In any case a free society must be guided by the underlying principle of the non-initiation of force, which precludes compulsory taxation. We can therefore turn on its head the familiar cliché (from Oliver Wendell Holmes) that taxes are "the price we pay for civilized society." In reality, the elimination of taxation and other coercive policies is the price we must pay for a truly civilized society. In order to liberate ourselves from the law of the jungle and to achieve a society truly consonant with the requirements of human nature, we must eradicate such vestiges of aggression, limiting the use of force strictly to defensive purposes. Although the transition from compulsory taxation to a system of voluntary funding may not be accomplished overnight, this goal is indeed achievable, as becomes clear after carefully examining the other social and economic implications of freedom. Our discussion thus illustrates again an important principle from Section 3—that the moral is the practical (pp. 3.7:1-6).