Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/787

Rh know no more concerning a ‘wise progression’ than I do about a ‘wise addition’ or a ‘wise multiplication.’ A progression is or it is not. If it is insignificant, then it is a delusion. The inequality it aims at destroying subsists intact. If a true progression in taxation is established, here are the results we obtain: We will suppose, for example, that the tax ought to be trebled when the income is doubled; then a tax of 10 francs on 100 francs of income would rise to 200 francs on 2,000 francs, to 600 francs on 4,000 francs, to 1,800 francs on 8,000 francs, to 5,400 francs on 16,000 francs, to 16,200 francs on 32,000 francs, to 48,600 francs on 64,000 francs, and to 145,000 francs on 128,000 francs. I conclude that the principle that ends in such a consequence can only be false. What! the tax would one day exceed my fortune! I should be the debtor of the fiscal system that had absorbed more than my revenue. Then it would be for my interest not to augment it! I shall have accumulated only for the treasury, and the more I acquire the more rapidly I shall be despoiled. . . .That system may suit Utopians and retrograde people who completely absorb the individual in the state, but it will not suit those who, relying on facts, think the greatness and wealth of the state ought to proceed from the development of individuals. It may suit those who seek equality at the basis, but not those who seek equality at the summit. The theory of progressive taxation is a vestige of the old prejudice that regarded wealth as an evil, as a sort of theft from the rest of the country, and that it would be equitable to make the rich man atone or make reparation for the possession of his fortune and his pleasures. In warlike civilizations, where wealth was based on violence, it is not difficult to understand the legitimacy of this prejudice; but it finds no warrant in our industrial civilization, where all wealth, to be legitimate, must be based on the appropriation of natural agents to our wants. But the partisans of a wise progression in taxation have found means of escaping from the absurdity of the above consequence—namely, confiscation. They propose that above a certain figure the progression shall stop. Under such a system they would favor him who has but little money; but they would favor still more him whose wealth exceeds a certain limit. If you have £4,000 a year, you pay the maximum of the progression; if you have more than £4,000, the progression vanishes. A principle which ends in such consequences does not exist."

—To establish a system of taxation which will be equitable and effective without involving the principle of progressive or discriminating taxes, M. Menier regards the following constructive rules as fundamental:

1.Taxation should never be laid on circulating capital, "since every tax that obstructs circulation impedes production in a