In the wake of the boycott, the British govenment strengthened the warrant chief system, gathered intelligence on these communities to reorganize them into discrete, governable units. Reorganization was carried out in the context of interwar colonial development policy, which sought to increase the efficiency and productivity of the colonies. The British government coerced Africans across their colonies to engage in waged labor, in order to pay taxes and contribute to local development initiatives. In the Niger Delta, ethnic competition was used as a mechanism by which colonial development was distributed. Paramount chieftaincy increased a community’s ability to access colonial resources, contributing to a proliferation of new chieftaincy titles in competition for these resources. The case of the Olu title among the Itsekiri people is exemplary of these developments.

The communities of the western Niger Delta, in the midst of economic turmoil, confronted the British colonial government’s effort to integrate them into the wider colonial economy with a boycott on palm oil exports in 1927. Taxation was the primary instrument of incorporation for the British government, and Niger Delta community’s primary form of leverage against taxation was a systemic boycott. Beyond taxation, these communities resented the imposition of warrant chiefs, who were tasked with enforcing taxation and carrying out local administration of the courts (another vital source of income for the colonial government). The 1927 boycott succeeded in slowing down the palm oil trade. It was also part of a broader pattern of resistance in the palm-producing region across southern Nigeria. This widespread resistance indicated the lack of knowledge and control the colonial state had regarding these communities, and the need to impose stronger mechanisms of contol, through the warrant chiefs, increased surveilance and policing, and by exploiting ethnic differences.

Chapter 4 explores how fiscal policy and questions of national security play on stage. Fiscal concerns pervade Shakespeare’s history plays. All of his sovereigns wrestle with the need to fund security in the face of ongoing domestic and international threats, and all of them have to confront ongoing fiscal discontent. This chapter shows how security dilemmas are at the heart of controversies that drive English history as Shakespeare understands it. Rulers’ ongoing efforts to cover the expenses associated with implementing security coupled with subjects’ resentment at having to pay for their sovereign’s decisions opens up the terms of security and collective wellbeing for collective scrutiny. By depicting a multiplicity of voices and perspectives on collective existence, Shakespeare foregrounds fiscal controversies and the alternative visions of security and collective life such controversies prompt. These plays immerse theatergoers in an underdetermined world defined by antagonism, conflict, geopolitical struggle, and political inventiveness.

Chapter 3 demonstrates the centrality of fiscal infrastructures to the action of Marlowe’s plays. His Tamburlaine plays, The Jew of Malta, and A Massacre at Paris all hinge on the agencies created by – and the violence associated with –wealth organized into treasuries. The protagonists of these plays – Tamburlaine, Barabas, and the Duke of Guise – draw attention to their own and others’ treasuries, and their stories underscore both the security and the volatility associated with treasuries in action. In each play, treasuries drive the action by creating security for some through extreme violence to others. For Marlowe, treasuries are central to his depiction of geopolitical existence. Fiscal realities, in turn, represent a primary formal mechanism impacting how Marlowe’s characters – and audiences – experience the antagonistic spaces of geopolitical existence. Marlowe’s awareness of the challenges of implementing sovereignty are thus central to his ongoing project of creating theatrical states of emergency.

Chapter 1 examines the fourteenth-century emergence of problems that drove fifteenth-century developments. When necessary, this chapter places those fourteenth-century problems in their twelfth- and thirteenth-century contexts. The problems were three. Firstly, there was the diminution of the town’s population caused by bubonic plague. Secondly, there was swelling municipal debt; its existence and the measures taken to reduce it exacerbated social antagonisms that fuelled the third problem, distrust. Between the 1340s and the 1390s, suspicion and hostility between burghers and merchants, on the one hand, and tradespeople, on the other, deepened and became dangerously acute.

For over half a century, discussion of the relationship between military finance, organisation, and state development has been dominated by the contested concept of a ‘military revolution’; the belief that there were one or a few periods of fundamental change that transformed both war and wider European history. More recently, this has been supplemented by the idea of smaller, but more frequent ‘revolutions in military affairs’ (RMAs) as individual military organisations respond to, or anticipate, changes made by their likely opponents. Technology is generally considered to drive both forms of ‘revolution’, as innovative weaponry and institutional practice transform war, rendering older models ineffective and obsolete. Change flows through a series of chain reactions, as states adapt to new conditions, modifying their structures to sustain and direct altered armed forces, and revising their forms of interaction with society both to extract the necessary resources and to legitimate their use in war-making.

This chapter surveys Qiu’s ideas about financial administration, drawing on Section 4, “Administering State Finances” (Chapters 20–35) of the Supplement. The chapter discusses Qiu’s recommendations for regular and light taxation centred on the land tax and how to control government expenditure, before turning to his view of the state’s relationship with the market and merchants. The state must only involve itself in the market in a limited way, with the exception of moderating the supply of grain, since it is a basic necessity for life and the fundamental source of wealth. A brief overview of policies illustrates Qiu’s support for commerce. Throughout, the chapter also considers how Qiu’s ideas might have reflected or influenced actual practice. While there is some indication that his proposals may have been implemented, by the late Ming and especially from the later Wanli era onwards, the prudent financial administration that Qiu advocated did not exist.

The private sector is virtually nonexistent in Indian country. Consequently, reservations experience chronically high rates of unemployment and poverty. Tribes have implemented numerous laws to foster development; however, the private sector is yet to thrive. Legal uncertainty is a major reason why. Although tribes have the ability to make their own laws, the Supreme Court limits tribes’ ability to exercise jurisdiction over non-Indians. In 1981, the Supreme Court held tribes can exercise jurisdiction over non-Indians who enter a consensual relationship with the tribe or its citizens, and tribes can also assert jurisdiction over non-Indians engaged in behavior that imperils tribal welfare. These categories have been construed extremely narrowly. Furthermore, determining whether a transaction is subject to tribal jurisdiction often requires years of costly litigation. Another impediment to tribal economic development is state taxation because the Supreme Court permits states to tax Indian country commerce. This means tribes cannot collect taxes because this would result in dual taxation. Without tax revenue, tribes struggle to fund the infrastructure businesses need. Additionally, it is often unclear whether the state can regulate an activity in Indian country. As a result of these factors, businesses avoid Indian country.

Shelley’s engagement with economics is central to his work. From Queen Mab (1813) to ‘A Philosophical View of Reform’ (composed 1819–20), his discussion of economic events and ideas helped him to critique the social world and propose how it could be improved. His work responds to the productive activities of the labouring poor in the factories and the fields, and to the financial phenomena reshaping Britain’s economy, from public debt to fiat currency. Crucial to Shelley’s economics was the perception that orthodox ideas, such as the labour theory of value and the quantity theory of money, could be used to promote radical ends. The chapter outlines the role of such ideas in Shelley’s work and his response to key economic writers, including Thomas Robert Malthus and William Cobbett. It also outlines how, for Shelley, the production of credible economic knowledge was vital to attaining economic change to benefit the many.

When tribes are allowed to operate as governments, states will push back because states fear tribal competition. In particular, states are concerned tribes will offer lower tax rates and other legal incentives to attract businesses to their land. This is a misguided concern. States already craft numerous exceptions to their laws, often designed specifically for their favorite corporations; plus, the source of state power over tribes is lacking. Apart from this, tribal development benefits states. New jobs in Indian country often employ non-Indians who purchase goods and pay taxes off reservation. Thus, tribal sovereignty also serves as a shield against state protectionism and promotes economic opportunities that benefit everyone.