We've been through all this before.
As British subjects we had global cartels that created cash cows to beat the band. The British Far East Trading Company was a legalized dope operation and the biggest depositor in Eupopean banks, which Kings listened to. The bankers themselves had quite a racket in financing both sides in great wars, and always had the government tax revenuers bringing the peasants' cash in to pay all the interest. The feudal lords managed the peasants and kept them in debt to them as well.
When the international cartel folks wanted to secure monopolies on American trade or merchants, they got the King to impose taxes, and send tax collectors, and refused to let competitor ships dock and unload, and shut down local manufacture. It was a "great" time in world history, just like today. European nations were making colonies of the rest of the world, and bringing all the stuff home to enable the posh excesses of high society at home. Those who were "The 1%" did very well.
It financed the industrial revolution as well. International trade was where it was at. The BFETC took American cotton to England, where the mills had abundant cheap labor from the oppressed peasant hordes and used machinery to compound their advantages to make cloth and clothing for sale all over the world. They took the cheap stuff to India, and undercut local cotton and clothing producers. When the farmers couldn't get a good price for cotton, the British got them to produce opium, which the BFETC loaded on their boats and took to China, and traded for silk and other stuff. On the way back to England, the ships stopped on the coasts of Africa and loaded up with slaves, and headed for the West Indies and the South. As if all this profitable business just wasn't enough, they had to keep the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish from undercutting their prices in the Colonies.
The British and French fought over lucrative fur trade with the Indians, and competed for influence with them. On every front the Americans were being hemmed in, and restricted, and taxed.
The colonies revolted, and with French helped them win their bid for independence. Later, the constitutional congress met, at first primary because of continued British efforts at exploiting American trade, and among all their other innovations, chose to protect their independence with a unified tariff system. It was a stroke of genius actually. And it is what made American independence thrive. We were able to develop our own productive enterprises, manufactures, and use our own resouces to advantage. Our "Alliance with none, Commerce with all" foreign policy enabled us to develop our own trading relations all around the world.
Our present involvement in World governance schemes dominated by international cartels and other sorts of elites is the reason why we are failing now.
Abolish the income tax, and tax the cartels, and create the conditions that will favor competitors to challenge the biggies. Consumers would pay higher prices for stuff, initially, but in the long run we will get better prices if we break up the monopolites. And we would reduce the influence of lobbyists and fat cat contributors to politicians.
