spat
.700 Nitro Express
Of course they had a court system. It had less pomp and circumstance than ours, but none of that theater has any value to justice.Call them fees or taxes failure to pay will ultimately end with the government exerting force to obtain the funds. From that perspective there is no difference.
Capone had a court system? I never heard that one. I'll assume it's true. My sense is failure to pay protection to Capone was enforced much quicker and more violently than the legal court system even if it was corrupt.
One of the central tenets of the Sicilian derived mafia was that it's members absolutely never employed the government justice system for anything.
Obviously a large organization that doesn't use the government justice system will need it's own, or police it's members and settle disputes between them.
As far as being quicker and more violent, that's true, but it is a feature not a deficit. One of the main problems with our justice system is it's slow ponderos nature. Justice must be swift or it's not justice.
The fact that it takes years to go to trial does nothing to improve the accuracy rate in our justice system, it simply guarantees a very poor result.
Now, I'm not going to argue to content of either justice system, but I do believe theirs was applied far more uniformly. What our government promotes today is an absolute joke.
As for the difference between a fee and a tax is the penalty for not paying.
You don't get arrested for not paying a fee. You simply don't get to enjoy the associated service. It's far more voluntary than a tax, and therefore more ethical.