In the Judeo-Christian traditions there is a concept of “tithing”. The idea is that the collective contribution to the institution that represents the spiritual foundation of its people is a privilege and a duty. To support this idea, there are references in the Bible that describe tithing as “putting God first” in one’s life, since it is believed that God is the reason why a person earned what they earned. Since God presumably needs no income, the tithing is used by that religious organization to further spiritual work on Earth, for the people who benefit from it. A church takes the tithing to accomplish things that a single person or family could not do on their own, such as create a school, build a church, provide support for the poor, create community events that form the glue of the congregation, etc.
A similar approach to financing large endeavors was the hallmark of monarchies for hundreds of years. The royal families owned everything. They taxed the people who were allowed to live on the royal lands as a kind of rent. The taxes collected were then used to pay for the common defense, explore the New World, build nice palaces and gardens, etc. While taxes and tithing are based on different concepts of authority (King or Queen on one hand, God on the other), the underlying premise was that the amounts paid were owed, and that they allowed accomplishments that could only be achieved through collective contribution of resources.
