Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/128

 to declare that all bonds must be public and it would be known exactly what was the value of every property and every capitalist income. The tax could then be raised as high as desired without the possibility of tax frauds. It would then also be impossible to avoid taxation by emigration for it is then a public institution of the country and above all of the nation itself from which all interest must flow and the tax could simply be taken from the interest before it was paid out. Under such conditions it would be possible to increase the progressive income and property tax as high as desired. If necessary it might be put so high as to be equivalent, or nearly so, to a confiscation of the great properties.

It might well be asked what advantage is offered by this roundabout way of confiscation of great property instead of taking the direct road. Is it not mere jugglery simply for the purpose of avoiding the appearance of confiscation if capital is first compensated for at its full value and then confiscated through tax legislation? The difference between this mode and that of direct confiscation appears to be but formal.

But the difference is not so trifling. Direct confiscation of all capitalists would strike all, the small and the great, those utterly useless to labor and those the most essential to labor in the same manner. It is difficult, often impossible, in this method to separate the large possessions