David Beito did a great service for the scholarship of liberty and American history with his rediscovery of the Great Depression-era tax resistance movement. He uncovered evidence of widespread opposition to property taxes across America. However, the anti-tax rebellion declined as quickly as it started, a demise that he attributes to a lack of a “focused ideological program” that could capture the popular anti-tax sentiment of the time. Thus, Beito concludes, this tax resistance movement was a failure. While his contribution has been praised, questions have been raised concerning Beito’s explanation for the demise of the tax revolt.
In this paper, we argue that the anti-tax movement was a genuine success, and that this success is the reason the revolt ended.
