capability and capacity of the state increased in all
directions. This again illustrates the linkages between
political centralization and pluralism: Parliament had
opposed making the state more effective and better
resourced prior to 1688 because it could not control it. After
1688 it was a different story.
The state started expanding, with expenditures soon
reaching around 10 percent of national income. This was
underpinned by an expansion of the tax base, particularly
with respect to the excise tax, which was levied on the
production of a long list of domestically produced
commodities. This was a very large state budget for the
period, and is in fact larger than what we see today in many
parts of the world. The state budgets in Colombia, for
example, reached this relative size only in the 1980s. In
many parts of sub-Saharan Africa—for example, in Sierra
Leone—the state budget even today would be far smaller
relative to the size of the economy without the large inflows
of foreign aid.
But the expansion of the size of the state is only part of
the process of political centralization. More important than
this was the qualitative way the state functioned and the
way those who controlled it and those who worked in it
behaved. The construction of state institutions in England
reached back into the Middle Ages, but as we’ve seen (this
page), steps toward political centralization and the
development of modern administration were decisively
taken by Henry VII and Henry VIII. Yet the state was still far
from the modern form that would emerge after 1688. For
example, many appointees were made on political
grounds, not because of merit or talent, and the state still
had a very limited capacity to raise taxes.
After 1688 Parliament began to improve the ability to
raise revenue through taxation, a development well
illustrated by the excise tax bureaucracy, which expanded
rapidly from 1,211 people in 1690 to 4,800 by 1780.
Excise tax inspectors were stationed throughout the
country, supervised by collectors who engaged in tours of
inspection to measure and check the amount of bread,
beer, and other goods subject to the excise tax. The extent
of this operation is illustrated by the reconstruction of the
excise rounds of Supervisor George Cowperthwaite by the