[99] “Let us observe, in passing, that the terms ‘taxation’ and ‘public revenue’ have unfortunately become synonymous in the public mind. The term ‘taxation’ is always unpopular. It implies a charge that is hard to bear, and which everybody is anxious to shirk. The public revenue is the product of the sovereign’s landed property, which is distinct from his subjects’ property.” (Mercier de la Rivière, p. 451.)
[100] “The sovereign takes a fixed amount of the net product for his annual income. This amount of necessity grows with every increase of the net product and diminishes with every shrinking of the product. The people’s interests and the sovereign’s are, consequently, necessarily one.” (Baudeau, p. 769.)
[101] This was the basis of Voltaire’s lively satire, L’Homme avec Quarante Écus. It treats of a wealthy financier who escapes taxation, and who makes sport of the poor agriculturist who pays taxes for both, although his income is only forty écus.
[102] “Such a reduction of the necessary expenditure must result in diminished production, because there can be no harvest without some amount of preliminary expense. You may check your expenditure, but it will mean diminishing your harvest—a decrease in the one means an equal decrease of the other. Such a fatal blow to the growth of population would, in the long run, injure the landed proprietor and the sovereign.” (Dupont de Nemours, p. 353.)
“A fall in the expenditure means a smaller harvest, which means that less will be expended upon making preparation for the next harvest. This cyclical movement seems a terrible thing to those who have given it some thought.” (Mercier de la Rivière, p. 499.)
[103] “There would be something to say for this if the rich repaid them by increased wages or additional almsgiving. But the poor give to the rich, and so add to their misery, already sufficiently great. The State demands from those who have nothing to give, and directs all its penalties and exercises all its severity upon the poor.” (Turgot, Œuvres, vol. i, p. 413).
“It would be better for the landed proprietors to pay it direct to the Treasury, and thus save the cost of collection.” (Dupont de Nemours, p. 352.)
[104] “It might happen—and, indeed, it often does happen—that the worker’s wage is only equal to what is necessary for his subsistence.” (Réflexions, vi.)
It is also possible that Jesus was not formulating a general law when He said that we have the poor always with us. Turgot likewise wished to state the simple fact, and not to draw a general conclusion.
[105] Quesnay, Second Problème économique, p. 134. The argument which follows is rather curious. He does not seem to think that a fall in wages even below the minimum would result in the death of many people, but simply that it would result in emigration to other countries, and that as a consequence of such emigration the diminished supply at home would soon lead to higher wages being paid—a fairly optimistic conclusion for the period.