Despite claims to the contrary, almost no one converts to Islam (or becomes Commie/Socialist) absent coercion of one form or another. ”4AdvertisementThough religiously mandated, jizya was simultaneously a primary instrument of economic extraction, transferring wealth from a subjugated population to the Islamic state and its ruling elites. Both create incentives for conformity: conversion under jizya; capital flight or political alignment under wealth taxation and the threat of public ownership. Under radical redistribution, resistance—by kulaks withholding grain, property owners opposing nationalization, or dissidents opposing the regime—has repeatedly produced imprisonment, exile, or execution. Equal protection and equal taxation are the institutional expression of the proposition that human beings are not to be ranked by the state for purposes of extraction.