Let us change our point of view from that of
personal to that of collective income.
As an effect of monopoly social wealth abandoning the laboring
class to go to the capitalistic class, the object of taxation has
been to moderate this displacement and react against usurpation
by enforcing a proportional replevin upon each privileged person.
But proportional to what? To the excess which the privileged
person has received undoubtedly, and not to the fraction of the
social capital which his income represents. Now, the object of
taxation is missed and the law turned into derision when the
treasury, instead of taking its eighth where this eighth exists,
asks it precisely of those to whom it should be restored. A
final calculation will make this evident.
Setting the daily income of each person in France at 68 centimes,
the father of a family who, whether as wages or as income from
his capital, receives 1,000 francs a year receives four shares of
the national income; he who receives 2,000 francs has eight
shares; he who receives 4,000 francs has sixteen, etc.
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