Taxes Kept People Ignorant? - Who Killed John Keats?

From my personal blog Fascist Soup:

What can an English professor teach us about economics?

Apparently a metric ass ton.

Prof. Paul Cantor describes how window taxes and stamp taxes were used by government in previous centuries to keep people in the dark both literally and figuratively.

In this shocking exposé of government tyranny, the good professor demonstrates how window taxes limited the number of windows in homes, which in turn limited the available light for reading. In a day and age before electric lights, natural daylight was essential for reading and work.

On top of window taxes restricting people’s access to information, the good professor also demonstrates how taxes on paper were used by the major newspapers of the day to stifle competition. These taxes on paper were also promoted by government because government wanted to limit the number of critical voices against them.

There is so much juicy stuff in this lecture that I would be doing it a disservice to continue trying to describe it.

This lecture on historical literature and economics starts off a little slow but by the end it will have you begging for more.



[edit on 18-7-2010 by mnemeth1]

reply to post by mnemeth1


It was a great lecture. I caught it on Mises.org, but thank you for sharing it with the ATS community.

There are so many great lectures on that site that are so full of information, ones mind will be blown no matter how much they think they know.

I implore the ATS community. Listen to this.

No, no, no, no, you have it all wrong. Taxes are good. Taxes provide many things. Look at what they provide.

Control.
War.
Federal Reserve.
Huge government.
Gestapo police tactics.
etc.

Thanks for the vid OP.