Functional socialism

72 FUNCTIONAL SOCIALISM

excess above £60. Bentham first suggested that we should leave untaxed a minimum income sufficient to provide the necessaries of life. Mull, in a famous passage, admitted that these taxes which theoretically violated the maxim of equality were none the less justly imposed. The point to be noted is that classes and not individuals tended more and more to become the units of assessment.

CAN TENDENTIOUS TAXATION BE DEFENDED?

Whilst theoretically the sole raison d’étre of taxation is to supply the State with money, it has been frequently used to serve political or moral purposes. Thus our whole system of excise is not only to find money for the Exchequer, but also to limit the consumption of alcohol. When we drink, we pay more to the Exchequer than we do to the brewer or distiller. Personally that leaves me cold; but when tobacco comes into the same pernicious category, I will, when I find time and opportunity, lead an insurrection. More definitely political is taxation on land, which may and does vary according to current political reactions. It may be doubted whether tendentious taxation can ever be defended. The temptation is ever present. Thus, in socialist circles, one hears the threat “‘to tax so and so or this and that out of existence”. Is it honest politics, for example, legally to permit an economic system that yields large salaries or dividends and then apply punitive taxation? Is this not giving with one hand and taking with the other? Can it be defended either in morals