date

22 Aug. 1801 Political Economy
22 Aug. 1801

Political Economy

{A}E

Method D.

Finance

1

25

{17}

VIII Finance an appendix and inseparable accompaniment to Political Economy.

Taxes sacrifices made of {enjoyment} /wealth/ and opulence at the expence of

enjoyment, to security in respect of defence, and security in respect of

subsistence.

The end is pursued in a direct and primary way, by operating towards the maximum

of positive encrease: in an indirect and secondary, but not less efficient way,

by operating towards the minimum of decrease.

Taxes and other means of supply for the expenses of government - Wars with their

taxes and their devastations are means by which, of necessity, in a certain

degree, too often beyond the extent of the necessity - decrease in the amount of

wealth and population, is produced. In this way the field of Political Economy

includes within it the field of Finance.

A tax, in as far as the thing taxed is abstained from, operates as a

prohibition: as a discouragement to that branch of trade or production to which

the thing belongs, and as an encouragement to rural branches, that is more or

less to all other branches. Thence another head of connection between Finance

and Political Economy in its narrower sense. The same illusion which has

recommended the encouragement of particular branches of wealth as a means of

encrease to the whole, has led to the exaggeration of the bad
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