date

23 June 1801 Polit. Economy
23 June 1801

Polit. Economy

Analysis D

Features

Encrease negative

Taxes

1

30

Encrease of wealth may be considered as /distinguished into/ either positive or

/and/ negative: negative consisting in the prevention of decrease.

Modes of negative encrease - 1. Preservation of individual articles against

unintended causes of deperition and decrease of quantity or value.

Such prevention may be either total or partial: it can only be partial, in cases

where decrease to a greater or less amount is indispensable, as in the case of

taxes.

Taxes are imposed to furnish means either for the future expenditure, or to

afford compensation to those who in times past have furnished the means for

expenditure which then was future: in other words for growing expences, or for

discharge of debts.

The amount of taxes imposed for growing expences takes from the amount of

national wealth in certain ways, and adds to it in other ways more or less

according as it is employ'd. It takes from the means or instruments of

enjoyment+ of those on whom the taxes are imposed: enjoyment present or future

immediate or more or less remote according as it would have been spent lent out

or hoarded had it not been for the tax.

it adds to the security of the whole in proportion as it is employ'd for the

purpose of national security in the way of National defence and otherwise: it

adds to the subsistence & enjoyments of a part, in proportion as it employ'd

/applied/ to those purposes by those among whom it is distributed in

consideration of the services by which they have respectively contributed to

that end.

+ This division must have preceded.
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  • Title: [23 June 1801 Polit. Economy]
    Description: 23 June 1801

    Polit. Economy

    Analysis

    Taxes

    2

    31

    {7}

    The amount of taxes imposed in discharge of debt of itself neither adds to nor

    takes from the amount /mass/ of national wealth: that is of itself: but it is

    the necessary result of measures of expence, necessary or unnecessary, avoidable

    or unavoidable, beneficial or pernicious - by which in former mass a decrease in

    the mass of national wealth was produced.(a)

    But when and in so far as the money produced by those taxes is actually employ'd

    in discharge of debt it adds to capital, and thereby to growing wealth.

    ( ) D'Yvarnas[?] and Bukes[?] errors.

    The quantity of wealth
  • Title: [28 Aug. 1801 E Polit. Economy]
    Description: 28 Aug. 1801

    E

    Polit. Economy

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    Finance

    5

    92

    Borrowing money to defray War expenses (operations or preparations) takes from

    pecuniary capital thence from real capital thence from growing wealth in the

    amount of the sum so raised:- minus the amount of mercantile profit upon such

    part of the expence as consists of purchased articles.

    Repaying money formerly borrowed for war or other expences adds to pecuniary

    capital - thence to real capital - thence to growing wealth to the amount of the

    money so discharged /employ'd in such repayment or discharge/ - deducting such

    part, if any, as is exported without return to foreign countries; which is the

    case with such part as is exported by the proprietor to be employ'd abroad by

    him or on his account, without being re-imported that or the profit made by it.

    By the mere discharge of a million worth of debt as much or more is therefore

    done towards the encrease of wealth as by a million given in the way of bounties

    for the encouragement of this or that particular branch of trade.

    Those who in the one case receive the amount of the debts respectively due to

    them, give up the future interest, and the rest of the community is exonerated

    from the payment of it: those who in the other case receive the million in the

    score of Bounty, give up nothing in return for it.
  • Title: [8 Sept. 1801 Polit. Economy]
    Description: 8 Sept. 1801

    Polit. Economy

    Method

    Finance

    109

    9

    As to the other opinion - the ground of it is - that if the money taken in taxes

    to be applied in discharge of the debt, had not been so taken but had been left

    in the pockets of those to whom it belonged, it would have been spent by them,

    each in his own way, and by that expenditure an addition would have been made to

    the mass of national wealth. But supposing it taken from them to be applied in

    discharge of debt, whatever is so applied is given to them and received by them

    and employ'd by them - the whole of it in the shape of capital, whereas had it

    been left with the parties by whom it is paid in taxes it would have been spent

    /employ'd/ more or less of it as income is employ'd when it is said to be spent

    {without return or hope of return} What the proportion may be /amount to/

    between the part spent /employ'd/ as income and the part employ'd as capital,

    and thereby employ'd in adding /making/ a growing addition to the mass of

    national wealth will be /has been/ considered presently. For the present it is

    something not to say sufficient that in one case it is only the /a/ part that is

    employ'd in making an addition /additions/ /goes in augmentation/ to the mass of

    wealth, and in the other case the whole.