The Terrific Engine: Income Taxation and the Modernization of the Canadian Political Imaginary - Softcover

Tough, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0774836784 ISBN 13: 9780774836784

Publisher: UBC Press, 2019

Synopsis

What do we mean by left wing or right wing? People started using the language of a political spectrum when early twentieth-century political parties began to distinguish their platforms by offering different approaches to income distribution.

The Terrific Engine examines how the powerful tool of income taxation transformed the way people talk and think about politics in Canada. Drawing on heated debates that demonstrated the imaginative power of income taxation, David Tough traces the modernization of political language from the 1911 election through the Second World War.

Countering a strongly held myth that income taxation was imposed on a reluctant public, Tough argues that its introduction is in fact a story of democracy. People first demanded that this new form of taxation replace existing ones, and then that it be used to address income inequality. And, in establishing a clear basis for party differences, income taxation made elections significantly more democratic.

About this title

About the Author

David Tough teaches in the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University. He is a historian of Canadian politics and of the rhetoric of inequality in twentieth-century Canada and has written numerous articles on Canadian politics for peer-reviewed publications.

Edition details

• Publisher: UBC Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0774836784
• ISBN 13: 9780774836784
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200