Most of my regulars know that I have this knack of spreading history every chance I get……and since yesterday was Bastille Day I thought I would look at the French Revolution as it might pertain to today’s America.

Deep inequalities in taxation played a key role in fueling the French Revolution, according to a new study published by the ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin). For the first time, economists have substantiated this with figures. In areas where salt taxes and internal customs duties were particularly high, there were twice as many revolts as in low-tax districts between 1750 and 1789.

“Discontent was also reflected in the ‘petitions’ (Cahiers de doléances) submitted to the king by representatives of the commoners in early 1789. Regions facing higher taxes recorded 72% more complaints about taxes and customs duties in their petitions to the king,” says Marco Tabellini, research fellow at RFBerlin, assistant professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of the study.

The taxes varied dramatically across France. In low-tax districts, households paid 2.5% of their annual income on salt. In high-tax districts, the figure reached 13%.

“This long-standing resentment coincided in 1788 with a particularly dry summer, followed by an exceptionally cold winter, causing bread prices to soar and triggering a wave of hunger riots,” adds Tabellini.

The king, however, wanted to raise taxes in early 1789 because his military support for the Americans in their War of Independence against the British, as well as his lavish spending at the court at Versailles, had ruined the country. France had accumulated substantial debt by 1789, but the king was unwilling to declare bankruptcy.

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-unequal-taxation-fuel-french-revolution.html

I inject this into the reasons why we have a mini electoral revolution taking place here in the US…..taxation is unequal….the working peasants pay their taxes and the wealthy get a free ride…..and as usual the excuse for this inequality is that the wealthy create the jobs…..but they argument falls dead when employment numbers are looking rather dismal.

The masses are looking for people that will act not promise and so far the Dems have done nothing but promise and their actions have been limp and uninspired and not just recently but rather for decades.

The voter always looks for candidates that will improve their economic conditions and after decades of promise neither party has stepped up to do what was promised.

That brings us to today and the popularity of the DSA in elections….the voter has finally decided that since neither party is capable of improving the equality of the people then it is time to look elsewhere…..

We keep hearing the same tired argument from centrist Democrats and Republicans: if we tax the rich, we will lose a valuable source of revenue by displacing them to another state. While research suggests otherwise, Democratic Socialists and the vast majority of Americans who support taxing the rich need not get bogged down rebutting a counterfactual. Instead, we ought to argue that taxing the rich is a core American value because it protects and expands democracy. Taxing the rich is a critical tool that needs to be deployed in earnest at this time of democratic backsliding. As our democracy — the oldest in the world — teeters, the threat to domestic and global stability is of far greater consequence than unfounded parochial concerns deployed to maintain the status quo.

https://democraticleft.dsausa.org/2026/06/08/taxing-the-rich-means-taking-their-power/

Will this trend keep flowing and will we see new blood in the Congress and maybe some new ideas?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”