Mountains of Debt : Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian Britain, and Postwar America

Like the United States today, Renaissance Florence and Victorian Britain were the richest, most dynamic economic systems of their times. Yet each succumbed to a fiscal crisis brought on by public debt and taxation and eventually fell into long-term economic decline. Now, public debt and taxation dominate the America policy agenda. Must the United States follow the same dismal pattern of fiscal crisis and economic decline? Mountains of Debt argues that it is not too late for the United States to change directions and suggests a comprehensive program for reform of American fiscal institutions that would reduce the deficit problem and at the same time reverse the long-term structural trends that are both the cause and the effect of the fiscal crisis today. Offering proposals for reducing the deficit, this new analysis could alter the current course of the United States economy. CONTENTS......Page 10 PROLOGUE......Page 14 1. Structural Change and Fiscal Crisis......Page 18 2. Renaissance Florence: Death, Birth, and the Fifth Element......Page 30 3. Mountains of Debt and the Heart of Florence......Page 57 4. Simple Patterns: Britain and the Industrial Revolution......Page 86 5. The Odious Tax and the Standing Miracle......Page 114 6. The American Century and the American Crisis......Page 143 7. The Changing Structure of American Government......Page 164 8. The New Mountains of Debt......Page 182 9. Saddle Points......Page 201 10. Changing Directions......Page 223 NOTES......Page 234 BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 246 E......Page 255 P......Page 256 W......Page 257 This text surveys the growth and decline of the economies of Renaissance Florence and of Victorian Britain, and relates their experiences to that of the USA in recent decades, a period notable for accumulating public debt.