You don’t even have to go back a short interval in history to answer that question, and you don’t even have to leave the United States. Just look at many places in Alaska. People live without roads. Yes, there are some highways between larger cities and there are actually paved roads among them, but much of the people live in places that area accessed on foot, snow mobile, or on a river, like human beings have done since they began, and many were much happier not to have 18 wheelers flying past their houses.
They also fished and hunted for their foods and cast their own lead bullets, but there were no supermarkets and few if any doctors. You can still find plenty of places off the beaten path, but that does not support your position. Some taxes are legitimate. The problem is that they have far exceeded their legal limits. The “government” is only responsible for a limited number of things, including the military, but people have elected fools who think everyone is responsible for everything for everyone else. Education and health care are two things that are not named in the Constitution as being the duty of the “Federal Government.” When people start being responsible for themselves again, we wouldn’t have exorbitant taxes. Instead of being down on private ownership, start being down on “gimmie” politicians.