All governments collect taxes. Modern governments have found more things to do with their tax income, and collect more than less advanced governments
- contrast Sweden and Germany with the USA.
Stalinist-style central planning and direction didn't actually work - which is why the Soviet union fell apart. Germany does seem to have avoided that kind of problem, and works a whole lot better than the US and the UK.
Cursitor Doom doesn't know much, and the Mail keeps on feeding him nonsense which sustains his agitated ignorance, so he worries furiously about stuff that isn't a problem, and is blissfully ignorant about stuff - like rising levels of income inequality - which does matter.