Thoughts on the mechanism of societies

by marquis de Charles Casaux

“A prohibitory law in one country, may be, should be, and no doubt will be, instantly followed by ten others, in ten different countries, which will soon enforce the re-establishment of the equilibrium dictated by Nature, the only one that deserves to be attended to, and the only one that must prevail at last.

“To the present war, a war of revolution if ever there was one, will probably succeed the only useful and necessary war that can be waged between nations enlightened by the longest and most melancholy experience; a war essential to the happiness of mankind, since the only contest left for decision will be, who shall prove the most able to devise, or the most ready to adopt, those laws that are calculated to procure the greatest possible consumption, on which depends the highest degree of public revenue:—

“Discussions these, important at all times, dangerous for every one a few years ago, unbecoming perhaps in a private individual at a time when the true politicians of Europe will find themselves compelled to make them the object of their most serious meditations;—discussions, in fine, entirely out of the way of a cultivator, who could not, without a palpable folly, suffer himself to be led into them by the examination of his blade of grass, and of a principle too evident to be contested.” (Essai sur la culture de la canne à sucre.)

When a man has shewn himself capable of looking upon a war as the readiest means that could conduce to a general union of interests, no one will be surprised if that very man should allow to luxury the principal honour in the accomplishment of such a prophecy. Nor would any one be surprised if he were to add, that the rage for luxury, in a discerning despot, would soon lead him to establish within his dominions the greatest freedom, from which alone he can expect the greatest display of all kinds of luxury, the choice and first fruits of which would be always at his command. Nor again would any one be surprised were the prophet to add, that wherever luxury should be at its summit, none but the idle would be at a loss for a livelihood, and that not a mean one; that even the idiot, as well as the worn-out labourer, would find there, under the designation of a hospital, an asylum equal to the habitation of a King:—The habitation of the Kings of Great Britain is not comparable to some of her hospitals.

Would not the question about luxury, reduced to its elements, like those other questions which I have touched upon hitherto, present consequences diametrically opposite to those ideas which perhaps are yet too common, only because they have not been thoroughly examined? Methinks I have advanced one step towards the solution of the problem, by proving (if I have proved it) that the tax laid on that pretended monster, Luxury, is in fact the most oppressive for the people, on account of the following effects, from which the impost cannot be freed.

First, If that tax lessens the consumption of the article taxed, provision must be made, by a fresh tax, for the deficit in the first, which nevertheless has already deprived of sustenance, those who derived it only from that article of consumption annihilated by the tax.

Secondly, If the rage for the article taxed, gets the better of the rigour of the tax, or in other words, of the absurd disproportion thereby established between the real and nominal value of that article, the land proprietor has no other resource left, whereby to provide for the tax, and for the rest of his standing expences, than to raise the prices of his commodities accordingly; and the poor, whose consumption has not been taxed, pays dearer, nevertheless, for his bread, and for all that he consumes besides, whilst the tax laid on luxury alone, is pleaded by all the capitalists as a pretence for not increasing the price of labour amongst the people they employ.

Thirdly, If the little private calculations, of which I have spoken, did not rectify (as I contend they do by degrees, and as they ought to do sooner) the mistakes of the grand calculations in the administration of finances; that is to say, if the land proprietor did not increase the price of his commodities, in proportion as the tax bears heavy on that article of luxury which he still persists to consume: it would appear still more heinous in the eyes of the moralist; for those artificers who, without remorse, without a blush, should employ themselves in the work of Satan, of which the consumption should continue the same, would subsist undisturbed in peace and plenty on that very work, whilst a considerable number of scrupulous artisans, employed hitherto on articles free from censure, but of which the consumption should have decreased by the counter-blow of the taxes on luxury, would most scandalously be left starving and unemployed.

I shall now inspect the question more minutely; for all I have said hitherto is not so much an apology for luxury, as an exposition of the inconveniences attending its being made the principal object of taxation: I beg to be excused, if I grow unwillingly more familiar in my style, when the dignity of the subject seems to require one of suitable dignity in the manner of treating it.