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The American and French Revolutions are modern history’s most famous examples of popular resistance to paying taxes. But the pitched rhetorical battles over taxation currently being waged in three different countries are nothing like those 18th century transformative struggles.
When Britain’s 13 American colonies rose up in the 1770s, it was to protest against taxation without representation. When ordinary Frenchmen took to the streets barely a decade later, they were challenging the inequity of a tax system that largely exempt the clergy and nobility. In contrast, the ongoing political wars against tax changes in the US, Colombia and Spain threaten to arrest progressive change and could actually entrench inequality. In some ways, these examples of tax resistance are the counter-revolution.