This month sees the publication of The River of Gold. Following the theme that taxation is the major driver of human society, this work looks at how the taxation of trade along and across rivers has affected our civilisation.
Riverside cities became the capitals of tax territories, then of tax empires. Obvious examples are the Mesopotamian empires, Egypt on the Nile, the Indus valley civilisation and the Chinese empire. Not so obvious is why greater rivers like the Amazon, the Congo and even the Mississippi-Missouri failed to develop world-conquering empires. Smaller navigable rivers and sea-lanes were essential elements in the development of the Greek and Roman, the Danish and British, and the French empires.
Until now, the importance of rivers as the primary source of tax revenues lay hidden beneath a tax taboo. This book uncovers startling truths behind the Trojan War and the Ring of the Nibelung, the Lorelei and Britain’s tax heritage. Most surprisingly, it reveals the true purpose of bridges.
Deserts and mountains provide good traps for taxation, and these tax locations also became the centres of tax territories. Today, the greatest value of goods is transmitted as electrons or photons, and the future empires will belong to the tax-collector who learns to attack that river of gold connectors.
The River of Gold is part of the author’s work in establishing a theory of human evolution based on taxation. He proposes that the murderous mammalian instinct to murder or exclude a strange male was replaced by a simple taxation of homage, a 10% contribution and help in improvement. The full story is contained in The Tax Man, available soon.
Tony Milne 