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the taxing power. But the proportional taxationists are not indi- vidualists, and they would repudiate with no little warmth and indignation the charge that they seek to limit the government to mere police duties. Many of them are protectionists and advocates of bounties. Many of them favor legislation distinctly socialistic in character. Most of them certainly believe that it is the duty of the state to provide free schools and free libraries. All these beliefs and demands are anything but individualistic, yet when the subject of taxation is broached we find a strange, not to say suspicious, and sudden conversion to individualism on the part of the opponents of progressive taxation ! In point of fact, the only alternative to the cost principle of the extreme individualists is the principle of "ability to pay." John Stuart Mill, who denies that government has only police functions, writes as follows on the theory of taxation :
Government must be regarded as so preeminently a concern of all that to determine who are most interested in it is of no real importance. If a per- son, or class of persons, receive so small a share of the benefit as to make it necessary to raise the question, there is something else than taxation which is amiss, and the thing to be done is to remedy the defect, instead of recog- nizing it and making it a ground for demanding less taxes. As in a case of voluntary subscription for a purpose in which all are interested, all are thought to have done their part fairly when each has contributed according to his means — that is, has made an equal sacrifice for the common object ; in like manner should this be the principle of compulsory contributions.
To say that this view is socialistic is only true if all who support the present political system are socialists. It is a view which every non-individualist tacitly adopts whenever he dis- cusses internal improvements, finance, trade, education, and similar subjects. It is a view which is never rejected except when taxation is considered. Accept the theory of government upon which the overwhelming majority of Americans act, and all the alleged unfairness of progressive taxation, which is an application of the " ability-to-pay " principle, disappears at once.
Most economists and writers on political science have dis- carded the proportional principle and adopted that of equality of sacrifice. They show that it is the proportional system which is
