The Tax Road to Serfdom

I listened to a great podcast at Lew Rockwell this week: Tax Resistance, Then and Now. It was a speech by Charles Adams, a tax practitioner and history buff who says direct taxation (like our income tax) has brought all sorts of evils, including serfdom. According to Adams, Roman people were migrating all over the place in order to escape the tax rolls, so Diocletian mandated that all persons be tied to the land and to their jobs. The result was serfdom.

"Yet in the 4th century A.D., liberty and freedom for the Roman people was taken away by the Emperor Diocletian in order to protect the emperor’s revenue. In one fell swoop, Diocletian ordered all Romans to remain on their jobs, to not change their places of abode. That way, no one could escape from the tax rolls. Prior to his decree, Roman taxation was founded upon a census taken every five years, but overly taxed citizens — after taxes had been doubled and then doubled again — would quickly move away to a new tax district where they weren’t on the rolls, and until the next census they were outside the tax system. There was a saying at that time, that “a man was free if his name was not on the tax rolls.” So like all governments before and since, they took the necessary steps, even if it meant taking away the freedom of the people, to ensure full compliance with the tax law. There is evidence to support and justify what Diocletian did to prevent the empire from collapse. But the great Roman historian, M. Rostovtzeff, saw this as no justification for the evil that was done:

The emperors of the fourth century, and above all Diocletian…took their duties seriously, and they were animated by the sincerest love of their country. Their aim was to save the Roman Empire, and they achieved it…. They never asked whether it was worth while to save the Roman Empire in order to make a vast prison for scores of millions of men."

Will Durant, in Caesar and Christ, supports Adams. After spending a page explaining the direct tax Diocletian instituted and the draconian measures he took to stop evasion (”torture was used upon wives, children, and slaves to make them reveal the hidden wealth or earnings of the household”), he concluded:

"It was probably to check this costly mobility, to ensure a proper flow of food to armies and cities, and of taxes to the state, that Diocletian resorted to measures that in effect established serfdom in the fields, factories, and guilds. . . . In this and other ways agriculture passed in the third century from slavery through freedom to serfdom, and entered the Middle Ages." (Will Durant, Caesar and Christ), p. 644.