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The Terrific Engine
Income Taxation and the Modernization of the Canadian Political Imaginary
David Tough (Author)
9780774836784
Paperback / softback, published 15 January 2019
200 pages, 3 b&w photos, 7 illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.31 kg
What do we mean by left wing or right wing? People started using the language of a political spectrum when early twentieth-century political parties began to distinguish their platforms by offering different approaches to income distribution. The Terrific Engine examines how the powerful tool of income taxation transformed the way people talk and think about politics in Canada. Drawing on heated debates that demonstrated the imaginative power of income taxation, David Tough traces the modernization of political language from the 1911 election through the Second World War. Countering a strongly held myth that income taxation was imposed on a reluctant public, Tough argues that its introduction is in fact a story of democracy. People first demanded that this new form of taxation replace existing ones, and then that it be used to address income inequality. And, in establishing a clear basis for party differences, income taxation made elections significantly more democratic.
Acknowledgments Introduction: A Political History of Possibility Part 1: The People's Enlightenment and the Destruction of the Two-Party System 1 A Clear Line? The Great Deception and the Farmers' Critique of the Tariff , 1910–11 2 The Brink of the Abyss: The "Conscription of Wealth" and the Party System, 1917–19 Part 2: The Citizenship of Contribution and the Construction of the Modern Political Imaginary 3 The Curve of Progressivity: "Fiscal Need" and the Constitution, 1921–39 4 A Modern Measure? The Income Tax Sublime and the Left–Right Spectrum, 1940–45 Conclusion: Income Taxation, Democracy, and the Modern Political Imaginary Notes; Bibliography; Index