Some Reflections on the Legitimacy and Acceptance of Taxation (The French and Austrian Monarchies, Late 17th–Early 18th Centuries)

Seventh session of the 2025-2026 CEFRES Francophone
Interdisciplinary Seminar “Dépaysements”: Clues and Trajectories.

Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1
Date: Friday, May 15, 2026, 10 am
Language: French

Speaker: Christine LEBEAU (Institute of Contemporary History, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University)
Discussant: Jan ZDICHYNEC (Institute of Czech History, FF UK)

Abstract

While the proposal to tax the wealthiest has returned to the forefront, driven by evidence of rising inequality and tax evasion (Saez and Zucman, 2020) and by a desire to distance oneself from established economic paradigms, the contradiction between society’s acceptance of taxation and the compulsory nature of the levy remains.

How did monarchies known for their absolutism come to seek to impose wealth at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries ? How did privileged societies, dominated by the “ungovernable” (R.Renault, 2020), receive and ultimately shape this obligation imposed from above ?

Examining a fiscal innovation that emerges from the interstices of the modern state and/or the fiscal-military state also raises questions about institutional scales and prompts a discussion of the linear nature of state-building.

See the complete program of the 2025-2026 seminar here.