Governments, caught in a spiral of increasing instability, struggled to maintain their solvency by raising taxes, as Britain did throughout its empire in 1763–75, and France attempted to do in 1783–88. Entrenched elites were able to shift these burdens away from themselves. The new taxes, like the old ones, fell heavily on those who were least able to bear them. In England, the resistance of the country gentry to a trivial tax on cider in 1763 compelled the government to try the dangerous expedient of taxing America, with disastrous results for the empire.
Price revolution caused the American Revolution
