Chapters 1-6: The public Revenues

THE public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.

  • To fix these properly, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject.
  • The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state.

Imaginary wants are those which flow from:

  • the passions and the weakness of the governors
  • the vain conceit of some extraordinary project
  • the inordinate desire of glory, and
  • a certain impotence of mind incapable of withstanding the impulse of fancy.

Often, restless ministers imagined that the wants of their own mean and ignoble souls were the wants of the state.

  • Nothing requires more wisdom and prudence than the regulation of that portion of which the subject is deprived, and that which he is suffered to retain.

The public revenues should not be measured by the people’s abilities to give, but by what they should give.

  • If they are measured by their abilities to give, it should be considered what they are able to give for a constancy.

 

Chapter 2:It is bad Reasoning to say that the Greatness of Taxes is good in its own Nature.↩

THERE have been instances, in particular monarchies, of petty states, exempt from taxes, that have been as miserable as the circumjacent places which groaned under the weight of exactions.

  • The chief reason of this is, that the petty state can hardly have any such thing as industry, arts, or manufactures, because of its being subject to a thousand restraints from the great state by which it is environed.
  • The great state is blessed with industry, manufactures, and arts; and establishes laws by which those several advantages are procured.
  • The petty state becomes, therefore, necessarily poor, let it pay never so few taxes.

Yet some have concluded, from the poverty of those petty states, that, in order to render the people industrious, they should be loaded with taxes.

  • But it would be a juster inference, that they ought to pay no taxes at all.
  • None live here but wretches who retire from the neighbouring parts to avoid working; wretches, who, disheartened by labour, make their whole felicity consist in idleness.

The effect of wealth in a country is to inspire every heart with ambition: that of poverty is to give birth to despair.

  • The former is excited by labour; the latter is soothed by indolence.

Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry.

  • She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labour.
  • But, if an arbitrary prince should attempt to deprive people of nature’s bounty, they would fall into a disrelish of industry; and then indolence and inaction must be their only happiness.

 

Chapter 3: Taxes in Countries which have Villains or Bondmen

THE state of villainage is sometimes established after a conquest.

  • In that case the bondman or villain that tills the land should have a kind of partnership with his master.
  • Only a communication of loss or profit can reconcile those who are doomed to labour to such as are blessed with a state of affluence.

 

Chapter 4: A Republic in the like Case

WHEN a republic has reduced a nation to the drudgery of cultivating her lands, she should never suffer the free subject to have a power of increasing the tribute of the bondman.

  • This was not permitted at Sparta.
  • Those brave people thought the Helotes* would be more industrious in cultivating their lands, upon knowing that their servitude was not to increase:
  • they imagined likewise that the masters would be better citizens, when they desired no more than what they were accustomed to enjoy.

Chapter 5: A Monarchy in the like Case

WHEN the nobles of a monarchical state cause the lands to be cultivated for their own use by a conquered people, they ought never to have a power of increasing the service or tribute*.

  • Besides, it is right the prince should be satisfied with his own demesne and the military service.
  • But, if he wants to raise taxes on the vassals of his nobility, the lords of the several districts ought to be answerable for the tax†, and be obliged to pay it for the vassals, by whom they may be afterwards reimbursed.
  • If this rule be not followed, the lord and the collectors of the public taxes will harrass the poor vassal by turns, till he perishes with misery, or flies into the woods.

Chapter 6: A despotic Government in the like Case

THE foregoing rule is still more indispensably necessary in a despotic government.

  • The lord, who is every moment liable to be stripped of his lands and his vassals, is not so eager to preserve them.

When Peter I. thought proper to follow the custom of Germany, and to demand his taxes in money, he made a very prudent regulation, which is still followed in Russia.

  • The gentleman levies the tax on the peasant, and pays it to the Czar.
  • If the number of peasants diminishes, he pays all the same;
  • If it increases, he pays no more; so that it is his interest not to worry or oppress his vassals.