Tax slavery

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Tax Slavery is the absolute legal ownership of the ruler over a person's labour or income.^{[citation needed]}

It describes a system in which a person's property rights are subordinated to the decisions or laws of the ruling class. It is a concept originating in the last days of the Roman Empire, when the jurisprudential concept of property of Ulpian, Mucius Scaevola et al. was substituted by the concept of property as a privilege, subject to revocation by edict of the emperor or his representatives.

Diocletian's institution of the death penalty for those that defied imperial price controls on oil and cloth were decried by Lactantius as slavery, since what differentiated a paterfamilias from a servant was his control over property.

Mounting taxes in urban centers are reported to be one of the causes of the rise of land-based feudalism, since roman citizens escaped confiscation by selling themselves into slavery or entering into, comparatively less onerous, pacts of subservience with rural and military patricians.