UBC Press The Terrific Engine: Income Taxation and the Modernization of the Canadian Political Imaginary

What do we mean by left wing or right wing? People started using the language of a political spectrum when early twentieth-century political parties began to distinguish their platforms by offering different approaches to income distribution. The Terrific Engine examines how income taxation modernized political language over the period from the 1911 election through the Second World War. David Tough controversially argues that income taxation was established by popular demand, first to replace existing taxes and then to address income inequality through equalizing social programs. And, in establishing a clear basis for party differences, income taxation made elections significantly more democratic. Review David Tough deftly connects changes in the party system to popular movements for social change to the seemingly dull world of taxation, demonstrating that the historic emergence of taxes as politics was anything but dull. Author: Dennis M. Pilon, author of Wrestling with Democracy: Voting Systems as Politics in the Twentieth-Century West Book Description The Terrific Engine tells the story of how income taxation effected a profound transformation in the way people talk and think about politics in Canada, and of the energy Canadians invested in taxations political possibilities. From the Author David Tough teaches in the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University. He is a historian of Canadian politics and of the rhetoric of inequality in twentieth-century Canada and has written numerous articles on Canadian politics for peer-reviewed publications. About the Author David Tough teaches in the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University. He is a historian of Canadian politics and of the rhetoric of inequality in twentieth-century Canada and has written numerous articles on Canadian politics for peer-reviewed publications.