Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/783

 TAXA TION AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE STA TE 763

and only such tariffs would accord with the proportional princi- ple. To tax the rich at higher rates on the goods imported for their exclusive consumption than on articles of general consump- tion is to recognize by implication the ability-to-pay principle. No one objects to our tariff laws as un-American. The fact is that there has been a wide departure from the early ideas of government. The Jeffersonian aphorism that " that government is best which governs least" is rightly supposed to sum up the extreme individualistic philosophy of government, but who pre- tends that our present practice conforms thereto ? The Repub- licans never professed this principle, and the Democrats have abandoned it. Democracy today leans toward socialism rather than toward individualism. It is the Democrats who demand the exclusive supply of paper currency by the government, and it is the Republicans who advocate the "withdrawal of the gov- ernment from the banking business." The Republicans have taken advanced individualistic ground on several vital questions, while the Democrats have been drifting toward what is called paternalism in the state.

This is said, not with the intention of passing judgment, but solely for the purpose of indicating present social and political tendencies. It lies not in the mouth of any existing party to condemn progressive taxation as revolutionary, because all parties have adopted the philosophy from which such ta.xation is but a logical corollary. No one can reasonably affirm that progressive taxation is out of harmony with current theory and practice.

Progressive taxation may be oppressive, but the injustice is not in the principle itself in any case. Proportional taxation may be ruinously high, yet no one finds injustice in the principle on that account. It is no doubt easier to enact unfair and con- fiscatory legislation under a progressive system than under a pro- portional system, but the possibility of abuse does not affect the theoretical question. Proportionality, as has been ably shown by Controller Roberts of New York, is not proportional in practice. The term is a misnomer and is used without reference to the facts.

The true individualist does not demand proportionality. He