In this morning’s paper, a letter to the editor was complaining about high taxes and wrote how, “no nation has ever prospered through taxation.” Of course, the newspaper doesn’t have the same high standards as the SDMB, so the writer didn’t provide any kind of evidence for the statement. I’m wondering how taxation worked back in the day and throughout history. I certainly prefer our current situation to working for a feudal lord, but maybe I just don’t have the whole story. Surely the Romans and Greeks had to tax the population of the day; those aqueducts didn’t pay for themselves.
If someone could please explain how civilizations in the past were taxed, and how taxation has changed, I would like to hear about it.
Your original question was a little broad… perhaps too broad for the vast majority of the Teeming Millions, including me :(. Still, I think it’s interesting, so I’ll mention just one tiny part of it and we’ll see if the bump encourages anyone else to pick up the torch.
One interesting phenomenon in the history of taxes is “tax farming,” where the government (for example, the Roman Empire) hands out the right to collect taxes to an individual or group. This entity is required to pay the government a certain amount, and anything they can collect in taxes over that amount becomes their income. I think this was essentially the method common in the Roman Empire.
IIRC, Roman governors were essentially all making their cash by this method and squeezing their provinces dry, which had the dual effect of both making a governorship a highly desired position for the income and a trap for the potential corruption charges that every governor had hanging over their head. It certainly has been tried from time to time since then, but I’m not sure it ever worked terribly well. I think I recall something about this from British History class in discussing causes leading to the English Civil War, but I could easily be wrong.
I’m way happier to have the IRS than tax farming.
On the other hand, many European countries have much higher tax rates than the United States, and can still be considered prosperous nations.
In ancient Rome (as well as many cultures) it was manditory to serve in the army. When they weren’t at war the soldiers would be put to work doing public works. Since they already had the labor, and the materials were quaried at or near where the work was being done, the aquaducts and roads were practically built for free. Yes, the people were taxed, but that went straight into the officials coffers and were supposed to pay for the administration of the empire. But lets not forget that ultimatly it was corruption that led to the downfall of the empire.
Thanks for the info and the bump, wevets. It sounds like Rome licensed out tax priveleges; would that be an accurate statement? Maybe licensing isn’t the exact word I’m looking for, outsourcing? I think I’ve got it, I hope I’m making sense.
wevets and DWToml815, it sounds like the “no nation has prospered through taxation” was as ridiculous and partisan as I originally thought. It isn’t so much taxing that was the issue, but people not following the rules. Thanks for the info, that’s the kind of information that interested me.
OK, maybe this would make it more specific, how would the taxation of Colonial America compare to today? What was the system like back then? (I probably should have paid more attention or tried to remember history class a little more.) The way I understand it, it wasn’t that the Colonies were being taxed, but that the Colonies weren’t being represented.
A pretty meaningless claim, really. No nation has prospered without taxation, as no nation (in the modern meaning of the term) has ever had no tax. So by definition every nation that has prospered has had taxation. Who knows what “propered through taxation” is supposed to mean.
Consider that Sweden and the USA have roughly comparable standards of living (prosperity) but vastly different taxation rates. The two are almost totally unrelated.
IIRC, the US faced some revolts in the early days because of taxing (ironic because of the most famous ostensible cause of the Revolutionary War) and gave it up for awhile (I’m going off a hazy memory of The Cartoon History of the United States here). I think that was during the Articles of Confederation stage.
That site has a nice progression so the OP can see how the changes have worked in US history.
DWToml815, ISTR that only the aristocracy served in Rome’s Armies (during the Republic) and then the armies became increasingly dependent on professional soldiers and later, foreign-born mercenaries. I don’t ever recall that military service being mandatory.
Because I thought that there were about a many reasons given for the “downfall” as there were experts to give reasons.
I remember it being mentioned in one of my college classes (many years ago), and it interested me enough to ask various professors about this. Here’s what I remember being given as reasons:
the Roman government taxed it’s business so high, and provided few services to them because it wasted all the tax money on corrupt & depraved excesses. – Economics professor, conservative republican.
the Roman government became controlled by the military & the rich commercial interests, and ceased caring about the mass of working people in the Roman empire. – sociology professor, radical socialist.
the Roman government changed from an elected republic to a self-perpetuating aristocratic empire, and lost the support of the common people. – history professor, liberal democrat.
the Roman government eventually failed to provide education to the populace, so they were finally overcome by more ‘modern’ groups. – education professor.
the Roman society had a dis-incentive to invest in any infrastructure or technology improvements, due to the system of slavery. So they eventually fell behind. – engineering professor.
the Roman society was predisposed against any advances in science or technology, because it threatened the stability of the society. For example, roman numerals make it very difficult to do any mathematics more advanced that simple counting & addition. – science professor.
the Roman society worshiped false gods, rather than Christ, which of course led to their downfall. – comparative religions professor, strong christian.
the Roman society oppressed & ignored women, thus wasting the potential contributions of half their population. – sociology professor, strong feminist.
and finally:
“downfall”? – the Romans ruled most of the known world for nearly a thousand years – no other government has ever done that since then. Our country [USA] has only been around for about 200 years. What’s unique about the Roman government isn’t the downfall, but how long they kept it up. – history/science professor.