AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Voltaire's Letters on English Liberty
Taxation falls overwhelmingly upon the peasantry. Local tax collectors who will set taxes look for any sign of wealth success flourishing to increase. In england, as opposed to france, rebellions, civil wars led to checks on royal power and the expansion of protection from arbitrary whim. English liberty arose, voltaire insists, from a fight among birds of prey. The countryman's feet are not crushed in wooden clogs; he eats white bread. He does not hesitate to increase his flocks or cover his roof with tiles, lest his taxes be raised the following year. Many of these men are worth 200 thousand francs, and do not disdain working the land that has enriched them and