Taxes are indeed inefficient, but so too are monopolies and here lies the challenge for governments to get the balance right to maximize efficiency with as little intervention as possible.
But then ask yourselves is a government role to just maximize total production? what about how that production is distributed among its population, then comes the complex topic of wealth/income redistribution.
oooh this is getting complicated so quickly, glad I'm not the government then I have to convince everyone I know what I'm doing whilst really running social experiments on money printing, interest rates and deficits. Hopefully these experiments bear fruit with more knowledge so latest we know what to do next time... or will we...
great post, I loved it, couldn't help myself commenting on how complex things really are, but I take your point we make things more complicated than we need to, makes us feel important, just like I feel important now by writing this post :)