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Ancient and modern

How the Ancient Greeks did wealth taxes

(Hint: more cleverly than Thomas Piketty)

31 May 2014

9:00 AM

31 May 2014

9:00 AM

After 685 tightly argued pages, the ‘superstar’ economist Thomas Piketty unfolds his master-plan for closing the gap between the rich and poor: you take money away from the rich. Novel. Ancient Greeks realised you had to try a little harder.

The culture of benefaction was deeply rooted in Greek society, even more so when the Romans made Greece a province in the 2nd century BC and removed their direct power of taxation.

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