Tax and the Forgotten Classes - A Snapshot of History

Abstract

Peasants, workers and other ordinary people have shaped our world. In this paper I look at their mass struggles over tax, often escalating into broader rebellions, revolts and revolutions against the status quo. This can start as battles within the elite, and end as solutions within the elite. Or it can be a revolt from below, which the elite co-opt or repress or which goes a step further with the lower classes overthrowing the old way of doing things and sweeping aside the impediments to a new economic system, i.e. a social revolution. In looking at the role of peasants, workers and other often forgotten people in the tax and then wider rebellions and revolutions over the last millennium we can I hope discern the long slow march of history to democracy. This is a potted history of forgotten people in the story of tax over the last millennium. There are many more examples which I hope others, inspired by my tentative steps, explore. The long slow march to political and economic democracy we see in this analysis may be side-tracked at the moment. In Australia and other countries social democracy has been the main side-tracker. Although the old mole of class struggle is not visible at the moment we can be sure it is burrowing away to claw its way to the surface, often sparked to do so by the taxes of the elite.