The Money Machines: The Breakdown and Reform of Governmental and Party Finance in the North, 1860-1920SUNY Press, 1970 M01 1 - 377 páginas The Money Machines advances the provocative thesis that the mechanisms for financing state and local government in the Northern United States from 1860 to 1920 were deeply enmeshed with those financing the extralegal--often illegal--activities of the major political parties, complicating reform or change mandated by the post-Civil War breakdown of the North's legal fiscal machinery. Few reformers then recognized the interdependence of government and the party money machines; fewer still acknowledged the effectiveness or social value of the extralegal machines. On the contrary, basic fiscal reform in this period was characterized by attempts to exorcise "politics" in any form, which in turn provoked counteraction from politicians whose organizations had the same need for efficient, reliable revenue systems as did governments. Dr. Yearley demonstrates the failure of the established legal money machines to cope with the demands of postwar governments facing industrialization and urbanization. He characterizes the revolt of old and new middle classes against fiscal inequity and inefficiency and shows how much of the North's new wealth escaped taxation altogether while much of its old wealth similarly went into hiding. Because of its forbidding complexities, tax reform was sustained by a small group of experts from the middle class, whose sincerity and competence were unquestionable, but whose reformism evidenced the peculiar views and prejudices of their class. Here, therefore, the graft-grabbing politician is presented in a fresh light. In his efforts to maintain his sources of revenue and power, he emerges as a vital instrument of mass democracy, of the new politics of the ever-growing urban lower classes as well as their principal source of government welfare or support. The author reevaluates the Gilded Age politician in several important ways, principally regarding his power relationship to the business communities and his ability to perform his job well despite middle class disdain and continual allegations of fraud and incompetence. Further, Dr. Yearley shows that often politicians were ahead of reformers in their fiscal thinking in recognizing and utilizing taxation of income rather than of property. The volume considers in some depth several individual reformers, revealing them to be, among other things, prototypes of present academic experts used by government to manage problems too complex for laymen. The book then proceeds to explain essential changes made in local fiscal systems and which of these were to be the most effective, explanations that are of particular interest in view of the continuing crises in state and local financing today. |
Contenido
Introduction | xi |
Breakdown | 1 |
The Menace of the New Democracy | 3 |
The Escape of the New and the Old Wealth | 37 |
Inequity and Inequality | 77 |
The Cult of Efficiency and Party Finance | 97 |
The Dominance of the Politician | 121 |
Renovation and Reform | 135 |
Obstacles to Reform | 137 |
The Experts and the Instruments of Reform | 167 |
The Main Lines of Reform | 193 |
The Breakthrough | 225 |
The Nature of the Achievement and the Anomaly of Party Finance | 253 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
The Money Machines: The Breakdown and Reform of Governmental and Party ... Clifton K. Yearley Vista previa limitada - 1970 |
The Money Machines: The Breakdown and Reform of Governmental and Party ... Clifton K. Yearley Sin vista previa disponible - 1970 |
Términos y frases comunes
Adams administrative Albany American assessed assessors Association Baltimore banks Bill bonds Boston businessmen Charles Chicago city's Civil Comm commissioners Committee Report Commonwealth corporate taxation County debt democracy double taxation early economic eighties evasion exemption expenditures experts farmers federal fiscal machinery fiscal systems Henry Carter Adams Ibid Illinois income tax income taxation indebtedness industrial inequities instance interests Iowa legislative legislature levied Lexow Committee major Massachusetts ment middle classes million money machinery money machines municipal National Municipal League nineteenth century nineties Northern officials Ohio organizations paid party Pennsylvania personal property personalty Philadelphia political politicians principle problems Proceedings of NTA progressive taxation property tax public burdens railroad railway realty revenues rural Seligman social Special state's Tax Commission Tax Conference tax laws Tax Reform taxable Taxation of Corporations taxpayers tion U.S. Congress urban valuation wealth William Graham Sumner William Ivins Wisconsin wrote York City York's