Books: The Income Tax – The Root of All Evil by Frank Chodorov

This book is self-explanatory, so I would rather tell you about its author. Frank Chodorov was a member of the “Old Right.” This group of libertarian (before the name really existed) thinkers opposed intervention in the World Wars and the New Deal. He is an essential figure in the development of the modern libertarian movement. He edited The Freeman, a magazine produced by Leonard Read’s Foundation for Economic Education, the first libertarian think-tank. He wrote for  H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury, an important journal that nurtured the budding libertarian movement. He also founded ISI, the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists. It was the first national conservative student organization, and later became a major publisher of libertarian and conservative thought.

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Description

Frank Chodorov was an extraordinary thinker and writer, and hugely influential in the 1950s. He wrote what became an American classic arguing that the income tax, more than any other legislative change in American history, made it possible to violate individual rights, one of the founding principles. 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.

Chris Spangle is the publisher and editor of We Are Libertarians, a news site and podcast that covers national and Indiana politics from the libertarian perspective. Spangle previously worked in marketing for the Englehart Group on behalf of the Advocates for Self-Government. He also served as the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Indiana and producer of the Abdul in the Morning Show. He now works as the web director of a nationally syndicated morning show.

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