precedents In 1377 parliament agreed to an emer- the officials who collected other taxes, but In 1379, after further military setbacks, subsidy so wonderful [ice amazing] that gency levy of 4d per person over fourteen vears old. The commons insisted that all the money so raised was to go direct to pay even proposed the appointment of special commissioners to collect it, separate trom this was finally agreed to be impractic- the government came back to parliament In this parliament there was granted a the starving English army in France. They looking for money and, as an obviously tax, based on social class. Examples of It was indeed wonderful and I com- mend it to the attention of the chancellor of the exchequer. Ti was a graduated poll no one had everseen or heard of the like?. *a hundred years ago poll taxes were dismissed as historical curiosities' HISTORY astonished chronicler informs us: community charge' officers, the worst is yet to come MARGARET THATCHER has singled out In her poll tax proposals, however, That the community charge is neither Adam Smith as one of Scotland's greatest sons. It is casy to understand her admira- and to defend the rich from the poor' could have been made with the present adminis- Thatcher leaves her mentor far behind: not only are the rich to be protected from the poor, it is the poor who are to pay for Smith has important things to say about taxation. In his Wealth of Nations he lays down tour tiscal principles: equality, cer- convenient nor economical hardly needs to be argued. To make its collection cer- tain would involve the introduction of a But is it 'equal? Its supporters say it is; after all, a millionaire and the woman who What could be fairer? However, this is not what Adam Smith (or any other sanc tion for the founder of capitalist economic theory. Smith's statement that the fune- tion of government is to secure wealth police state, as I will show from pre- scrubs his floor will pay equal amounts. cedents in the sorry history of poll taxes. tainty, convenience and economy. person) understands by equality: tration m mind. this service.
The parhament of 1380 finally agreed after long and heated debate to grant the subsidy at the very high rate of ls per worker, eight days for a labourer.) But abandoned, it being decided that, For the sum reckoned for cach township the suffi- do not pay more than 60 groats [one no one at all should pay less than one groat deplored. The sufficient shail aid the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no B July/September 1988 head. (Three days! pay for a skilled the principle of fairness had not been cient shall (according to their means) aid the lesser, providing that the most wealthy pound for themselves and their wives and A modern historian notes that this pro- vision obviously penalised the inhabi- tants of poor townships", a feature not only reproduced in the community charge but actively desired by the government. In 1380 its injustice was recognised and lesser indeed! What a gang of whingeing Voting poll taxes into existence is much casicr than collecting them. The king's [four pence| for himselfand his wife". rates include: Dukes, E6-13s-4d; Larls, E4: Merchants paid 2s, Is or 6d depending on the scale of their operations. Farmers paid 6s8d, 3std, 2s or Is. Everybody not included in the list of ranks, over sixteen fairer than the community charge. In any case it must be remembered that it was enacted by parlia- ment during what seems to have been one hysteria which afflict that assembly. Nor In 1351 the king decreed a statute of years of age, paid 4d, except beggars and of the occasional bouts of foaming war- What of the sums involved? How much labourers. Workers were in such short supply owing to the black death that did 4d represent to an unskilled labourer? 'Peter the Great had his son flogged so severely that he was it intended to be permanent. those living soicly by alms. All this seems much Barons, C2; Knights, El, "The subjects of every state ought to con- tribute ... in proportion to the revenue During the Victorian era, which the which dismisses poll taxes with these brief A hundred years ago, then, poll taxes werc dismissed as historical curiosities The most famous of all poll taxes was the one which provoked the English pea- as a normal revenue-raising device, but as an emergency measure to pay for a war prime minister wishes to recreate, Adam Smith's principles were seen as absolutely fundamental to the theory of taxation. I'hey form the core of the relevant entry in the Encylopedia Britannica's 1888 edition, taxes are chiefly of interest historically, as illustrated by the poll taxes But, since the prime minister likes to rake through history's middens to find ideas on how to run a country, let us do likewise to sants revolt of 1381. It was not intended which they respectively enjoy, he states. and contemptuous words: levied at various times'. see what we find. against France.
became slave-owners. They were respon- sible for collecting the soul tax and to cable them to do this, all right of move- ment was removed from the peasantry. owners were given total power over them. Peter introduced this system in order to trant clergymen who concealed taxpayers with merciless corporal punishment to be followed with forced labour, even in cases of old age. We also learn of severe decrees, torture and confiscations, to gct the rusty administration machinery into How did Peter's fiscal system work? Before that time there were various legal. categorics of pcasants, some more free than others, who paid various taxes, and a minorily class of slaves, who did not. Petcr created a new unitary system of absolute bondage for all peasants. Previously emplovers or masters, landowners now They were bound to the land, and their the vengeance of the christian god, he reluctantly granted a measure of religious toleration. To no avail. He died a few The Roman empire's tax collectors faced the same problems as were later to baffle those of medieaval England. People was only a simpic soldier so he produced a Peasants were bound for life to the farins they worked on. Artisans were bound to If peasant bondage began in the Roman empire, it enjoyed a late flowering in the aMiction (probably cancer of the groin) to concealed themselves, sold their property and moved from place to place. Diocletian simple solution. Everybody must stay put. their trades, and their children after them. In this way originated the scridom and months later, unlamented by his subjects. HISTORY caste system of European fcudalism. HIS ponded by reversing their normal habit of to you', You are to seize all thosc who act in opposition or rebellion and you are to The tax collectors obeved their orders to the letter. The sufficient did not come to: rassed by ofticials, aroused by a sense of commissioners ran into trouble right away. Faced with demands for the 1379 Who was "sufficient'? Who was 'lesser?? received: You are to collect the required information by the means which seem best the aid of the lesser. Do they ever? Ha- injustice, the lower classes rose in a bloody levy based on social status, people res- pretending to be of higher rank than they really were, or of claiming distinguished In the next year things were even worse. The collectors difficulties were increased by the urgent and pre-emptory orders they keep them safely in our prison.? ancestry:
interest in maintaining the poll tax, and it pay for this wars against Sweden without His popularity may be judged from the lect that when his son confessed as a sin that he wished his fither's death, the priest replied reassuringly that overybody: else did too. Peter later had his son flogged One of his biographers remarks that the damage done by his takes would hardly have been paid for even if he had con- quered five Swedens. Nonetheless, the slave-owning landlords acquired a vested were later annihilated by a vengeful pea- unchanged until 1861 having to borrow moncy so severely that he died. army which was occupying the north of quietly in the archives until it was ex- like that of 1379. In 1688, a year not became necessary to pay off a Scottish Poll taxes acquired a bad reputation in government circles as a result of this tantly, in times of national emergency, Such an occasion arose in 1641 when it England. The 1641 poll tax was graduated merely of national emergency but of revo- After 1698 it was dropped and from that time on the idea of such taxes mouldered salutary experience. Only very reluc- lution, a (graduated) poll tax was raised. humed by the present government. were they resorted to thercafter.
