For equality in well-being cannot result from
the violation of capital: the antinomy must be methodically
solved, under penalty, for society, of falling back into chaos.
Eternal justice does not accommodate itself to all the whims of
men: like a woman, whom one may outrage, but whom one does not
marry without a solemn alienation of one's self, it demands on
our part, with the abandonment of our egoism, the recognition of
all its rights, which are those of science.
The tax, whose final purpose, as we have shown, is the reward of
the non-producers, but whose original idea was a restoration of
the laborer,--the tax, under the system of monopoly, reduces
itself therefore to a pure and simple protest, a sort of
extra-judicial act, the whole effect of which is to aggravate the
situation of the wage-worker by disturbing the monopolist in his
possession. As for the idea of changing the proportional tax
into a progressive tax, or, to speak more accurately, of
reversing the order in which the tax progresses, that is a
blunder the entire responsibility for which belongs to the
economists.
Pages:
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563