Even if it doesn't cost people will generally not fight. Seriously, go look at all the people complaining on Reddit about their Bosses but don't even bother to fight back by looking for a new job.
Not all costs are (directly) money. Looking for a new job costs time, and stress, and possibly the costs of relocating, which can include being farther away from friends and community you currently have.
To me, that's just reaching. Fight or flight is a thing. Not everyone is going to fight. Just face, generally, it's not a cost thing, it's a "they're not a fighter" thing.
You can't discount precedent as a major force in human nature. Domestic abuse is one good example. Another is taxation, a system originally built off of ritualized extortion from pillaging hordes of nomads and empires in conquest.
> You can't discount precedent as a major force in human nature
I'm not even sure what your point here is.
> Domestic abuse is one good example.
I don't think you truly understand domestic abuse. It has multiple layers. The first step in to find someone who is vulnerable aka someone who is not a fighter.
> Another is taxation, a system originally built off of ritualized extortion from pillaging hordes of nomads and empires in conquest.
And literally the reason for multiple wars and overthrowing of multiple governments/regimes/monarchies/etc. To this day, the reason it's accepted is because we consider it going to the common good and pooling our money to save ourselves money. Healthcare is a good example of pooling money to save money. But you see plenty of people fight against it to this day.
Their taxes are so high because of the national debt. They got that debt to provide things that were urgently needed. Anyways, this has nothing to do with the subject at hand since there are people who campaign against these things aka fight.
Most of the debt was/is taken on to pay off political patrons, mostly characterized in the form of marked-up procurement. The IMF then turns off the tap as soon as a new regime takes power and decides to default. They don't stop making the maintenance payments because their rivals will pay off the patrons they can't and they would lose their support.
Their taxes are high because cronyism is pervasive and society is structure in a rigid caste-based hierarchy.
