Thoughts on the mechanism of societies

by marquis de Charles Casaux

I would have it also enquired into, whether the clergy, finding the objects of that general consumption loaded with 11 millions more, could be aggrieved by the sole disappointment of giving no longer gratuitously to his Majesty, those 11 millions which they are now compelled to pay; and whether they would not be left in possession of all the faculties necessary to satisfy the first article, as soon as they should be freed from the other.

I should also wish the French to examine whether the 76 millions Tournois, paid in that country for the three twentieths, instead of being very often called for, at a time when the Subject has them not, transferred to those objects which cannot be consumed but by means of the money remaining after those 76 millions are discharged, would impair the means of the contributors, although after having eased them of that truly terrible tax, the Minister should, in a manner, juggle them out of the whole amount of it, by another impost on consumption. Supposing even they had some suspicion of the trick, I wish it were examined whether they would think themselves injured by paying in the new way that amount, by installments at their own time, and till then laying out a part of it upon their lands, the revenues of which would of course increase in proportion.

But above all, I wish it should be examined, whether 91 millions of another kind of subsidy, called la taille, added to 7 millions and a half more, laid out in expences for warrants and distresses, necessary to enforce the law of the subsidy, transferred upon the consumption of those from whose hands the subsidy is directly wrested, against whom the warrants are issued, upon whose goods or body the distresses are executed, would diminish the faculty of that poor people’s consumption, if, by means of that consumption, by the suppression of the old subsidy, of warrants, and distresses attending the same, they should acquire the faculty of consuming cheerfully, what they often consume in bitterness and sorrow; and whether the department of the finances could lose by it any thing more than the pleasure or trouble, or rather the necessity of assessing a dreadful subsidy, issuing out warrants, and distressing the body—when there are no goods to be distrained.

But in this scheme the expence is more considerable.

This is the grand objection: The expence is more considerable! Reduce the unfortunate to a bed of straw, or cast him into prison, to spare the purse ... of whom?—For after all, supposing even that a few additional charges ought to be compared with millions of inconveniences, injuries, and acts of barbarity, which are inseparable from the other methods, let it be examined whether the extra charges can produce any other effect, than that of advancing by a few deniers pour livrè the general price of merchandise; let it be examined whether that advance is not a matter of perfect indifference, provided that the price of the provisions sold by the land proprietor, who is stiled rich, and that of the wages of the labouring man, who is called poor, rise in the same proportion as the goods of the capitalist of industry, who stands equally and as essentially in need of the ease of the poor, as of the opulence of the rich.

In fine, Let it be examined whether there is any thing great, courageous, just, and fair, that may not be expected from the French nation, when she shall be admitted to the honour of being heard,—or when they will be kind enough to convince her.—A King of France, with the trifling help of his provincial administrations, may do, and play with every thing: a King of France is truly a despot; not from that absurd right of giving his will for reason, but from that principle which is congenial to the French, that the People and the King are but one, have but one interest, and have nothing to fear but the ignorance of a Minister, conscious of his inability, without the least thought of the resources he has at hand in such a case, without principles to guard him against committing those injuries which seem to him unavoidable, in order to conceal the errors which he has been, or fears to be, guilty of; a Minister, in fine, whose insignificant little self, wrests from the King and People, the fruit of that identity which forms the acknowledged essence of the French constitution.

What seems to be in France no more than a fortunate prejudice, is every where an irrefragable truth: in every country the strength, power, and riches of the Prince, are but the sum of the force, power, riches, energy, honour and susceptibility, which actually exist in the mass of his subjects.—But if the Sovereign be the most powerful man in his kingdom, only because all its strength centers in him; if in this age, the most complaisant, the meanest Minister should not dare even to insinuate a contrary idea before the Prince the most jealous of his authority; how can he presume to think, or to hope, that it will be in his power to persuade the Prince, that he, the Minister, is the best informed man in the Empire, before he has collected all the information that can be got on every object that does not call for an immediate execution?—And how can he pretend to have collected every such information, when in addition to his own ideas, he goes only by those of the few dependents who surround him, dependents as much on their guard before him, as he himself is circumspect before the Sovereign, when the Sovereign, before he asks his advice, has the misfortune to let a single word escape that betrays even the appearance of an opinion on the object under deliberation?

Recapitulation of the foregoing Thoughts on Taxes and their Effects.

The fate of the various kinds of taxes, is similar to that of political operations, which pretty regularly bring about the very contrary of what had been expected from them: thus if you tax the consumption of the rich, presently the poor alone will pay the impost, and will continue to pay it till an insurrection will make you sensible that he is brought too low; now this insurrection is commonly the consequence of a trifling scarcity, which, it seems, Providence sends to the unfortunate in order to encourage his asking for justice, in the only manner that is likely to prove successful: on the contrary, let the tax be laid on the general consumption, without sparing that of the poor, the man who possesses, shall be, no doubt, necessitated to pay for the man who has nothing, if the former wishes to enjoy the labour of the latter; and on the very same day, when the tax is laid on the consumption of the labouring man, he will not hesitate to demand an increase of wages to the full amount.... How is he to be deceived?—If it be well to deceive the poor as long as possible, then tax nothing but the consumption of the rich. But whatever be the manner in which the impost is laid, as soon as its effect shall be general, the burden will prove null (save the injuries inseparable from all other taxes, but those that bear upon consumption): this effect is no more than a general advance in all the prices: an advance, it is true, already acknowledged necessary with regard to the taxed articles, but dreaded hitherto in regard to all the rest, where it ought to have been wished for; universally felt, but never justly estimated; the nullity of the burden of the debt would have been determined by the estimation.

The poll-tax, supposed to be established by Divine Justice, would enhance the price of labour, and of its products, but by a fraction equal to that which the amount of the tax should be, in the mass of both revenues, land and industry. Ten millions of a poll-tax on a revenue of 120, would increase the prices of every thing by one twelfth; and every man thus taxed, would evidently after the advance of prices, in consequence of such a poll-tax, find himself in the very same state he stood in before the tax; yet one twelfth more must be given for every thing, but then one twelfth more would be received for every thing.