>>329945
Pretty much, given that big govt needs to fund their army with the people's money.
In some ways, the older systems were fairer on the peasantry, because at least their money stayed around the locality, through church tithes and barony taxation- because of how decentralized pre-instant communication countries were, a lot of areas were just left to their own devices, and only the major cities contributed directly to govt/monarch funding.
A good example of this is most of the Tudor rebellions, for example, Kent, a county just below London geographically speaking, flipped their shit because they were told to gibs more to the Monarch (and London by extension), instead of having local govt take care of it.
That system also bleeds into why armies of old functioned as they did- because it took so much time to organize things, buy-your-own was almost always more efficient (at least until the renaissance and the era of rent-a-landschnekt).
A previous anon talked about reputation being a decider, this is true to some extent, meshing with the buy-your-own policies; richer areas could afford flashier troops.
Taking London as an example again (most of my knowledge is from the early modern period), the Tower Hamlets trained bands were better equipped and larger than any other, save for magnate (mega-rich noble) raised regiments, simply because they lived in the vicinity of big govt and thus had the funds for flash.
It also helped that most cities and towns were coastal, which meant merchants were easy to control- trade tariffs usually provided most of the government funding, which is why wars were started over shit like the price of wool.
>>329954 don't make me start smugposting.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct, but also still wrong as a matter of semantics, because the money being used to purchase their equipment, while in the hands of their lord, comes from their own pocket (or, more likely, from the sales of their produce).