Principles Of Political Economy
- Автор: Mill John Stuart
- Год: 2022
- Язык: английский
- Год: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
- Жанр: Политика
Электронная книга - «Principles Of Political Economy». Краткое содержание книги:
Beside discussing descriptive issues such as which nations tended to benefit more in a system of trade based on comparative advantage (Mill's answer: those with more elastic demands for other countries' goods), the work also discussed normative issues such as ideal systems of political economy, critiquing proposed systems such as communism and socialism.
Along with A System of Logic, Principles of Political Economy established Mill's reputation as a leading public intellectual. Mill's sympathetic attitude in this work and in other essays toward contemporary socialism, particularly Fourierism, earned him esteem from the working class as one of their intellectual champions.
Book V. On The Influence Of Government.
Chapter I. On The General Principles Of Taxation.
§ 1. Four fundamental rules of Taxation.
One of the most disputed questions, both in political science and in practical statesmanship at this particular period, relates to the proper limits of the functions and agency of governments.
We shall first consider the economical effects arising from the manner in which governments perform their necessary and acknowledged functions.
We shall then pass to certain governmental interferences of what I have termed the optional kind (i.e., overstepping the boundaries of the universally acknowledged functions) which have heretofore taken place, and in some cases still take place, under the influence of false general theories.
The first of these divisions is of an extremely miscellaneous character: since the necessary functions of government, and those which are so manifestly expedient that they have never or very rarely been objected to, are too various to be brought under any very simple classification. We commence, (under) the first head, with the theory of Taxation.
The qualities desirable, economically speaking, in a system of taxation, have been embodied by Adam Smith in four maxims or principles, which, having been generally concurred in by subsequent writers, may be said to have become classical, and this chapter can not be better commenced than by quoting them:[336]
“1. The subjects of every state ought to contribute to the support of the government, as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities: that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation.
“2. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty.
“3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it. Taxes upon such consumable goods as are articles of luxury are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient to him. He pays them little by little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy or not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconvenience from such taxes.
“4. Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either take out or keep out of the pockets of the people a great deal more than it brings into the public treasury in the four following ways: First, the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the people.” Secondly, it may divert a portion of the labor and capital of the community from a more to a less productive employment. “Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur who attempt unsuccessfully to evade the tax it may frequently ruin them, and thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have derived from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax offers a great temptation to smuggling. Fourthly, by subjecting the people to the frequent visits and the odious examination of the tax-gatherers it may expose them to much unnecessary trouble, vexation, and oppression”: to which may be added that the restrictive regulations to which trades and manufactures are often subjected, to prevent evasion of a tax, are not only in themselves troublesome and expensive, but often oppose insuperable obstacles to making improvements in the processes.
§ 2. Grounds of the principle of Equality of Taxation.
The first of the four points, equality of taxation, requires to be more fully examined, being a thing often imperfectly understood, and on which many false notions have become to a certain degree accredited, through the absence of any definite principles of judgment in the popular mind.
For what reason ought equality to be the rule in matters of taxation? For the reason that it ought to be so in all affairs of government. A government ought to make no distinction of persons or classes in the strength of their claims on it. If any one bears less than his fair share of the burden, some other person must suffer more than his share. Equality of taxation, therefore, as a maxim of politics, means equality of sacrifice. It means apportioning the contribution of each person toward the expenses of government, so that he shall feel neither more nor less inconvenience from his share of the payment than every other person experiences from his. There are persons, however, who regard the taxes paid by each member of the community as an equivalent for value received, in the shape of service to himself; and they prefer to rest the justice of making each contribute in proportion to his means upon the ground that he who has twice as much property to be protected receives, on an accurate calculation, twice as much protection, and ought, on the principles of bargain and sale, to pay twice as much for it. Since, however, the assumption that government exists solely for the protection of property is not one to be deliberately adhered to, some consistent adherents of the quid pro quo principle go on to observe that protection being required for persons as well as property, and everybody's person receiving the same amount of protection, a poll-tax of a fixed sum per head is a proper equivalent for this part of the benefits of government, while the remaining part, protection to property, should be paid for in proportion to property. But, in the first place, it is not admissible that the protection of persons and that of property are the sole purposes of government. In the second place, the practice of setting definite values on things essentially indefinite, and making them a ground of practical conclusions, is peculiarly fertile in the false views of social questions. It can not be admitted that to be protected in the ownership of ten times as much property is to be ten times as much protected. If we wanted to estimate the degrees of benefit which different persons derive from the protection of government, we should have to consider who would suffer most if that protection were withdrawn: to which question, if any answer could be made, it must be, that those would suffer most who were weakest in mind or body, either by nature or by position.
336
“Wealth of Nations,” Book V, chap. ii.