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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2011
Taxation is situated at the problematic intersection of two political constants: rulers need resources to govern, and the ruled are not eager to supply them. This dilemma is inherent in political organization and has engaged political leaders from despots to democrats; as a result, no policy area has a history longer than taxation. Despite this lengthy experience, however, an optimal strategy for resource extraction has not emerged. Across diverse countries and through time the essential goal of raising revenue has remained unchanged, but there is considerable disagreement about how to go about it. This poses a classic explanatory task for the student of public policy: the policy issue is a constant, but the policies vary—so what explains the variation? Why have policymakers made different choices at different times and places?
1. It should he noted that this reflects a social scientist's version of policy history. While this approach may raise somewhat different concerns than a historian would pursue, I do not think it should he dismissed as the analysis of what W. Andrew Achenhaum calls “bloodless trends in a sanitized context.” See “Politics, Power, and Problems: Perspectives on Writing Policy History,” journal of Policy History 1 (1989): 208Google Scholar. To get at the complex questions posed by the history of public policy, multiple methodologies will be advantageous; incorporating both historical and social science approaches into the field of policy history should be seen as an opportunity, not a problem.
2. E.g., Baldwin, Lee, Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising (Pittsburgh, 1968)Google Scholar; Boyd, Steven R., ed., The Whiskey Rebellion: Past and Present (Westport, Conn., 1985)Google Scholar; Slaughter, Thomas P., The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Kohn, Richard H., “The Washington Administration's Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion,” The journal of American History 59 (December) 1972): 567–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Morgan, Edmund S. and Morgan, Helen M., The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolulion (New York, 1963).Google Scholar
4. E.g., Ferguson, E. James, The Power of the Purse (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961)Google Scholar; Forsythe, Dall W., Taxation and Political Change in the Young Nation (New York, 1977).Google Scholar
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7. The classic example of a historical survey is Dowell, Stephen, A History of Taxation and Taxes in England (London, 1888)Google Scholar; see also Howe, Frederic C., Taxation and Taxes in the United States Under the Internal Revenue System, 1791–1895 (New York, 1896)Google Scholar. An early survey across countries is Kennan, Kossuth, Income Taxation: Methods and Results in Various Countries (Milwaukee, Wise, 1910).Google Scholar
8. Seligman, E. R. A., The Income Tax: A Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Income Taxation at Home and Abroad (New York, 1911)Google Scholar, and Taussig, Frank W., The Tariff History of the United States (New York, 1931).Google Scholar
9. Ratner, Sidney, Taxation and Democracy in America (New York, 1967)Google Scholar, and Paul, Randolph, Taxation in the United States (Boston, 1954)Google Scholar. An example of a recent survey that looks across polities, though not Beardian in orientation, is Becker, Robert A., Revolution, Reform, and the Politics of American Taxation, 1763–1783 (Baton Rouge, La., 1980)Google Scholar, who describes and compares tax policy across the colonies and states in early American history.
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11. To be fair, it is true that finance has been a critical component in some historical explanations that achieve a very great level of generality. For notable efforts in metahistory, see Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Modelski, George, “The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (1978): 214–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Raster, Karen A. and Thompson, William R., “War Making and State Making: Governmental Expenditures, Tax Revenues, and Global Wars,” American Political Science Review 79 (1985): 491–507.Google Scholar
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13. The most prominent application of public choice theory to taxation is Buchanan, James M. and Brennan, Geoffrey, The Power to Tax: The Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar
14. The most important step in the direction of placing public choice theory into astructural and historical context is Douglass North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York, 1981).Google Scholar
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17. Additional work on the history of tax policy that also embodies an empirical theory approach and complements the books reviewed here include Hansen, Susan B., The Politics of Taxation: Revenue Without Representation (New York, 1985)Google Scholar, and King, Ronald F., “From Redistributive to Hegemonic Logic: The Transformation of American Tax Politics, 1894— 1963,” Politics and Society 12 (1983): 1–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar