Voluntary taxation: a lesson from the Ancient Greeks
https://aeon.co/ideas/voluntary-taxation...ent-greeks
EXCERPT: [...] Imagine a progressive tax – in other words, a tax that falls on those most able to pay; a tax that results in the rich paying – quite voluntarily – more than they are obliged, instead of trying to avoid it; a tax that’s spent according to the person who paid it; a tax that involves little bureaucracy. We have a great deal to thank the Ancient Greeks for: to mathematics, science, drama and philosophy, add their taxation system – or rather, lack of – to the list. The Greeks put taxation in the field of ethics: the liberty or despotism of a society could be measured by its system of taxes. We should admire them not so much for the way that they taxed, but the way that they didn’t. There was no tax on income. Taxes were not the way by which the wealth of the rich was shared with the people. Instead, this was achieved by a voluntary alternative: liturgy....
How the Tudors continue to shape an island nation's identity
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-tudors-co...s-identity
EXCERPT: [...] Yet beyond being good ‘box office’, the Tudors matter. Their period witnessed the transition of England from a medieval to an early modern realm. During the 16th century, institutions were created, laws passed and precedents set that remain at the heart of the English polity today. With the Tudors, a recognisable England comes into focus. The Tudor period saw the beginnings of the modern state, the development of national bureaucracy and administration, the establishment of the Church of England, and the genesis of a belief in national sovereignty. And so the Tudor years were a hugely formative period, a time of dramatic change, innovation and exploration – and all this from very inauspicious beginnings....
https://aeon.co/ideas/voluntary-taxation...ent-greeks
EXCERPT: [...] Imagine a progressive tax – in other words, a tax that falls on those most able to pay; a tax that results in the rich paying – quite voluntarily – more than they are obliged, instead of trying to avoid it; a tax that’s spent according to the person who paid it; a tax that involves little bureaucracy. We have a great deal to thank the Ancient Greeks for: to mathematics, science, drama and philosophy, add their taxation system – or rather, lack of – to the list. The Greeks put taxation in the field of ethics: the liberty or despotism of a society could be measured by its system of taxes. We should admire them not so much for the way that they taxed, but the way that they didn’t. There was no tax on income. Taxes were not the way by which the wealth of the rich was shared with the people. Instead, this was achieved by a voluntary alternative: liturgy....
How the Tudors continue to shape an island nation's identity
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-tudors-co...s-identity
EXCERPT: [...] Yet beyond being good ‘box office’, the Tudors matter. Their period witnessed the transition of England from a medieval to an early modern realm. During the 16th century, institutions were created, laws passed and precedents set that remain at the heart of the English polity today. With the Tudors, a recognisable England comes into focus. The Tudor period saw the beginnings of the modern state, the development of national bureaucracy and administration, the establishment of the Church of England, and the genesis of a belief in national sovereignty. And so the Tudor years were a hugely formative period, a time of dramatic change, innovation and exploration – and all this from very inauspicious beginnings....