The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History

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.” (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 that the Founders wrote into our Constitution was added to reassure fearful slaveowners? The Price of Democracy reveals the real history of taxation in America and demonstrates that battles over taxes have always been conflicts over who is included in “We the People.” To weaken American democracy, economics elites have repeatedly sought to undermine both the power to tax and the right to vote. But the battle is far from finished. The Price of Democracy delivers a powerful message to the present: that taxes are the public’s most powerful weapon in the fight for a real democracy.