ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relevant philosophical and historical developments. The United States of America is the indisputable product of tax resistance. Since the nineteenth century, the state's role in civil society writ large and in individual affairs has expanded well beyond the original constitutional framework, both caused by and causing significant changes in federal, state, and local tax policy. Members of each branch have constitutionally mandated compensation paid by the federal government. Comprehensive study of taxation in the United States requires investigating its origins, especially the political theories that shaped founding thought and how the emphasis placed on those and other theories has evolved over the nation's history. The classical liberalism of American founding thought transcribed self-preservation into explicit natural rights. Earlier philosophers including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Rawls, and many other contributors to American founding thought, justified taxation by invoking the so-called social contract theory.
