Description
Book SynopsisBy the 1920s, a variety of corporate stateshad proliferated across the nation, each shaped by a particular mix of taxation and public services, each offering a case study in how the business of America, as President Calvin Coolidge put it, became business.
Trade ReviewThis fine study contributes to our understanding of the growth of centralized authority and government bureaucracy in a nation often described as hostile to such things. -- Jason Scott Smith Journal of American History 2004 A very welcome addition to scholarship on the history of public finance. -- W. Elliot Brownlee EH.Net 2003 The author documents the evolution, often controversial, of state revenue sources and the eventual emergence of state income and wealth taxes as the principal source of revenue for state expenditures... Recommended. Choice 2004 The nature of Higgens-Evenson's achievement is to set the terms of the scholarly debate on the relationship between tax policy and the construction of the modern administrative state. -- Thomas R. Pegram Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2004 Joseph Schumpeter observed that taxation offers a way into the drama of history, for those who are willing to make the effort. This short book by Higgens-Evenson bears out the claim, for the issues touched on are of great interest and importance. -- Martin Daunton Business History 2004 Should find a place in the libraries of historians, economists, political scientists, and public administrators, and it would be usefully added to the syllabi of graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses. -- Christopher Grandy American Historical Review 2006
Table of ContentsContents: AcknowledgementsIntroduction CORPORATE STATES AND JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICSONE Compromise, Corruption, and Confrontation TAX REFORM IN THE 1870'STWO Progress, Bit by Bit SCHOOL AND INSANE ASYLUM SPENDING, 1880 TO 1900THREE From Charter-Mongering to Catching Corporate Freeloaders CORPORATION TAXES, 1880 TO 1907FOUR The Second Era of Internal Improvements TRANSPORTATION SPENDING, 1890 TO 1929FIVE Consent, Control, and Centralization SCHOOL AND HOSPITAL SPENDING, 1900 TO 1929SIX Giants of History INCOME AND GASOLINE TAXATION, 1907 TO 1929SEVEN The Test of Democracy CONTROLLING SPENDING IN THE CORPORATE STATE, 1907 TO 1929 Conclusion THE PRICE OF PROGRESSAppendix Notes Essay on Methods and Sources Index
