Fiscal-military state

A fiscal-military state is a state that bases its economic model on the sustainment of its armed forces, usually in times of prolonged or severe conflict. Characteristically, fiscal-military states will subject citizens to high taxation for this purpose.^[1]

In the past, states such as Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, which were embroiled in long-lasting periods of war for local or global hegemony, were organized as fiscal-military states. The British East India Company also employed military fiscalism in maintenance of rule in India during the mid-18th century. Colonial powers generated their revenue for the maintenance of the army. Currently, few states could be described as fiscal-military states, probably because of the decline of large-scale international conflicts in recent times.^{[citation needed]}

Historiography (Britain)

In British history the concept was popularised by John Brewer’s study of eighteenth-century Britain as a “fiscal-military” polity.^[2] Earlier eighteenth-century narratives already compiled fiscal and military data; for example, James Ralph’s The History of England, During the Reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George I (1744–46) appended customs and excise series, national-debt tables, and army/militia returns.^[3][4]

See also

• War economy
• War effort

Further reading

• The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History, 1500-1914, eds. Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla, Patrick K. O'Brien and Francisco Comín Comín. ( Cambridge University Press, 2012).
• The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200-1815. Patrick Bonney, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• The Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Essays in honour of P.G.M. Dickson. Christopher Storrs, Routledge, 2016.