David Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation the implications of land rent increases along with population among other things. Ricardo argues for the acceptance of free trade and shows how it's both short and long term advantages. The arguments laid out in this book form the basis of modern trade theory and are, therefore, of interest in today's global economy.

Ever since Colonial times, Americans have been bedeviled by high taxes that seem to return little of material value to citizens. Taking a page from Thomas Paine's "Greedy Hand" manifesto, Amity Shlaes has written a provocative and fascinating book exposing the inequities of our present tax system, and offers concrete, coherent solutions to simplify our lives. Today, taxes make up more than a third of our economy, the highest level in peacetime history. We truly live in the land Paine foresaw when he warned of government "thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry." This book is a cultural examination of the way taxes influence our behavior, and how they force us into an arbitrary system that punishes families and individual enterprise. Shlaes shows how so-called tax breaks do little to help families and how married women are unfairly taxed more. She uncovers the problems that engage and enrage us, proving that Social Security issues and school inadequacies are at heart tax problems. And she charts a course out of the madness of tax oppression, offering a number of solutions that will give each of us a fairer, simpler system. With compassion for Americans and their dreams, Shlaes makes the best case yet for rethinking our tax code.

Frank Chodorov was an extraordinary thinker and writer, and hugely influential in the 1950s. This is his American classic that argues that the income tax, more than any other legislative change in American history, made it possible to violate individual rights that were at the core of the founding. He argues that income taxes are different from other forms because they deny the right of private property and presume government control over all things. The introduction is by former IRS commissioner J. Bracken Lee.

Taxing America, first published in 1999, offers an interpretation of the American state between 1945 and 1975 by tracing the career of Wilbur D. Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1958 to 1974. Blending methodological insights from history, political science, and sociology, Julian Zelizer provides one of the first comparative histories of income taxation, Social Security, and Medicare in this study of the crucial role Mills played in negotiating between the tax policy community and Congress. Taxing America lays out four innovative arguments about the expansion of the state during the postwar period; Congress played a crucial role in the institutionalization of the state after World War II, policy communities helped encourage policymaking, taxation was central to postwar liberalism and its domestic agenda, and a fragile alliance between influential fiscal conservatives and the state was instrumental in expanding support of the policies of the tax community.