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and distribution, the need for money will become less and less, and subsequently will gradually die out altogether.
An "exchange" of goods must then begin between town and country, without the agency of money; municipal industrial organisations send out textile, iron and other goods into the country, while the village district organisations send bread to the towns in exchange. Here, too, the importance of money will be lessened in proportion as the town and country labour organisations of the workers and peasants become more closely united.
But at present, at this very moment, the workers' Government needs money, and needs it badly. That is because the organisations of production and distribution is only just getting into working order, and money still plays a most important part. Finances, including income and expenditure of State money, are at present of the utmost importance. And that is why the question of taxes is so acute at the present time; they must be exacted by every means. The confiscation of surplus incomes of the town and country bourgeoisie is inevitable, as is also periodical taxation.
But in the future taxation will also become obsolete. To the extent that production becomes nationalised, so capitalists' profits cease; as there are no more landowners, the so-called land tax is abolished. Property holders are deprived of their houses, and thus another source of taxation is gone. Superfluous wealth is confiscated, the rich are losing their main support, and the whole population is gradually becoming employed by the proletarian State organisations. (Later on, with complete Communism, when there is no State, people, as we have seen, will become equal comrades, and the very memory of the division of society into bourgeoisie will vanish.)
When such a state of things exists it will be much simpler to deduct the necessary taxes immediately from salaries than to deduct considerable sums in the way of taxes or dues. It is not worth while spending both time and money on the senseless transaction of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
We have seen, on the other hand, that when production and distribution are thoroughly organised, money will play no part whatever, and as a matter of course no kind of money dues will be demanded from anyone. Money will have generally become unnecessary. Finance will become extinct.
