Taxes, Sociology Of

Ann C. Mumford

Although some might start with Auguste Comte (1798–1857), most scholars would suggest that an account of the sociological study of taxes should begin much later, in the early twentieth century, when the concept of fiscal sociology was first introduced. The phrase fiscal sociology dates back to the early decades of the twentieth century; nevertheless, its tenets derive from the seventeenth century. This is the point at which nation-states systematized the collection of taxes, and pillage and plunder gradually were abandoned as methods of enriching governments. Rudolf Goldscheid (1870–1931) and Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) described the importance of this development to sociology generally and invented the phrase fiscal sociology. They argued that the organized collection of taxes was a governing force behind politics, economies, and societies. They challenged, for example, the Marxian account of history with a fiscal sociological analysis. The First and Second World Wars had a deleterious impact on Volume ...

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