I occasionally talk about what I call the “Tracy Chapman Problem” faced by free-marketeers of various stripes. That is, “Poor people gonna get their share / Don’t you know I’m / Talking ’bout a revolution” makes a passable folk song lyric, whereas it’s hard to picture college kids sitting around with an acoustic guitar, voices raised in an ode to mutual benefit through comparative advantage and the invisible hand. There is the rare exception, though. The Beatles’ classic “Taxman,” for example. And now, apparently, an anti-tax song that’s topping the charts in Germany. A sample:

Dog tax, tobacco tax,
motor vehicle and environmental tax.
Did you really think there wouldn’t be more?

Sales and beverage taxes
do certainly make a beer expensive,
but that’s still not enough for me!
[…]

(Chorus)
I’m raising your taxes.
Elected is elected, you can’t fire me now;
that’s really the cool thing about democracy.

Ok, it loses something in the translation, but it’s still kinda cool.