So far at least as taxation is concerned, I am
quite of the opinion of these optimists.
According to the theory that we have just seen, the tax is the
reaction of society against monopoly. Upon this point opinions
are unanimous: citizens and legislators, economists, journalists,
and ballad-writers, rendering, each in their own tongue, the
social thought, vie with each other in proclaiming that the tax
should fall upon the rich, strike the superfluous and articles of
luxury, and leave those of prime necessity free. In short, they
have made the tax a sort of privilege for the privileged: a bad
idea, since it involved a recognition of the legitimacy of
privilege, which in no case, whatever shape it may take, is good
for anything. The people had to be punished for this egoistic
inconsistency: Providence did not fail in its duty.
From the moment, then, of the conception of the tax as a
counter-claim, it had to be fixed proportionally to means,
whether it struck capital or affected income more especially.
Now, I will point out that the levying of the tax at so much a
franc being precisely that which should be adopted in a country
where all fortunes were equal, saving the differences in the cost
of assessment and collection, the treasury is the most liberal
feature of our society, and that on this point our morals are
really behind our institutions.
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