Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States - The later Roman Empire. (original) (raw)

The satisficing Roman Imperial fiscal regime of its first two centuries could operate as long as the potential resources easily at its disposal significantly exceeded its needs. As the second century CE unfolded, several mechanisms at the core of the Imperial extraction structure became more and more problematic with, first and foremost, its essentially tributary nature. Diocletian’s conception of standardized taxable units of accounts enabling the state universally to assess the contributory potential of the land and of its workforce, human or animal, was unquestionably revolutionary. Even after the eventual fall of the Roman Empire in the West, it will deeply influence the way later European modern states will define their taxation powers once Europe started to emerge from its feudal fragmentation and rediscovered its Roman past.