UNIDENTIFIED PERSON, BYLINE: NPR.

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PADDY HIRSCH, HOST:

Hello, Stacey.

STACEY VANEK SMITH, HOST:

Hello, Paddy.

HIRSCH: So I’ve a query for you. It is tax time, after all.

VANEK SMITH: Yeah.

HIRSCH: I do know you have been sweating, you have been working day and evening in your taxes.

VANEK SMITH: It is tax time, yeah.

HIRSCH: How do you are feeling about paying taxes?

VANEK SMITH: I imply, I do not know – stressed.

HIRSCH: However you do not thoughts paying taxes in precept.

VANEK SMITH: In precept, no. In follow…

(TO LAUGH)

VANEK SMITH: In follow, it is totally different. However sure, in precept, joyful to do my half.

HIRSCH: Good for you as a result of do you know that in the USA in the present day, about 1 in 6 {dollars} just isn’t taxed?

VANEK SMITH: Oh, it is like taxes are dodged, you imply?

HIRSCH: Properly, the tax loopholes – huge enterprise and rich residents are doing no matter they’ll to decrease their tax invoice. And so they find yourself paying as little tax as attainable, so plenty of issues will not be taxed on this nation. However in any other case, taxes have been with us for an extended, very long time – a very long time; actually way back to historical Athens, which is, like, you recognize, 4 or 500 BC

VANEK SMITH: I imply, yeah, that they had taxes again then – taxes that largely fell on the richest 1% of the inhabitants and consider it or not, taxes that these rich Athenian residents did. ‘Weren’t solely prepared to pay however someway preferred to brag about paying. It was like a standing image.

HIRSCH: Standing.

VANEK SMITH: I want I had felt that means about it. It’s the PLANETARY MONEY INDICATOR. I’m Stacey Vanek Smith.

HIRSCH: And I am Paddy Hirsch. And on in the present day’s present, we return in time to historical Athens to seek out out extra concerning the taxes individuals wished to pay and what they acquired in return.

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HIRSCH: Thomas Martin is a professor of classics on the Faculty of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, and I got here throughout an article he wrote about taxes in historical Athens in The Dialog. And the play had a reasonably catchy title – “Solely Richest Athenians Paid Taxes – and They Bragged About It” (ph).

So, professor, inform us a bit about Athens within the 4th and fifth centuries BC.

THOMAS MARTIN: Athens was, on the time, a extremely affluent and enormous group. We predict there have been most likely as many as 300,000 individuals or extra dwelling within the territory. You recognize, it is about 25 by 30 miles. And as we communicate, Athens had been creating for, you recognize, just a few centuries and had developed fairly a strong infrastructure for the time with giant fortification partitions to guard them from enemy assaults and particularly to attach the town heart. to their worldwide seaport, which was, you recognize, about 5 or 6 miles away and was the actual coronary heart of what was going to be their financial success as a global buying and selling energy.

HIRSCH: Yeah, I can think about. And the way did the town pay for all of this?

MARTIN: Yeah. Properly, they paid for it by varied sources of revenue. From the knowledge at our disposal, evidently crucial flows have been, firstly, the tax they collected from the commerce coming into and leaving their port, which has been more and more profitable, and, within the fourth century, was like a super-international success. And so they imposed a tax on the worth of products coming into and leaving the port, a lot of which was meals. The Athenians needed to import meals simply to remain alive, to feed the individuals, when within the early 400s they found some actually profitable silver ore veins of their land. And for the subsequent 200 years, they leased the silver mining operations to personal contractors who would then pay in return the correct, you recognize, to mine the silver and promote it. They’d a tax on prostitution, which was not unlawful. And so they’ve additionally imposed fines as penalties for shedding in plenty of civil instances, and so these are the type of main revenue streams.

HIRSCH: So Athens clearly wasn’t precisely a tax-free paradise.

MARTIN: Oh.

