Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/74

10 the further existence of the proletarian rule, bring with it the great advantage that all increase of exploitation would henceforth be precluded. Every fresh investment of capital, therefore any increase of the latter, as well as all increase of the rent, would be out of the question. That in itself would constitute a splendid achievement of the proletarian revolution. Every further increase of the social wealth would henceforth be for the benefit of society.

But then there is yet another advantage. As soon as all capitalist property assumes the form of bonds issued by the State, by the municipality or by the co-operative societies, it would be possible to introduce a progressive income, property and inheritance tax of and on such a scale as up till now has been impossible. It is even to-day one of our demands that such a tax should replace all others, especially indirect taxation. If, however, we were to-day to obtain the power to carry that through, say, by the support of other parties (which of course is out of the question, since no bourgeois party would go so far), we would nevertheless meet with great difficulties in carrying it out. It is a well known fact that the higher the tax the more numerous are the attempts to defraud the revenue. But even if we succeeded in making the concealment of income and property impossible, even then we should not be in a position to screw up the income or property tax as high as we should like, because the capitalists, if the tax pressed too heavily on their income or property would simply leave the country, and the latter would be left in the lurch. The State would then have the income and property tax but without income and property. Thus today, it is impossible to go beyond a certain limit even if we possessed the necessary political power. The situation, however, alters entirely when the entire capitalistic property takes the form of State bonds; the property, which it is impossible to ascertain to-day, would then be known to everybody. It would only be necessary to decree that all bonds are to be registered in the name of the owner, and it would be possible to estimate exactly the capitalist income and the property of everyone. It would then also be possible to screw up the taxes to any extent without fear of their being evaded by any concealments. It would then be also impossible to escape them by emigration, since it is the public institutions of the country, and in the first place the State, from which all interest comes, and the latter can deduct the tax from the interest before it is paid out. Under these circumstances it would be possible to raise the progressive income and property tax as high as necessary—if necessary as high as would come very near, if not actually amount to, confiscation of the large property.

Now it may be asked. What advantage would it be to take this roundabout way of confiscating large property instead of doing it directly? Is it not a jugglery intended merely to avoid the appearance of confiscation, when capital is first bought out at