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on his crusade against the state, avails himself of the freedom of the press and assembly, and of the protection which the state gives to his person and property so long as he does not attempt to destroy the life or property of anybody else. He also uses the post office, the telegraph, the railway and all other means at hand for spreading intelligence. He uses the printing press, a good quality of paper, and movable metal type. In all his daily life he employs commodities and lives in buildings which have been produced or constructed under the capitalistic system of production, guaranteed by the state. He makes use of knowledge and practical experience, formulates scientific truths, employs arguments and illustrations, appeals to moral ideas and motives, which have been developed in society and have become its common possession since the state came into existence. Really the whole substratum of his work, material, mental, and moral, is furnished by a politically organized society. The vantage ground on which he stands, and from which he works, is not of his own construction, but has been built for him by the labor of all the preceding generations. These different classes of facts, which we have space only to hint at, represent the progress of civilization hitherto; they constitute its favorable side, and should be marshalled over against the wrongs and evils mentioned above. How did the anarchist get the conception of the indefinite perfectibility of man, except through a knowledge of what has already been accomplished? The civilized man is so far in advance of the savage that we can scarcely measure the difference. But all this progress has been made since government originated; most of it before the dogma of popular sovereignty was ever heard of. It was achieved in ages when the control of the state reached the innermost concerns of the individual, when in fact the conception of an individual apart from the state and the organic whole of society was not known. Shall I not then infer that the state, the principle of authority, is the cause of all good? Would it not be quite as logical and justifiable as to argue that it is the cause of all evil? Would not the former conclusion stand the test of historical examination quite as well as the latter? In the one case the induction would be quite as satisfactory as in the other.

But this whole method of reasoning, whatever the purpose for which it is used, is fallacious. No social or political institution, no form of organization, is in itself responsible for all the evils of society. The alleged cause is not adequate to produce the result. Here is one of the fatal errors in the entire socialistic and anarchistic argument. Our friends of that way of thinking indulge in a great deal of denunciation; but did they ever show that the existence of the state and of private property makes A cruel, B licentious, C avaricious, when they would not be so to a greater or less degree under any conceivable organization of society? The source of what we call social evil is in the individual and in the limitations of external nature. Forms of social organization have their influence, but it is wholly subordinate to these cardinal facts. Improvement can be made by civilizing the individual and adapting his social surroundings to his enlarged needs, but (progress is inevitably conditioned by the forces of the world within us and the world around us.)

The perfection of the individual is therefore an idle dream. Man has lived for at least six thousand years upon the earth, and, after making allowance for all the changes caused by increasing civilization, the fundamental characteristics of human nature remain the same. Man has the animal qualities combined with the spiritual. He needs food, shelter and rest. In the struggle to obtain the commodities which will supply these wants, he is often dominated by the worst forms of selfishness and passion. Because the supply of the necessities and comforts of life is at least relatively limited, men monopolize them. Then the development of social inequality begins. The degree of knowledge, foresight, self-control which men possess is limited and exceedingly variable. The results which they achieve differ in proportion. View them as we may, these, and others like them, are primary facts; they lie beyond the reach of forms of organization. They are always to be taken for granted in discussing any social system, whether real or ideal. Every scheme of reform must adapt itself to them. Therefore no direct practical benefit can be derived from imagining a form of society where perfect justice, liberty, and equality may co-exist, and

then applying it as a criterion to the existing order. There is so little similarity between the criterion and the system judged, that no satisfactory conclusions can be drawn. We must deal with realities and pursue methods of reform which conserve and promote all the best interests of society. This may be modest and unattractive, but it is the only true or fruitful method. We admit that society is imperfect, but the cause of imperfection lies back of society. If the institution of private property results in unnecessary inequality, it is because it is controlled by imperfect men. So it would be if we lived in voluntary associations, or under any other imaginable system. Individuals would remain essentially the same, and the old phenomena of inequality would continue. The introduction of Proudhon's system of credit would be accompanied by a great financial crisis, the result of inflation. It would tend to make inflation chronic. The scheme, as conceived by Spooner, would work much as "wild-cat" banking did before the crises of 1819 and 1837. After such convulsions in the business world, interest would be certain to reappear, and it would be the salvation of society if it did. As men are, and are ever likely to be, to throw off restraint would be equivalent to the realization in society of the Darwinian struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. This does not open an attractive prospect in any event. The trouble with us now, especially in the workings of our political system, is that the purely individualistic motives are given too full swing. The cause of political corruption is the predominance of self-seeking over public spirit.

For a justification of the state we need not construct any artificial theory, like that of natural rights and social contract. It came into existence with the dawn of society; it is as old as the individual. The existence of society without it, that is without organization and power in the organism to enforce conformity to the necessities of life and growth, would not only be contrary to all experience, but is absolutely unthinkable. To conceive society without government, the anarchists have to construct an imaginary individual; and even in this imaginary individual there is the possibility of lynch law and of the evolu

tion of jury trial and state prisons. We see no prospect at present of the lapse of society into the Kleinstaaterei of the old German Empire, or into a state where all public questions will have to be decided by Polish parliaments with the liberum veto in full operation.

Still, practically the only answer to that which is reasonable and just in the anarchistic argument is the pursuance of vigorous measures of political and social reform, which shall sweep away the evils among us that are degrading to any civilized people. HERBERT L. OSGOOD.

INCOME AND PROPERTY TAXES IN SWITZER

THE

LAND.

HE controversies of the present day concerning taxation may everywhere be reduced to two categories: questions of justice and questions of expediency.

Whenever it becomes a question of fixing the proportions in which the various classes of a people shall contribute to the public burdens, of determining the shares of the upper and the lower strata of society, of choosing between a proportional and a progressive rate of taxation, or of exempting the minimum of subsistence, etc. — in all these cases we have to deal with problems of justice. Whenever we investigate the principles which govern the relations of the individual to the community and which underlie the duty of the citizen to pay taxes to state and locality; whenever we seek to determine whether public enterprises are to be conducted gratuitously or in return for fees, — i.e., are to be supported by the community or by its individual. members, we have again to deal with problems of justice. And, finally, we are once more confronted with questions of justice when we discuss in their mutual interdependence the financial relations of the different public corporations, the narrower and the wider circles of civic life, town, city, county, state, nation,—in order to grasp the varying financial capacity of the single divisions of the commonwealth, regarded as organic portions of a greater whole.

On the other hand we have to deal with problems of expediency, when the manifold forms of taxation, as seen especially in the familiar distinction between direct and indirect taxes, are considered with a view to lessening the difficulties produced by the opposition of private interests to public demands. The disturbances in the business life of the individual citizen as well as the curtailment of his private enjoyments; the diminution of the sums destined for the present or future purposes of each

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