Most of the financial "upkeep" you mention there is imposed in the form of taxation, not required for those to exist. Therefore it is an artificial and arbitrary upkeep. I do expect to pay to renew my passport or a VISA, since there’s people working on that so it could be used as revenue to pay for their services.

There’s plenty of countries where informal businesses thrive and don’t pay a dime to the government whose market make a significant portion of the entire economy.

Considering only what the elites have as something of consequence and only worthy talking about/considering is a really grim and narrow view which of course is going to leave a lot to be desired from an argument.