Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/266

 We find that either through various agencies this man is doing the same thing as his wealthy neighbor, or he is endeavoring to inject himself somewhere into the desperately competing and over-manned group in the community which makes a meagre living off exchange.

Under a rational system of taxation, based upon the control of value instead of value itself, both these men, being normal human beings, eager to move advantageously, would produce goods or create facilities, thus adding to the sum-total of value. All that is needed to liberate their effort, and induce them to do the logical and advantageous thing, is the assurance of their fellows that they will not be taxed until they have successfully accomplished their undertakings and, if they own land, have finally created and demonstrated their control of basic value by attracting population. If they do not own land, then those who do, and thus control this newly created value, should be taxed—not the creator of the value.

Apart from this criticism of our retention of a method of extortion which arose when the defrauding of honest effort was one of the accepted privileges of autocracy, we have always before our eyes the spectacle of two protesting victims of our present injustice—Industry representing highly organized effort, and Labor which represents most fully the factor of demand—in incessant warfare, and dealing very hardly with each other in their desperate struggle for security. Industry, with the advantage of a costly alliance with prostituted capital, appears, through its anonymous continuity, to be stronger than its fellow-victim. With the desperate hope of self-preservation, Industry seeks to pay less to Labor because of increased taxation, and finally has to ask more for its product. The consumer, who is largely Labor, has to make the final concession of place to these adjustments, and is forced to pay more and to purchase less because of diminished earnings, while the control of Industry passes invisibly from the producer to the money-lender. We say callously that it is not safe to invest in a pioneer industry until it has been through the hands of a receiver, showing that we can calculate on the effects of our debased system of taxation even if we cannot look for the causes.

(h)&ensp;The Survival of Serfdom.&emsp;A secondary economic effect of our archaic system of oppressive and punitive taxation, which is not given due consideration, is our distorted pro-