Slave nations.

Within the beating heart of 14^th century England lurked a cancer that would lay waste to the nation, and devastate society: the Black Death. Arriving in 1348, most likely carried into the port of Melcombe Regis in the bloodstream of an infected rat or flea from mainland Europe, this ruthless plague quickly set to work on decimating the human population of the British Isles.

The bubonic plague harvested men, women, and children as easily as a sharpened scythe threshed frail stalks of wheat. Within months, entire villages became ghost towns, fields lay fallow, and an eerie quiet fell upon bustling markets and town centres that once hummed and chattered with human life.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All future Abundantia newsletters will be open for all, in full. By popular demand, we have made the decision not to continue to paywall some of our work for paying members only. We only ask that you support this newsletter as a paid subscriber if you want to support our work. We’re sure you will all be happy with this decision.

The Black Death took the lives of somewhere between a third to one-half of England’s population—as many as two million people. Fewer people meant a severely diminished labour force, which resulted in the peasantry being in a unique bargaining position with the titled land-owning class who ruled the land. In a rare boon, wages for the lowest classes of society began to rise, and peasants tasted a newfound sense of worth that hadn’t been enjoyed for dozens of generations beforehand.

But the ruling class couldn’t let this stand for long. In a bid to push the scales of this new balance of power back in their favour, the British Government—under the command of King Edward III—implemented the Statute Of Labourers in 1351, making it illegal for anyone to work for wages higher than pre-plague levels. It was a blatant move designed to crush the new economic power of the peasant class, and was enforced by punishing those who disobeyed with heavy fines, public humiliation by being placed in stocks, or even flogging.

But it wasn’t the wholesale death of almost everyone a person knew, or even the subjugation of new earning power by the state that would destroy the will of the British people. That would eventually happen after the implementation of new oppressive taxes.

As the century ground on, England implemented three new poll taxes on the population, primarily to fund the Crown’s ongoing Hundred Years’ War against France. While previous taxes were mostly based on a percentage of a person’s income, poll taxes were usually a fixed amount for everyone, irrespective of someone’s assets, level of income, or ability to pay. Obviously, this disproportionately hammered the financial wellbeing of the poorest members of society.

The first of these taxes arrived in 1377 during the reign of the young King Richard II, which required every person over the age of 14 to pay one groat—equal to four old pence—to the crown. For many peasants, even this small amount represented a significant portion of their income. The second came in 1379, which was more progressive in that it operated on a sliding scale where those with a higher income would pay more. But the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was the final poll tax of 1380, which required every person of fifteen years or older to pay one whole shilling to help fund the war.

It was during the collection of this third poll tax that the crown started to meet resistance from the people. In May of 1831 in Essex, tax collectors found themselves rebuffed by the population, who refused to pay. When these officials of the Crown attempted to punish the villagers for their defiance, they were attacked and forced out of town. Word quickly spread through the region, sparking a broad rebellion against England’s elite ruling class.

Very soon, almost the entirety of southeast England was in revolt. Rebel groups from Essex and Kent massed in their thousands and began an angry march towards the nation’s seat of power in London. Along the way, the groups attacked tax collectors and government representatives, looted customs houses, and burned manors to the ground, venting their anger on anything that represented a symbol of authority over the peasantry. Upon arriving in London, the Savoy Palace was razed by fire, and the Temple of the Knights Hospitaller was similarly attacked.

The people had spoken. And their voices carried the unanimous chant of “taxation is theft!”

As I write this, I find myself deep within the wilderness of Lapland. A place filled with unspoiled nature, and wild climates, but most relevant to this story, lies within the borders of Finland, the nation with the second highest taxes on the planet.

In Finland, depending on where an individual lives, it’s possible to pay up to 66.75% of one’s personal income in taxes when federal, municipal, social security, and church taxes are taken into account. Only Belgium is higher, where an absolutely insane 79.5% is the maximum income tax ceiling.

Now let’s compare Finland’s example to the kinds of taxes that made English peasants so furious they revolted against their masters.

Although it’s hard to figure out exactly what a peasant in the 14^th century earned, several sources estimate that it was probably somewhere between two and four pence per day. If we assume a peasant only took one day of work off per week for rest as was most commonly the case on the sabbath, we can estimate 312 working days per year, which would equate to 78 shillings (936 pence) in income per person, per year.

Based on that calculation, in the year that the heftiest poll tax was levied, this would amount to an additional 1.2% of the average peasant’s income. Add this on top of the other taxes commonly paid at the time (a tithe of 10% to the church, and a feudal land tax that was estimated between 2%-10%), a medieval peasant in the year 1380 could have expected to pay a maximum of 21.2% of their income in tax.

But it was the extra 1.2% poll tax in 1380 that finally broke them. And to show you how insane that was compared to what we suffer in modern times, let’s compare their taxes to what most of us currently pay today.

Take my personal example of living in Iceland as I currently do.

Because of my personal income, I’m in the highest tax bracket of Icelandic society; 46.25% of my income goes to the government each year whether I like it or not. But the truth is, this isn’t where my tax story ends, as income tax is just one of the taxes that drain my wallet each year.

