Thomas Paine responded to one of Burke’s critiques of the French Revolution by cynically arguing that wars are sometimes started in order to increase taxation (“the harvest of war”) (1791)
About this Quotation:
Paine here returns to his theme of the connection between war, public financing, and taxation. He cynically argues that history might lead one to the conclusion that far from raising taxes in order to fund wars, much benefit can be gained by the ruling and banking elite if wars are started in order to raise the national debt and increase taxation. Sometimes one wonders if this might be true. Paine and Burke were only two figures in a very spirited debate which took place in the 1790s about the significance and meaning of the French Revolution. It also involved Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Joseph Priestley, Catharine Macaulay, and Sir James Mackintosh, whose writings on the subject can be found at the OLL website [http://oll.libertyfund.org/collection/73].
Other quotes from this week:
Other quotes about Taxation:
- 2009: Lysander Spooner argues that according to the traditional English common law, taxation would not be upheld because no explicit consent was given by individuals to be taxed (1852)
- 2009: Frédéric Bastiat on the state as the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else (1848)
- 2008: Adam Smith claims that exorbitant taxes imposed without consent of the governed constitute legitimate grounds for the people to resist their rulers (1763)
- 2008: Alexander Hamilton denounces the British for imposing “oppressive taxes” on the colonists which amount to tyranny, a form of slavery, and vassalage to the Empire (1774)
- 2008: Jefferson tells Congress that since tax revenues are increasing faster than population then taxes on all manner of items can be “dispensed with” (i.e. abolished) (1801)
- 2007: Frédéric Bastiat and the state as “la grande fiction à travers laquelle Tout Le Monde s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de Tout Le Monde (1848)
- 2007: William Graham Sumner reminds us never to forget the “Forgotten Man”, the ordinary working man and woman who pays the taxes and suffers under government regulation (1883)
- 2007: Frank Chodorov argues that taxation is an act of coercion and if pushed to its logical limits will result in Socialism (1946)
- 2005: John C. Calhoun notes that taxation divides the community into two great antagonistic classes, those who pay the taxes and those who benefit from them (1850)
- 2005: David Ricardo considered taxation to be a “great evil” which hindered the accumulation of productive capital and reduced consumption (1817)
- 2005: Thomas Hodgskin noted in his journey through the northern German states that the burden of heavy taxation was no better than it had been under the conqueror Napoleon (1820)
- 2005: Thomas Jefferson boasts about having reduced the size of government and eliminated a number of “vexatious” taxes (1805)
13 July, 2009
 | Thomas Paine responded to one of Burke’s critiques of the French Revolution by cynically arguing that wars are sometimes started in order to increase taxation (“the harvest of war”) (1791) |
In his debate with Edmund Burke over the French Revolution, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) argues that there is a connection between war and the raising of taxes and that sometimes the former is engaged in to promote the latter:
It may with reason be said, that in the manner the English nation is represented, it signifies not where this right resides, whether in the Crown, or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditures. In reviewing the history of the English government, its wars and its taxes, a by-stander, not blinded by prejudice, nor warped by interest, would declare, that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
The French constitution says, That the right of war and peace is in the nation. Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay the expence?
In England, this right is said to reside in a metaphor, shewn at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling a-piece: So are the lions; and it would be a step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimate metaphor is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity of worshipping Aaron’s molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image; but why do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise in others?
It may with reason be said, that in the manner the English nation is represented, it signifies not where this right resides, whether in the Crown, or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditures. In reviewing the history of the English government, its wars and its taxes, a by-stander, not blinded by prejudice, nor warped by interest, would declare, that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
Mr. Burke, as a Member of the House of Commons, is a part of the English Government; and though he professes himself an enemy to war, he abuses the French Constitution, which seeks to explode it. He holds up the English Government as a model in all its parts, to France; but he should first know the remarks which the French make upon it. They contend, in favour of their own, that the portion of liberty enjoyed in England, is just enough to enslave a country by, more productively than by despotism; and that as the real object of all despotism is revenue, a Government so formed obtains more than it could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is therefore, on the ground of interest, opposed to both. They account also for the readiness which always appears in such governments for engaging in wars, by remarking on the different motives which produce them. In despotic governments, wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.