The Lion's Share: Inequality and the Rise of the Fiscal State in Preindustrial Europe

Description

This is the most in-depth analysis of inequality and social polarization ever attempted for a preindustrial society. Using data from the archives of the Venetian Terraferma, and compared with information available for elsewhere in Europe, Guido Alfani and Matteo Di Tullio demonstrate that the rise of the fiscal-military state served to increase economic inequality in the early modern period. Preindustrial fiscal systems tended to be regressive in nature, and increased post-tax inequality compared to pre-tax - in contrast to what we would assume is the case in contemporary societies. This led to greater and greater disparities in wealth, which were made worse still as taxes were collected almost entirely to fund war and defence rather than social welfare. Though focused on Old Regime Europe, Alfani and Di Tullio's findings speak to contemporary debates about the roots of inequality and social stratification. Cover Half-title page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The Venetian Fiscal System: Centre and Periphery 1.1 The General Development of the Republic’s Fiscal System: Venice and the Birth of the Domain on the Terraferma (Late Fourteenth to Fifteenth Centuries) 1.2 The Rise of the Venetian Fiscal State (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries) 1.3 Between Continuity and Change: The Local Fiscal Systems 1.4 Sources and the Database 2 The Rich and the Poor 2.1 Social Stratification and Poverty: An Analysis of the Literature 2.2 How Many Poor? 2.3 How Many Rich? 2.4 Making It to the Top: Composition and Behaviour of the Rich 2.5 The Prevalence of the Rich and the Poor in the Republic of Venice and Elsewhere in Italy: A Comparative Overview 3 Economic Inequality in the Long Run 3.1 Some Preliminary Clarifications on Data and Measures 3.2 Inequality in City and Country 3.3 The Happy Few: Wealth Concentration andSocio-economic Polarization 3.4 Plague, Inheritance and Inequality 3.5 Citizens, Church and the Venetians in Padua and ItsProvince 3.6 Economic Inequality across the Republic of Venice andItaly 4 Taxation, Redistribution and Inequality 4.1 The Debate on the Causes of Long-Term Inequality Growth across Preindustrial Europe 4.2 The Redistributive Impact of the Early Modern Fiscal State 4.3 Measuring Redistribution: Taxation 4.4 Measuring Redistribution: Public Expenditure 4.5 Conclusion: The Rise of the Fiscal State as a Main Driver of Inequality Growth across Early Modern Europe Appendix: Building Regional Distributions of Wealth for the Republic of Venice and for Veneto A.1 The Method Used: An Overview A.2 Building Rural and Urban Distributions A.3 Building the Regional Distribution(s) A.4 Further Refinements: Accounting for the Propertyless and for the Capital City of Venice Archival Sources Printed Sources Bibliography Index