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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Taxation is theft?
Message-ID: <329@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Feb-85 19:27:12 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.329
Posted: Sun Feb 10 19:27:12 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 06:30:18 EST
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 18

J. Giles writes:
>Except for the U.S. and certain modern democracies I can't think of any
>nations in all of history which had even a small part of the tax revenue
>diverted to Robin Hood type activities.  Certainly this view of taxation
>hasn't much historical justification.

I can't think of any societies in history which did *not* redistribute
wealth, often through taxation (although the redistribution was not always
from rich to poor!)  Can anyone supply an counterexample?  (Perhaps Max Weber
can help out with this.)  Imperial Rome distributed free grain (the dole),
and the Athens of Socrates also redistributed wealth.  The "welfare state"
(although not in its modern Western form) seems to be at least as old as
history.  

Giles is of course correct to point out that tax revenues are used for many
other purposes as well.

Richard Carnes