CHAP. VII.
Consequence of Taxes when the amount of them is properly applied.
We have now seen the objects affected by taxes, and the inconveniences which result to those who are obliged to pay them.
It comes next to be examined, whether or not taxes of all kinds be a great load upon a people, a grievous infringement of their liberty, a means of bringing many honest and industrious people to great distress, and a great discouragement to marriage. I answer without hesitation, that taxes may be, and most commonly are accompanied with all these and many more inconveniences; but I must add, that they proceed from the abuse, and not from the nature of taxes.
In my inquiries, I have constantly in my eye, how man may be governed, and never how he is governed. How a righteous and intelligent statesman may restrain the liberty of individuals, in order to promote the common good; never how an ignorant and unrighteous statesman may destroy public liberty, for the sake of individuals.
Raising money by taxes must always be burdensome, less or more, to those who pay it; and the advantages resulting from taxes can only proceed from the right application of the money when raised.
When individuals only make a profit of the inconvenience of taxes, the public loses, no doubt; because they are paid for the advantage of the public, not for that of private people. If the money raised be more beneficially employed by the state, than it would have been by those who have contributed it, then I say the public has gained, in consequence of the burden laid upon individuals; consequently, the statesman has done his duty, both in imposing the taxes, and in rightly expending them.
Taxes, in this last view, may be considered as a saving out of every private fortune, in order to procure a public fund to be expended for the public benefit.
I have frequently recourse to the familiar examples of private oeconomy, in order to make applications from it to the political; which, however different it may appear, will be found easily deducible from the same principles.
Let me suppose two persons, (A) and (B), living in the same neighbourhood, of the same rank and fortune, enjoying great superfluity, but spending yearly the whole of their income in different ways.