The main flaw in Ben Shapiro's argument is that his utopia of capitalism and that America should move towards being a true capitalist state is a pipedream.
The founding fathers had no intentions of creating a nation state based on the economic notions of Adam Smith. In the video above, Shapiro questions the validity of paying taxes to render government services that provides no benefit to him. However, a quick read of the US Constitution, if he truly understands it, would clearly see the creation of a central government and with its prescribed ability, for example, to tax and create a military for the common defense.
Anyone who is a true capitalist knows government and taxes are the true enemy of personal freedom, as Shapiro would state. Therefore, based on his perceptions of personal liberty and capitalism, America should not have any central government, taxation, or standing military at all, as they are all wasteful spending of the money he worked so hard to earn.
Hence, his notions and calls for America to become more capitalistic is as ideologically unrealistic as communism.
I think you'all miss one really important point, that being until 1913 or so we did not have federal
income taxes. Government ran off excise, import, and various others fees based on interstate commerce.
As soon as we gave that income tax power to the Federal government we became history as a free people. State government
even one as vile and corrupt as ours were supposed to have the power, with the feds only duty being to make
sure everyone was secure from foreign invasion and rights were applied equally to all men
( plus some administrative stuff like
post service, common money, et al.).
We defined a central government, to allow us to be free and prosper, fairly, independently,
not to be robbed to feed the whims
of the oligarchs in WA DC.