Charles Tilly Quotes

Going to war accelerated the move from indirect to direct rule. Almost any state that makes war finds that it cannot pay for the effort from its accumulated reserves and current revenues. Almost all war-making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens who have other uses for their resources.

After the unremitted efforts of our enemies, we are stronger than before. Nor can the wicked emissaries who so assiduously labor to promote their cause, point out any one reason to suppose that we shall not receive daily accessions of strength. They tell you, it is true, that your money is of no value, and your debts so enormous they can never be paid …. It becomes you deeply to reflect on this subject. Is there a country on earth which hath such resources for the payment of her debts as America? such an extensive territory? so fertile, so blessed in its climate and productions? Surely there is none. Neither is there any to which the wise Europeans will sooner confide their property. What, then, are the reasons that your money hath depreciated? Because no taxes have been imposed to carry on the war: because your commerce hath been interrupted by your enemy's fleets: because their armies have ravaged and desolated a part of your country: because their agents have villainously counterfeited your bills: because extortioners among you, inflamed with the lust of gain, have added to the price of every article of life; and because weak men have been artfully led to believe that it is of no value.

Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain. Fancy giving money to the Government! Nobody will see the stuff again. Well, they've not idea what money's for- Ten to one they'll start another war. I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! Fancy giving money to the Government!

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend.

People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by government.

The sinews of war are infinite money.

If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it, to take their money by force for your own needs, then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.

I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.

World War II ended the Great Depression with one of the great public-private industrial collaborations in the history of man.

We've suffered a war, and one thing we know: Whenever our nation's faced war, whether it was in the 1980s when we were winning the Cold War or in the 1940s during World War II, the responsible thing to do has been to borrow money to win the war.

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.

The government forces you to give your money to things you don't believe in, to have your money go to projects that might be inherently immoral.

These kids understood what is not immediately obvious; that they were going to pay the bills for tax cuts that had been passed today or in the last 4 years, and for the war in Iraq, because essentially we are borrowing money to do those things.

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own.

... when you have a draft you're more likely to go to war than if you have to pay for a volunteer army. A draft lowers the cost for the wealthy because the people who are important don't have their children going off and they're also not paying as much in taxes.

At public ceremonies, moreover, mothers whose sons were conscripted for the business of fighting were lined up and “invited” to kiss the cannon already used or to be used in the execution of Italy’s imperial program in Ethiopia.

The banks have discontinued themselves. We are now without any medium … necessity, as well as patriotism and confidence will make us all eager to receive Treasury notes if founded on specific taxes. Congress may now borrow of the public, and without interest, all the money they may want … by merely issuing their own promissory notes ….

Wars have been fought with borrowed money ever since Rome instituted the practice of forcing its richer citizens to loan the state money to help fund the conflict with Carthage in the third century BC.

Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.

… every man who puts money into the hands of a "government" (so called), puts into its hands a sword which will be used against himself, to extort more money from him, and also to keep him in subjection to its arbitrary will.

Only a small part of the direct costs of the war [WWI] were paid by taxation; the greater part were financed by government borrowings which spread the burden of payment over into the future.

I do not believe it would have been possible to have continued [wartime taxes] for the purpose of carrying on the American war … The question there is whether, under all these circumstances, it was not better to conclude the peace at the present moment, before the impatience of the country on the subject had been manifested at public meetings, or by motions in Parliament.

The only consolation under the evil is, that the public debt is proportionately diminished by the depreciation; and this by a kind of imperceptible tax, every one having paid a part of it in the fall of value that took place between the receiving and paying such sums as passed through his hands… This effect of paper currency is not understood this side the water (Europe). And indeed the whole is a mystery even to the politicians, how we have been able to continue a war four years without money, and how we could pay with paper, that had no previously fixed fund appropriated specially to redeem it. This currency, as we manage it, is a wonderful machine. It performs its office when we issue it; it pays and clothes troops, and provides victuals and ammunition.

War is hugely profitable. It creates so much money because it's so easy to spend money very fast. There are huge fortunes to be made. So there is always an encouragement to promote war and keep it going, to make sure that we identify people who are 'others' whom we can legitimately make war upon.