Talk:Farm (revenue leasing)

message: This article reads as a critique of a fairly trivial US political issue. The first section (Use, benefit, liability) reads as brief piece of invective that merely shows the writer doesn't approve of the practise, and the second section (Moden variations)  is the writers criticism of the current American practise. If you compare earlier and later versions, you can see quite clearly the way the editor has changed a brief but pragmatic review into one that is much more negative. There's also a vague taste of Old World bad, New World good about the changes too -- as if tax farming is bad because it's un-American, gosh darn it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tax_farming&diff=88853922&oldid=75286930
Tax farming has in fact been a major factor in societies across history. It was stepping stone in development of financial systems. By modern standards it may be a flawed system, but it was widely used and had massive implications on the way ancient and mediaeval economies grew. It's a big deal that this article should be straightened out. At the very least it needs:
*1. A definition.
*2. Examples in history sampling a range of cultures/continents.
*3. Advantages: why the system developed (presumably because civil services as we know them didn't exist, but also liimits in communication between the centre of the state and the regions.
*4. Disadvantages: the negative effects on economic growth, influences on social discontent.
*5. Literary allusions (e.g., Bible, Tacitus, Cicero, etc. all make mention of tax farming directly or indirectly).
*6. Why the system fell out of use (e.g., centralisation/better communiction/professional civil services).
Plus, the last section appears to be about debt collection not tax farming. Tax farming is merely collecting taxes on a normal basis, whereas this section seems to be focusing on the US tax service using outside contractors to collect unpaid debts.
Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 23:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs a lot of work 

message: I just ran into mention of this practice in Macedonia, and some of the other cultures mentioned here sound like possible rivals for earliest use.  I don't know who was first, but I doubt it was the Romans. Mike Serfas 21:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It probably depends how you define "tax farming" and likely the basic technique evolved independently in many different places. The only system I know about the Roman one, and that is the one usually meant by the phrase "tax farming". But there is clearly space here for experts in the history of other cultures to add and expand. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 22:07, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who was first? 

message: I removed the following external link because it isn't English language. But it may be interesting to some, so I've kept the link here:
* Ismail Küpeli: iqta als 'islamischer Feudalismus'?. Köln, 2006 (German E-Book about "iqta", the islamic Tax farming)
Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 13:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: The section on modern tax farming might mention the city's sale of its parking meter revenues. Or would that be "original research"? 71.248.115.187 (talk) 03:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chicago 

message: This article, from the first sentence, reads as if it was translated literally from another language without regard for normal English sentence structure.  It's confusing to wait until the end of the sentence to learn what verb is applied to the object by the subject.
169.231.3.170 (talk) 18:24, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language Intentionally Abused 

message: This was my first substantial edit to Wikipedia - I cut the fluff from the flowery lead section, hopefully it turned out well. Additionally, I'm not sure if the Valuation of a Farm section warrants deletion or rewriting - it may be more of an encyclopedic tone issue. Qxu21 (talk) 08:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Valuation section 

message: "... As we see from our own economic situation..."
A major part of this article is obviously cribbed, with no attribution or citation. Call it "text farming". 2604:CA00:1EA:3A40:0:0:E61:ADEA (talk) 13:42, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  WTF?