A miracle of the Day

[timelets]

In spite of being a small, poor country with few natural resources, Prussia became one of the most powerful states in early modern Europe. "At the beginning of the seventeenth century. .. [t]here was nothing to indicate that Brandenburg or Prussia would ever play a major part in German or in European affairs" (Carsten 1981:174). In spite of these disadvantages, the Prussian army grew from about 2,000 in 1650 to 30,000 in 1713, 136,000 in 1755, and 194,000 in 1786 - by 1740 Prussia already had the fourth largest military in Europe (Hinze 1981:136). One of the main reasons for this anomalous rise to power was the efficiency of Prussia's system of tax collection (Schmoller 1898:138;Dorn 1931:404; Dorwart 1953:30).

Bureaucracy and Efficiency: An Analysis of Taxation in Early Modern Prussia
Author(s): Edgar Kiser and Joachim Schneider
Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), pp. 187-204 Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2096226