we have a "relation of representa-
tion" of death as an invisible world, before and beyond life—a
representation that is the product of the symbolic function
proper to the human species and which envisages birth as an
original debt incurred by all men, a debt owing to the cosmic
powers from which humanity emerged.
Payment of this debt, which can however never be settled
on earth—because its full reimbursement is out of reach—takes
the form of sacrifices which, by replenishing the credit of the
living, make it possible to prolong life and even in certain cases
to achieve eternity by joining the Gods.
But this initial belief-
claim is also associated with the emergence of sovereign powers
whose legitimacy resides in their ability to represent the entire
original cosmos. And it is these powers that invented money as
a means of settling debts—a means whose abstraction makes
it possible to resolve the sacrificial paradox by which put-
ting to death becomes the permanent means of protecting life.
Through this institution, belief is in turn transferred to a cur-
rency stamped with the effigy of the sovereign—a money put in
circulation but whose return is organized by this other institu-
tion which is the tax/settlement of the life debt. So money also
takes on the function of a means of payment.
In all Indo-European languages, words for "debt" are synony-
mous with those for "sin" or "guilt", illustrating the links be-
tween religion, payment and the mediation of the sacred and
profane realms by "money." For example, there is a connection
between money (German
Geld),
indemnity or sacrifice (Old
English
Geild),
tax (Gothic
Gild)
and, of course, guilt.
If the king has simply taken over guardianship of that primordial
debt we all owe to society for having created us, this provides a very
neat explanation for why the government feels it has the right to make
us pay taxes.
Taxes are just a measure of our debt to the society that
made us
http://dieoff.org/_Economics/PrimordialDebts.pdf