While this topic is vast and we cannot do it full justice, we have to understand something of the history of taxation to help us understand the nature of taxes and the state.

In short, and necessarily oversimplified, taxation often originated in systems of war, conquest, and tribute, and over time became institutionalized within states that claimed a monopoly on force, evolving into more complex systems that combine coercion with varying degrees of legal legitimacy and public provision.

The honest version of this history is not that Seventh-day Adventists single-handedly invented the USDA’s 1992 Food Guide Pyramid. It is that they helped build the moral, institutional, and research ecosystem in which anti-meat ideas could move from sectarian conviction to nutrition orthodoxy.

We have long normalized the idea that economics is the use of scarce resources. The problem is that, if resources are scarce, the only option left is to decide how to allocate them, leading to a real struggle—sometimes violent—between the parties to see who gets what little there is.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller visited Auburn University on Friday, and I had the unusual opportunity not only to hear his public talk but also to have lunch with him and a few Auburn faculty members beforehand. While I pay more attention to the Fed than the average person, my exposure to it was limited to their public talks, announcements, and press conferences. At the open-door lunch, I got the chance to sit down with a Fed official and ask away.