That leads to a much bigger question. Can human society only be civilized if there's a government drawing boundaries and enforcing laws?
I've never liked the idea that we would devolve into chaos if our government wasn't there keeping us all in line. It assumes that a) there are some people who know what is best for all of us and b) that we're effectively signing up to live as animals in a zoo.
Don't get me wrong this isn't some anarchist dream, I don't want to find out what happens without a government. But I can't sign up for the idea that a government and its taxes are a fundamental requirement for any form of civilized society.
I believe in inter-human relationships, trust and reputation. If you have a community of people where everybody knows everybody, you likely don't need greater authorities.
But that's not how the world works, and you will often deal with people from which you cannot know how trustworthy they are. Nothing stops a gang of thugs from outside to come steal and kill without repercussions.
There's some good research being done in regards to prisons in Calofirnia. And how an increase in prisoners has cause a massive deterioration in social conduct.
There is a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. Yes the society we have today is structured in a way that's dependent on a government authority, but that could very well be because we built this society alongside ever-growing governments.
Maybe the question doesn't matter now that this is where we're at, but at best I think it's be safe to say government taxes are necessary for the civilized society we have today.
Even the smallest human groups tend to end up with governments quite quickly. A tribal chief is a government. Taxes might not be necessary for the simplest governments that provide no services, but as soon as a government starts providing things for the people it governs it needs resources, and thus some way to acquire those resources.
Taxes are /one of/ the prices we pay to live in a partially-civilized partially-capitalist society.
We are not aware of non-hypothetical long-term widespread high standard of living completely non-capitalist societies (yes, that's a bunch of qualifiers), but there is certainly a range of taxation, legal and social policies that work to varying degrees of success.
