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

by Vanessa S. Williamson

An eye-opening history of taxation showing that battles over taxes have always really been battles over democracy itself

“A convincing case that we must take back the power of taxation” (Heather Cox Richardson, New York Times–bestselling author of Democracy Awakening)

Americans have always fought over the meaning of freedom and equality. What is not commonly recognized is that the battles most pivotal in defining our democracy, from the framing of the Constitution to the decades-long backlash to the civil rights movement, hinged on one issue—taxes.  

In The Price of Democracy, Vanessa S. Williamson challenges the myth that Americans are instinctively anti-tax, revealing that fights over taxes have always been proxies for deeper conflicts over who is included in “We the People.” Poorer people have repeatedly built movements that sought to tax all Americans to create a more equal and democratic nation. Wealthy people have responded by constraining the power to tax and stifling democracy through voting restrictions, gerrymandering, and violence. Yet as hard as anti-tax crusaders have fought to create an America that redistributes not from rich to poor, but from non-white people to rich white people, the battle rages on. 

The Price of Democracy uncovers how fights for fiscal fairness have defined American history, delivering a powerful message to the that taxes are the public’s most powerful weapon in the fight for a real democracy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, History

249 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 11, 2025

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This - p.247: "The authoritarianism of the contemporary Republican party is part of a long tradition of American politics. Elites' fear of taxation is a fear of democracy itself. It is not a complicated calculus. Oligarchs want democracy to be poor so that they can be richer and more powerful. The possibility that people of moderate means would have a say over the tax system has persistently led wealthy people to undermine governments' democratic practices and fiscal capacity."

I've been trying to figure out why so many Republicans don't speak out against the cruel policies, disregard for the rule of law, and openly racist actions of trump 2.0 and all I can come up with is racism.

So this felt recognizable to me when the author says on p. 249: "Racism has been the single greatest ally of the antitax, antidemocratic elite."

[andré crombie · Rating 4 out of 5]

History has not “yet recorded an instance in which governments have been destroyed by attempts of the many to lay undue burdens of taxation on the few,” as one of the lawyers defending the federal income tax told the Supreme Court in 1895. “The teachings of history have all been in the other direction.”

I thought the more contemporary chapters a bit thin (perhaps because I'm more familiar with the role taxes have played in politics and government post-WWII), but the revolutionary era, antebellum period, and Civil War + Reconstruction were excellent, a fascinating retelling of history through taxation.

I especially enjoyed the egalitarian possibilities of taxation — taxes not as boring and burdensome, but as a force for creating a democratic culture. During the First World War:

“I don’t care how wealthy a man may be—if he gave half his fortune, if he gave it all—he couldn’t give a tenth as much as that boy of yours that gives himself to his country,” an assistant secretary of agriculture told farmers in Fargo, North Dakota.

After the Civil War, when taxes were both a way to rebuild (in the literal and figurative sense):

A small number of Republican farmers saw the increases as simply a price worth paying. Edward E. Holman, a white farmer from Holly Springs, Mississippi, saw his taxes nearly double in a single year, yet remained a Republican stalwart: “I have said to people that I was perfectly willing to pay my taxes, as it was to educate the country; that education was what we wanted; that if we had had more of it before the war, we never would have had the war.”

And to deconstruct hierarchy and create a new sense of equality:

Ad valorem taxation—that is, taxation based on a property’s value—requires a system of government assessors passing judgment on the worth of a taxpayer’s property. But a master’s plantation was supposed to be a private dominion where he held complete power. It was utterly unacceptable that a local tax assessor, potentially someone of distinctly lower social rank, should be allowed to come into a master’s home and insist he account for his property. There could be no oversight of the master’s house, no implication that his power was anything less than absolute, and therefore no meaningful property assessment for tax purposes.

Also, always a pleasure to rediscover a capital-c Character:

A towering, bearded figure in a long black coat, with a Texan’s fondness for very large hats, the Populist orator James Harvey “Cyclone” Davis was every inch a white Southerner; his father had served in the Confederate Army and one of his eight brothers was named Jefferson Davis Davis. But Cyclone Davis wanted nothing more than to rein in the corporate elite, whom he called the “sweet-scented millionaire plutocrats,” the “lordly luxuriant looters,” the “gold-trimmed, diamond-bedecked masters of our country,” and the “malevolent minions and myrmidons of Mammon.” Davis helped write the People’s Party’s 1892 platform calling for a graduated income tax. But he was even more radical than his party, demanding a top income tax rate of 100 percent. “It is not right for any man or corporation to be allowed to have an income of over $1,000,000 a year,” Davis insisted.

[Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The strength of this book is its sincerity. It feels written from experience rather than theory alone. Even when discussing big ideas, the tone stays human.