An eye-opening history of taxation showing that battles over taxes have always been battles over democracy itself.
“I love this book. . . . A convincing case that we must take back the power of taxation to restore our democracy.”—Heather Cox Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of Democracy Awakening
Everyone has heard the story of the Boston Tea Party, but did you know that the angry colonists threw tea in the harbor to oppose a corporate tax cut? Or that every limitation on the government’s tax power written into our Constitution in 1787 was added to reassure fearful slaveowners? The Price of Democracy reveals the real history of taxation in America, showing that economic elites have repeatedly sought to weaken democracy by undermining both the right to vote and the power to tax. But the battle is far from finished. Now updated with a new afterword, The Price of Democracy delivers an essential message to the present: that taxes are the public’s most powerful weapon in the fight for a real democracy.