I recently saw an interesting review of Against the Grain by James Scott, which ... | Hacker News

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bobbiechen on Oct 19, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Coffee Is Hard

I recently saw an interesting review of Against the Grain by James Scott, which makes the claim that:

only the cereal grains can serve as a basis for taxation: visible, divisible, assessable, storable, transportable, and “rationable.”

And so early states led the way in agriculture in order to collect more taxes.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/14/book-review-against-th...

chrisco255 on Oct 19, 2019 [–]

I dunno, I suspect this is a cause and effect sort of thing. The grains and abundance probably came first, civilization came second, and with that came taxes and government.

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