29 That, we learn from history, is when the French revolution was provoked by res- were not paying their fair share of tax. It is The duty on tea which ignited the American revolution was, at 3d a pound, an absolutely trivial imposition. But the Americans rebelled against it becausc they had not voted it on themselves. No taxation withour representation.' The Scs are equally entitled to adopt this slogan, for the community charge was imposed upon them against the wishes of the majority of their representatives in Now that the English Tories, who imposed it upon Scotland without a mur- mur, are being asked to inflict it on their own constitunts, they are much less en- thukiastic. It can be predicted with confi- dence that their enthusiasm will wane still further when attempts are made to collect The This sort of response to unjust taxation entment at the fact that the ruling classes not the level of taxation but its perceived is by no means peculiar to Russia. unfairness which causes the trouble. real trouble always starts • The peasants' revolt of 1381: the year soul tax", and Peter's contemporaries, incomprehensible and hasno price, one of on tangible goods'. It was this writer who holy synod was forced to threaten recalci- Russian empire during the cighteenth and The cause of this bondage, and the means by which it was perpetuated, was a poll tax, introduced by Peter the Great in the 1720s. With typical Russian religiosity it was referred to as a even those friendly to him, regarded it *The soul is something intangible and them wrote, Prices should be fixed only invented the term "soul-destroying' to des- Assessment and collection of this impo- sition were accompanied by the violence and repression inseparable from capita- tion. Souls were 'salted away'. Even the of the last attempt to levy a poll tax cribe the effects of the tax. ninetenth centuries. control. But a tow examples of states using them as permanent and major sources of tion that they gave total power to a bull- This individual (another soldier) is cre-: laxes only as temporary measures, as in ing it like a military camp. He introduced pose this on the urban poor was Galerius, christians would make a suitable scape- Up to now we have considered poll modiacval England, or as means of social revenue can be found. What are the social By the end of the third century, political instability, inflation and civil and foreign wars had reduced the citizens of the Roman empire to such a state of despera- This soldier saved the empire by runn- a form of taxation based partly on proper- ty and partly on a poll tax or capitatio bilebeia which was levied on all those who dited with persuading Diocletian that the and his taxes. In 311 AD, after a reign of three years, he fell ill and, attributing his had little or no property, But the only emperor who was daring cough to im- He is best remembered for his persecution goat to bear the blame for the empire's ills. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no B July/Saptember 1988 effects of such a fiscal policy? necked general, Diocletian. Diocletian's successor. « Hord Harpor
SICS THEORY tion and solidarity is found throughout the marxist literature, with its ringing decla- 'WORKERS OF THE world unite!' This theme of international working class ac- main marxist texts. The Cormunist Mani- 18, is still probably the most popular ofall fero, written by Marx and Engels in 1847- ration that:
and the working class Internationalism ... In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another *The working men (sic) have no country The capitalist system has internationa- lised production, bringing cvery nation into its sphere of activity, creating a world and today's world-wide multinational cor- productive system. The world economy — will also be put an end to."
The working class can struggle effect- ively to free iself only if it rejects the racist, chauvinistic and xenophobic pre- judices which help divide it. This is cssen- tal to the building of the international based on the interdependence of national economies in the world economy, Under ferences among the workers: in the face of WORKING CLASS internationalism is capitalism the working class has time and again been compelled to seek unity on an international level or suffer defeat in even clementary struggles with the capitalist class (a current example is the PrO ferry The employers exploit the national dir- working class militancy the capitalist classes of diflerent countries, while remaining rivals, are quick to combine to defeat their common enemy, the working Yet there is a material base to working class unity: whatever country it may inha- bit, the working class — or proletariat — is an exploited, propertyless class, which does not own significant wealth or the means of production, and is forced to sell Based on this understanding, Marx Men's Associarion, the First Interna- tional, in 1864. Its aims were to weld the working class into a huge, militant force to fight for reforms and overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie. However conditions were helped found the International Working not ripe for it then, and it never became a The growth of the working class in the 1880s provided a material basis for cons- of the Sccond International formed in 1889) was marxism, and this time the International won the allegiance of many SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 8 July/September 1988 Influenced by Engels, the guiding theory tructing a new international leadership. its labour power in order to live.