Article By JSTOR

Beyond the Social Contract, An Anthropology of Tax

Year

2023

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Type

BOOK

Category

Business Administration

Language

English

Pages

163

ISBN

978-1-80539-042-8

Link

Last Update

06-Aug-2025

Keywords

Business ; Anthropology ; Sociology

Description

Tax and taxation are conventionally understood as the embodiment of social contract. This ground-breaking collection of essays challenges this truism, examining what tax might tell us about the limits of social-contract thinking. The contributors shed light on contemporary fiscal structures and public debates about the moralities, practices, and imaginaries of tax systems, using tax to explore the nature of citizenship, personal freedom, and moral and economic value. Their ethnographically grounded accounts show how taxation may be influenced by spaces of fiscal sovereignty that exist outside or alongside the state, taking various forms, from alternative religious communities to economic collectives.

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