Everybody, spontaneously and with one accord,
considers such an assessment just; everybody, therefore,
spontaneously and with one accord, looks upon the tax as a
resumption on the part of society, a sort of redemption exacted
from monopoly. This is especially striking in England, where, by
a special law, the proprietors of the soil and the manufacturers
pay, in proportion to their incomes, a tax of forty million
dollars, which is called the poor-rate.
In short, the practical and avowed object of the tax is to effect
upon the rich, for the benefit of the people, a proportional
resumption of their capital.
Now, analysis and the facts demonstrate:
That the tax of assessment, the tax upon monopoly, instead of
being paid by those who possess, is paid almost entirely by those
who do not possess;
That the tax of quotite, separating the producer from the
consumer, falls solely upon the latter, thereby taking from the
capitalist no more than he would have to pay if fortunes were
absolutely equal;
Finally, that the army, the courts, the police, the schools, the
hospitals, the almshouses, the houses of refuge and correction,
public functions, religion itself, all that society creates for
the protection, emancipation, and relief of the proletaire, paid
for in the first place and sustained by the proletaire, is then
turned against the proletaire or wasted as far as he is
concerned; so that the proletariat, which at first labored only
for the class that devours it,--that of the capitalists,--must
labor also for the class that flogs it,--that of the
nonproducers.
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