ABSTRACT
I owe this point of view to my father, and I presented it 20 years ago in my memoir titled De l’impôt dans le canton de Vaud.iii However, as far as I know there are some economists who have, if not demonstrated, at least formulated very explicitly this way of reconciling individualism and communism, and, moreover, have concerned themselves with seeking and describing the path and the means to make this a reality. Thus, we find in Chapter IV, section V, entitled ‘Taxes on rent’, of James Mill’s Elements of Political Economy (1821) a theory, [268] very complete, although very concise, of the use of rent to fund public expenditures. That author first establishes that landownership and agricultural production are independent:iv
It is sufficiently obvious – he says – that the share of the rent of land,v which may be taken to defray the expenses of the government, does not affect the industry of the country. The cultivation of the land depends upon the capitalist; to whom the appropriate motive is furnished, when he receives the
ordinary profits of stock. To him it is a matter of perfect indifference; whether he pays the surplus, in the shape of rent, to an individual proprietor; or, in that of revenue, to a government collector.
