The herald., 1896-05-17
TAXATION AND MONEY
BY ABBOT KINNEY

BY ABBOT KINNEY
The American people are now consid-
ering two great questions of govern
ment These are taxation and money.
The first of these, taxation, is essen
TALLY government function, but one
which in this country and in some others
has been delegated to persons or classes,
generally the richest and most powerful,
for their further aggrandizement. This
Is done upon reasons sufficiently plausl-
BILE to deceive the masses. The second
question, money, Is not essentially a
government function. Money was not
devised by governments but by produc-
ers and traders for producers to faclli-
tate exchange. International commerce
Is facilitated by a standard OF value
measurement that is not regulated by
government and never has been. While
governments deal with the question of
money and have an important influence
locally on the standard of value. no gov
eminent has been able to modify in the
slightest degree ultimate values, nor in
any way to change the basis OF all
money, which is confidence and common
consent. Government after government,
in age after age, has tried to create and
enforce value In money without ever in
any case succeeding. Governments do
substitute one standard of value for an
other and more or less control the meth
cd of expressing values, but values
themselves are not ultimately affected.
Government money laws change val
ues no more than laws that might lay
down rules for yard sticks would. A law
might say that yard stick should be
made only of hickory, or only of pine,
or of iron, or brass, or gold or silver; or
that 1T should be three inches, three feet,
or three hundred feet: but in no case
would the real value of the cloth meas
ured be in any way regulated. Could a
government create value by fiat, the
need OF taxation for its support would
not exist. The continued necessity of
taxation, that is of forced contribution
OF products, Is demonstration absolute
that government cannot create value by
fiat. The function of government in the
regulation of weights, measures and
money is merely and only to make as
certain and reliable as possible the ex-
pressions of quantity and value so as to
facilitate and expedite exchange. The
high and specialized production of a
civilized community necessitates ex-
change OF products for it's existence.
The quicker and cheaper these ex-
changes necessary to civilized life can
be made the more time and energy the
community will have for production.
The wealth of a community consists of
It's products and producing power not
OF the expressed value of these Wealth
is things, not names.
Confusion has come into the minds of
many on both the question of taxation
and on the question of money. The
American people have upon the one
hand the economic principles usually
called Democratic, and upon the other
what we may call the practical lack of
principle championed by Mckinley The
democratic principle as to taxation is
That the taxing power is exclusively a
government power that exists only by
government initiative and by govern
ment enforcement, that this power Is
the power Of life or death for the gov
eminent. and 1t Is equally the power of
life or death for the individual members
or the community. A government must
tax to live, and it may tax SO as to de-
stroy individual citizens. There is, IL,
Democratic opinion, no justification for
the delegation of this tremendous power
by the government to individuals, nor
is 1T deemed less than robbery to use
taxes collected by force from the masses
TO enrich privileged persons or favored
classes. no matter how rich these few
may be. The admission that the gov
eminent may legitimately enrich per-
sons by law opens the door of temptation
to every individual to seek riches by con-
gressional act. rather than by industry
ana excellence, and places the sack of
the corrupter in the lobby of every ma
tional legislature. Upon moral grounds
alone this perversion Of economic prin-
ciple should be ended. The protective
policy goes back to the fallacy that a
low workers wage means a cheap pro-
duct, or to put 1t into formula. that
the wage paid individually to the work.
err governs the cost of the thing made or
raised" If this proposition were true
it would be fatal to humanity for then
the interest of the employer would be
always to lengthen hours and diminish
pay. The employer succeeding in this
would conquer others and the slave
cans thus fly in the face of their anti
slavery record. The advance Of man.
kind never has gone against q natural
law. but we may assumesthat It never
will. Consequently the protectionist
proposition must be incorrect, for man
creased wage to the worker has gone a.
diminished cost of the product. Wages
We're never higher than in this decade,
and the cost of produced things was
never lower. The maximum of wages
must be the result or product less the
cost of management Wages cannot
be higher than this because Improbable
production will cease. The product Of
the worker depends on capacity and
character. In capacity-the knowledge
of how to use force to obtain a given
result; in characteristic moral integ-
rity that uses capacity for the employ
er's interest. Capacity and character
are best developed in country that
maintains order. secures property. guar
antees personal liberty, affords oppor-
tunity for education and has the fewest
persons privileged to receive favor or
support from the producing public
In such a country as ours. favorably
situated in these points. we find the rich
often introducing directly or indirectly
bands Of alien laborers for routine work
who. in their native land, ground down
to dull monotony Of long hours and
low product with low individual wage,
are intended to reduce here the cost of
routine work, and many temporarily do
so. This is a prostitution of citizenship
by the rich and should not be tolerated
The Huns in the Pennsylvia coal mines
have cost that state, and especially its
mine-owners, many times over any saw
ing in the cost of routine work that may
have been from time to time gained. The
Introduction of Chinese to California by
the Central Pacific was a curse to the
state and a retarder to her progress. The
present contract poems on the Southern
Pacific railroad in Arizona are draw
back to that territory. In the long run
the cost of corporate management has
l. H. L. u