The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-30

ten overlooked; and too much emphasis ti frequently laid on the individual ele
 ment. In ethics 1t is now coming to bs recognised that private morality Is ar
 outkrowth of social morality. In enonom
 ics this is not always appreciated. Adam Smith finds th>s essential princi' pie 0f economic progress to reside in thu original individual propensity to truck Yet modern research has shown that tho 1, original propensity was just the reverse
 and that private barter Is result of so
 cial trade. So also when we say that in. davidual cost of production fixes tht
 value, we really mean that 1t expresses I the value that is fixed by social forces | as a whole. The value of a commodiyy
 is due not to the labor of the individual who made 1t, but to the social service which ir Is going to render. Again ou'
 modern theory of private property, w,tth
 is the labor theory, is coming 4 <. ..s..-
 ognized as inadequate. The .'sSs
 of private property is ss,,s ,.r.,. ,,,d,e
 viduai rights are he's hssls sr,,hserv,ent rs to % inc
 general social nisrests. If, as cariyle | tath,. ,,a,,...n believes what his gran;-
 ,,,.n n,rns "a. we may also say tlIat no or,,aa - what his grandfather pas tbs ia \, Another application IS seen u
 d,r,a Dor question. The right of the i'm ,,,. s2ual to work Is indeed a sacred and
 
 Under which the right is to be exercised are by no means a matter of a social un- concern. The eecurest guarantee of free- dom Is the social sanction. To magnify the individuaI at the expense of the sa- cial group is 10 close our eycs to .lie real forces which have elaborated mod ern liberty.
 The chief example. however, is to De found in the domain of taxation. Our modern dnrtrfnsa of fn ftna rests on the theory that taxes remain on the individual who pays, and that all we need to do is to aim at equality between individuals. Modern research however, shows that most taves does not remain on the in- dividual who pays, but owing to the working out of economic forces are either diffused or absorbed. A tax on land is either shifted by being added to the price of the product, or 1t is capitalized into lower selling value of the land, so that when the land changes hands the new purchaser buys himself free of the tax. In city real estate, either rents are up or the prices of lots go down. and in the end the community as a whole bears the burden. In the case of mortgages, tax on a man who lends does not re- main on him. In the case of the rail- way security, the new purchaser in the AAdt hCL DuyS tlhHSciI IFE6 OI LHG La6. Under modern conditions the only kin of personal tax that can be made to rest on the individual is a poll tax and a direct consumption tax, both of which are con- demned by everybody. The new ideal Is tax on wealth; the old ideal was a tax on the individual who owned the wealth. The new ideal is tax on the economic process of phenomenon. Hence it is not necessary in order to secure Justice, to impose tax on general property or on all corporations, or on all incomes. Above all direct taxes are not necessarily more just than indirect taxes. In the complex life of today the problem is no longer that of the individual, but of the effect of evonomic law on the various classes of society, the agencies of production and the facts of group, rather than individual The newer theory and practice of taxation must rest on the facts of social production and group consump- tion.
 Economies, politics and ethics are each of them a part of the. greater social science. In each of them we find the individual problem of attaining unity in The aim of economies Is to show the reconciliation of private wealth with public welfare; the object of politics is to secure individual liberty through a free commonwealth; the goal of ethics Is to prove that individual morality Is in with the very conception of the universe. Economies show how a pros porous individual can come only through a prosperous society: politics teaches how a free individual can persist only in free society; and ethics make it clear how a perfect individual can be conceived only as a constituent of a perfect society. Prosperity, freedom, morallty-all alike are at bottom social conceptions They can be reached in practice only through a common striving together; they can be comprehended in theory only through an analysis which accentuates the social ele- ment