Athenians also breaking under the weight of their mortgages…

“In the Athens of 594 B.C., according to Plutarch, ‘the disparity of
fortune between the rich and the poor had reached its height, so that
the city seemed to be in a dangerous condition, and no other means for
freeing it from disturbances…seemed possible but despotic power.’
Good
sense prevailed; moderate elements secured the election of Solon, a
businessman of aristocratic lineage, to the supreme archonship. He
devaluated the currency, thereby easing the burden of all debtors
(though he himself was a creditor); he reduced all personal debts, and
ended imprisonment for debt; he canceled arrears for taxes and mortgage
interest; he established a graduated income tax that made the rich pay
at a rate twelve times that required of the poor; …he arranged that
the sons of those who had died in war for Athens should be brought up
and educated at the government’s expense. The rich protested that
his measures were outright confiscation; …but within a generation
almost all agreed that his reforms had saved Athens from revolution.”

April 7, 2008 · Filed Under Interesting tidbits, Politics, Society

Comments

Leave a Reply