Adam Smith claims that exorbitant taxes imposed without consent of the governed constitute legitimate grounds for the people to resist their rulers (1763)
About this Quotation:
In these lectures on jurisprudence, given in 1763, Adam Smith makes a number of claims which have great significance for the coming American Revolution and for political theory in general. In a discussion of “exorbitant taxation” (which Smith seems to believe is somewhere between 1/5 and 1/2 of a nation’s wealth) he mentions the consent theory of John Locke, in particular the idea of “implied consent”. This is the notion that by not revolting the government can “imply” that “consent” to its legislation has been granted by the citizenry. In the case of taxation in Britain, Smith mocks this idea by calling it sarcastically “very figurative metaphoricall consent”, i.e. no consent at all. When taxes do rise to these shockingly high levels (1/5!) the people have the right to resist their government, as the Americans were shortly to do.
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: Richard Overton shoots An Arrow against all Tyrants from the prison of Newgate into the prerogative bowels of the arbitrary House of Lords and all other usurpers and tyrants whatsoever (1646):
- 2009: Benjamin Constant distinguished between the Liberty of the Ancients (“the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community”) and that of the Moderns (“where individual rights and commerce are respected”) (1816)
- 2009: John Stuart Mill discusses the origins of the state whereby the “productive class” seeks protection from one “member of the predatory class” in order to gain some security of property (1848)
- 2006: After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 John Milton was concerned with both how the triumphalist monarchists would treat the English people and how the disheartened English people would face their descendants (1660)
- 2005: Edward Gibbon reveals the reasons why he wrote on the decline of the Roman Empire, “the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind” (1776)
- 2004: Algernon Sidney’s Motto was that his Hand (i.e. his pen) was an Enemy to all Tyrants (1660)
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: 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)
- 2009: Frédéric Bastiat on the state as the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else (1848)
- 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)
11 August, 2008
 | Adam Smith claims that exorbitant taxes imposed without consent of the governed constitute legitimate grounds for the people to resist their rulers (1763) |
In his Lectures on Jurisprudence (1763) Adam Smith discusses the "very figurative metaphoricall consent" that people are supposed to grant the ruler to tax them. When taxes become "very exorbitant" he believes the people have the right to resist as the Americans did in 1775:
It is in Britain alone that any consent of the people is required, and God knows it is but a very figurative metaphoricall consent which is given here. And in Scotland still more than in England, as but very few have a vote for a Member of Parliament | who give this metaphoricall consent; and yet this is not any where reckoned a sufficient cause of rebellion. No doubt the raising of a very exorbitant tax, as the raising as much in peace as in war, or the half or even the fifth of the wealth of the nation, would, as well as any other gross abuse of power, justify resistance in the people.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
The foundation of the allegiance of the people being a tacit contract is not at all just, and we see accordingly that few of those limitations laid down by writers who follow that scheme are to be found in fact in any country.—It is a rule laid down by Mr. Locke as a principle that the people have a right to resist whenever the sovereign takes their money from them without their consent by levying taxes to which they have not agreeed. Now we see that in France, Spain, etc. the consent of the people is not in the least thought of; the king imposes what taxes he pleases. It is in Britain alone that any consent of the people is required, and God knows it is but a very figurative metaphoricall consent which is given here. And in Scotland still more than in England, as but very few have a vote for a Member of Parliament | who give this metaphoricall consent; and yet this is not any where reckoned a sufficient cause of rebellion. No doubt the raising of a very exorbitant tax, as the raising as much in peace as in war, or the half or even the fifth of the wealth of the nation, would, as well as any other gross abuse of power, justify resistance in the people. But where this power is exerted with moderation, tho perhaps it is not done with the greatest propriety as it is in no country whatever, and tho not even a figurative consent is requir’d, yet they never think that they ought to resist tho they may claim the liberty of remonstrating against it.—Government was established to defend the property of the subjects, but if it come to be of a conterary tendency, yet they must agree to give up a little of their right. You must agree to repose a certain trust in them, tho if they absolutely break thro it, resistance is to be made if the consequences of it be not worse than the thing itself.