I sense a lot of associative confusion on the issue of
"progressive" taxation. There are two connotations of progressive that are
being mixed up here. There is also an intimate historical connection
between the uses of the two connotations. One meaning of progressive is
the arithmetic one in which rates become higher as ability to pay
increases. The other has to do with the distributive justice that
presumably results from a system of progressive taxation. What Roger, Max
the two neo-classical economists and others seem to be arguing is that the
hypothetical rate decrease increases distributive justice, therefore it is
progressive (in the latter sense). I won't have anything to do with that
argument because it brings in too many undefined variables. We might as
well discuss the Laffer curve -- because that's where shoot from the hip
backformations take us.
Anyone who would rather study the relationship between progressive
taxation and social justice is encouraged to consult the following
historical discussion:
Gross, Jean-Pierre (1993) "Progressive taxation and social justice in
eighteenth-century France," _Past & Present_ Aug93, No. 140.
"Far from building utopias, the reformers based their schemes on the
practical consideration that the monarch, by removing barriers to trade
and releasing the taxpayers from their strait-jacket, could directly
contribute to the nation's prosperity and make tax flow. Public revenue
could be generated by making tax acceptable to those who could pay it and
by refraining from overtaxing those who could not. . . In order not to
impoverish his subjects, the king should see to it that his taxes were
certain and not arbitrary, that they were proportionate to the ability to
pay, convenient in their manner of collection, and that they passed
cheaply and directly from people to prince. . ."
- snip -
"[Boisguilbert] wrote that, for the taille to be distributed fairly, the
"rich must pay as rich, the poor as poor"; and further: "Taxes are
excessive or moderate not in relation to the absolute amount of the sums
demanded, but in their relation to the value of the property from which
they are exacted."
Tom Walker
