Under the pretext of a praiseworthy search for social justice, debates over taxation in France all too often mask a tendency, so peculiar to our country, which leads many people to want to punish those of their neighbors who get rich and to hate those of their fellow citizens who succeed. Sometimes preferring to contribute to others’ failure rather than to work toward one’s own success.
For many people, the wealth of some of their neighbors is a scandal, while it should be the poverty of others which should lead them to revolt.
Indeed, we are in a very unjust society, where poverty is immense and income and wealth gaps are obscene. There are two attitudes to this: to simply divide up existing wealth; or to allow everyone to create new wealth. This refers to two conceptions of society.
In the first, the world is thought of as a world of scarcity with no technical progress, where scarce resources (financial resources, sexual partners, land, social positions; and all other forms of property and happiness) are shared. You live off rent-seeking and can’t own anything that isn’t taken away from someone else; more generally, you think of the success of others as an obstacle to your own.
In these societies, essentially rural societies, one can only have something by taking it away from others, by war or taxation. So, unless you impose a totally egalitarian dictatorship, you can never be happy there: There is nothing more unfortunate than being demoralized by the success or happiness of others, however small it may be. With such an attitude, poverty is never reduced, since we do not create the wealth necessary to achieve it.
In other societies, more open to the world, especially maritime societies, we understand that life is not a zero-sum game; that the wealth of others is not an obstacle to one’s own wealth. That it is even an essential condition for happiness. Because it shows that success is possible. Because the wealth of others creates clients for one’s own business and endeavors. Because it leads, by emulation, to the creation of new resources, and the invention of a thousand forms of success, pushing the frontiers of scarcity.
When other people succeed, in rural societies, one wonders, “Why them?” When, in maritime societies, one thinks, “why not me?”
It is not by preventing some people from succeeding, or by taking back their wealth earned through their own work, that we will avoid the failure of us all. On the contrary, it is by providing everyone, in particular the least hardy, the least fortunate, the most lonely, and the most vulnerable members of our society, with the same opportunities to succeed, and to create enough wealth so that money is no longer a cause for concern; and above all to live a good life, so that you have the ability to choose what to do with your time.
The answer to poverty and injustice is not in the taxation ‘punishment’ of the creators of wealth, but in the provision of equal opportunities for all to learn, to choose their way of living and be happy. And the only role of taxation is then to eliminate rent-seeking behaviors (that of land ownership and inheritance) in order to provide the means for all to finance—becoming yourself. In particular, to provide the unemployed and the most disadvantaged with the means and access to vocational training; and the most vulnerable with a decent income. Equitable protection for all.
Taxation then has meaning when it is in a position to serve success and empathy.