Introduction: Tax Beyond the Social Contract. Issue 2 (1st June 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Makovicky, Nicolette; Smith, Robin
• Is Part Of: Social analysis. Volume 64:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2020-06-01
• Subjects: anthropology of tax -- citizenship -- ethics -- fiscal relations -- social contract -- society -- state; Sociology -- Periodicals; Ethnology -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Ethnology; Social sciences; Sociology; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 301.05
• DOI: 10.3167/sa.2020.640201
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0155-977X

Abstract

Abstract: This special issue decenters tax as an analytic device for understanding the relationship between state and citizen while examining the limits of social contract thinking. Focusing on how citizens interpret and react to state efforts to promote fiscal citizenship, it sheds light on contemporary fiscal structures and public debates about the moralities, practices, and imaginaries of tax systems. The contributors use tax to explore the nature of citizenship, personal freedom, and moral and economic value. They also highlight how taxation may be influenced by spaces of fiscal sovereignty that exist outside or alongside the state in the form of alternative religious and economic communities.