THE DISTRIBUTION OF TAXES. $7 



go round. Of course, the richer classes can buy what they need, there- 

 fore the ultimate and destructive burden of militarism falls upon the 

 poor and the incapable. I think it cannot fail to be admitted that by so 

 much as products are taken by the government for consumption outside 

 the civil service, mainly for military purposes, in the form of food, fuel, 

 metal, timber and the like, by so much is there less of these materials 

 to be expended for subsistence and for the construction of dwelling 

 houses, factories, workshops and the mechanism of productive industry. 

 If such productive consumption is retarded by an excessive tax on in- 

 heritances or on incomes, then the accumulation of capital is retarded, 

 and by so much must the rate of interest or profit be higher than it 

 would otherwise have been. The distribution may be very remote, but 

 it is very certain, unless one is prepared to admit the absurd cry of 

 over-production and to defend a waste of substance by way of taxation 

 in order to get rid of it. 



All these material substances which are applied in the end to the 

 supply of shelter, food and clothing are the joint product of land, labor, 

 capital and mental energy. They are derived directly or indirectly from 

 the field, the forest, the mine or the sea. There can be no large produc- 

 tion conducted exclusively by labor; tools are necessary. Tools are capi- 

 tal, whether used by hand or worked by power. On the other hand, there 

 can be no production exclusively derived from capital; tools and mechan- 

 ism without human power or direction are inert. Land is the basis of all 

 production, yet raw land is practically inert. Land is but a tool or in- 

 strument of production and has been so ever since the nomadic life 

 gave place to civilized life. Again, there can be no great product, 

 of either land, labor or capital, of either manual or mechanical work, 

 without the directing or coordinating power of mental energy, bringing 

 all these material forces to a constantly augmenting product in ratio to 

 the number of persons occupied in their conduct. 



If, then, the entire product of land, labor, capital and mental energy 

 in a given period, consisting of four seasons or one year, is represented 

 by the symbol A, that part of the product which is converted to the 

 uses of government by taxation may be represented by the symbol B; 

 then A minus B equals X, the unknown quantity. If X, the unknown 

 quantity, is the share of the annual product of material substances 

 used for shelter, food and clothing, then the whole burden of taxation, 

 wherever imposed and however collected, with all the expenses of col- 

 lection, be they greater or less, must fall in the end upon all consumers 

 in proportion to their consumption by diminishing the quantity or value 

 of X. 



It follows that if the demand of governments takes so large a por- 

 tion of the product that what is left is insufficient to meet the necessity 

 and comfort of those who are not in the government service, then, aa 