It doesn’t include what are commonly known as hidden taxes.

After I pay tax on my salary, I also pay 24% Virðisaukaskattur (known elsewhere as VAT or sales tax) on almost everything I buy in daily life. I pay fuel duties whenever I fill up my Jeep with diesel, I pay extra tax on electricity when I plug in my Polestar, and I pay road tax and registration on both those cars every year just to legally be able to drive them in public. I pay excise duties on certain items that are imported into the country, I pay Icelandic customs a handling tax just to receive the goods I ship in from abroad, I pay taxes on real estate, and I pay an 11% tax just for the privilege of being able to put food in my belly when I buy food.

The reality is that I don’t pay 46.25% tax on my income in Iceland. With all these hidden taxes involved, I have calculated that I probably pay around 70% of everything I personally earn to the Icelandic tax authorities in a year just to be able to live there.

Sure, Iceland is a developed nation where society is believed to be fair, where people have equal opportunities, and where things just work. But it’s also a country where the former finance minister Bjarni Benediktsson was just found to have acted corruptly in the recent government selloff of shares in the nation’s second-largest bank Íslandsbanki so that he could line the pockets of his family. And in news that will surprise absolutely nobody, he suffered basically no negative consequences for his actions. He did resign his position as finance minister, but only so he could be installed as the new minister for foreign affairs only a few days later.

In other words, the ruling class is allowed to have its way as it always has, while we peasants must pay to keep our nations running.

Remember the example I gave earlier about Finland’s maximum upper tax rate of 66.45%? Well, this is before hidden taxes are factored in. Taking those into consideration, some Finns are likely paying close to 80% of their income in taxes each year.

Don’t think you’re out of the woods just because you don’t live in a Nordic nation. If your home is the United States, Australia, Canada, anywhere in Europe, or in most of the developed world, you’re suffering a similar fate at the hands of taxation as I am.

In Australia, it’s estimated that the average person pays an additional 150+ hidden taxes in daily life: things like Goods and Service Tax (GST), car registration taxes, and more. The average German may pay closer to 200 hidden taxes each year. And Americans are hit with sales taxes of up to 7.25% depending on the state they live in, property taxes, road taxes, import duties, and a tax of 7.5% every time they fly domestically within the USA. Remember, these extra taxes hit after your income tax has already been paid to the federal government.

If you live in any of the places I’ve mentioned above, you’re almost certainly paying more than half your income to your government. If you live somewhere like Australia, Germany, Japan, Austria, France, or any of the Nordic nations, it’s more likely over two-thirds of what you earn.

There is no simpler way to say it: we currently live in the highest-taxed time in human history.

Imagine being in business with a silent partner that you didn’t choose to be in business with, who you are forced to continue to do business with, who takes more than half of every dollar you earn, who is allowed to mismanage your money as they see fit, and who can throw you in prison or take away your rights if you don’t pay them. Well, we don’t have to imagine, because that is the reality of the world we live in today. Those silent business partners are our governments.

Almost everywhere, our taxes continue to rise. But instead of life getting better because of handing over more of our money to the state, life is becoming demonstrably and statistically worse for almost everyone at the bottom levels of the Western world. The cost of living continues to rise, and we’re constantly hearing how the quality of basic services like healthcare, public transport, and utilities are getting worse in most developed countries.

If you’re a part of today’s modern workforce, it’s the first time in generations that you’re statistically likely to be worse off financially and economically than your parents or grandparents were. And good luck attempting to afford a home.

Peasants in 14^th century England revolted against their masters based on paying barely above 20% of their total income in estimated taxes. So why do we accept paying 50%, 60%, or 70% of our income like this should be a normal part of everyday life?

Why don’t we protest? Why don’t we revolt? Why don’t we rebel?

Because we’ve been raised to believe since birth that this is normal. Because we’ve been made dormant, fat, and slovenly by entertainment, culture, and an industrial food system that poisons our bodies and numbs our minds.

Because most people aren’t taught that even though the average American or Australian is paying more than half their income in tax today with these hidden taxes taken into consideration, in the year 1912—barely a century ago—people in those nations paid zero percent tax to their governments.

We’ve gone from 0% to 70% or more of our income being paid to the state in just over a hundred years in certain countries. At what point will it stop?

It won’t. Not unless we do something about it.

Taxation isn’t just theft. The way tax is levied by our modern governments is the greatest theft in the history of mankind.

It’s a system designed not to foster opportunity and success for the average person, but to build a colony of obedient slaves who will stay at their station, while our leaders and their benefactors plunder our nations for all their worth.

Expect a follow-up on this story in the coming week.

Leon Hill
Co-founder, Abundantia.

» NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS

As mentioned above, all newsletters will continue to remain open without any paywalls for all Abundantia subscribers; both our Sunday newsletters like this one, as well as our previously-paywalled mid-week mailers. We have decided to make all our content open to all, as we think this is more important than blocking some of our newsletters with a paywall.

However, if you would like to support our work as a paid member, you can do so here. We thank you for your support.