HIRSCH: However there was no formal revenue tax or wealth tax, which is, you recognize, an enormous distinction from what we’ve in America in the present day. However how did Athens pay for its protection?

MARTIN: The richest Athenians paid the value.

HIRSCH: Actually?

MARTIN: It is a type of taxation, if you wish to name it that. However the Athenians had a particular phrase for it. And that’s, I believe, the important thing to understanding how they considered this technique. It was referred to as a liturgy, which accurately means, a piece for the individuals, a public service. And so, based mostly in your actual property holdings, when you have been in what we’d calculate the very best 1%, then you definitely have been anticipated to, when requested – and it will occur frequently – for pay the total prices of provisioning, wage funds and gear. a kind of high-tech warships referred to as a trireme for a whole yr.

HIRSCH: Wow. Do you could have any concept of ​​the magnitude of the price?

MARTIN: It may go as much as 6000 days’ wages, which is a large quantity even for the wealthy. And you’d be anticipated to really command this warship …

HIRSCH: Wow.

MARTIN: … whereas on a mission, whether or not it was patrolling the seas to maintain them protected and even going into battle, which was a scary proposition as a result of the way in which these ships operated. was to crash into the enemy ship.

HIRSCH: (Laughs) That is the very definition of a sunk price.

MARTIN: Oh, you – completely. Speak about a adverse externality, proper?

HIRSCH: (Laughs).

MARTIN: Particularly when you’re the rowers since you’re sitting below the bridges – you row backwards. You possibly can’t see something. You might be stacked three on prime of one another, proper? And individuals are, after all, actually scared to the purpose of shedding all types of bodily fluids on you, aren’t they? – since you row as arduous as you may in order that this missile goes as quick as attainable to crash into the enemy.

HIRSCH: Pricey, oh, pricey – jogs my memory of some journeys I took in armored personnel carriers.

MARTIN: These – actually proper. You might be proper. It is an ideal analogy. And you do not know any second to second if it’ll explode in your face.

HIRSCH: Yeah, it is not – it would not sound good to me in any respect. However was there something aside from the macho bragging rights that have been price paying these taxes?

MARTIN: Oh, yeah. I imply, they have been happy with it due to the standing they may get but additionally as a result of it actually supplied them with important use. What? – that’s to say, respect for his or her fellow residents who’ve had actual benefits, I’d even say materials.

HIRSCH: Actual social capital.

MARTIN: Completely – I imply, it comes from society, but it surely’s positively capital, typically in a actually materials sense. For instance, when you have been a rich individual and have been concerned in a lawsuit in a civil matter, you may in your protection speech say, after I carried out my liturgy, after I was paying for this trireme or when i used to be paying for this dramatic competition in honor of the gods, have you learnt what i did? I paid greater than I owed. And that established what? – your character as citizen that one may suppose. And there is not any free market the place you could possibly purchase that, is there? You possibly can’t purchase social respect on Wall Road.

HIRSCH: No, certainly.

MARTIN: However as you rightly stated, it was actual capital that you could possibly spend within the usually controversial society that’s this non-authoritarian direct democracy.

HIRSCH: If there was one factor you’d advocate as a takeaway from the Athenian city-state for us to select up in the USA in the present day, what would it not be?

MARTIN: It could be that serving the frequent good additionally brings particular person advantages; Whether or not you’re speaking socially or economically, these two issues can and will go hand in hand as a result of in the long term, as historical past reveals, until individuals serve each the frequent good and their particular person pursuits, there isn’t any there may be not a lot hope for long run achievement.

HIRSCH: Seems like a fantastic closing level. Professor Martin from Holy Cross, Massachusetts, thanks for becoming a member of THE INDICATOR in the present day.

MARTIN: It was a fantastic pleasure. Thanks very a lot.

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HIRSCH: This episode of THE INDICATOR was produced by Emma Peaslee and Jamila Huxtable. It has been verified by Sam Tsai (ph). THE PLANET MONEY INDICATOR is an NPR manufacturing.

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