Marxism Unmasked from Delusion to Destruction.pdf 7471KB

These income-tax laws also deal with "profits" as if they were salaries.
The income-tax authors are ver>' astonished if a firm doesn't have a profit
every year. They don't realiie that there are good years and bad years fc»
an enterprise. One consequence ^^^as that during the depression in the eariy
1930s people used to say, "How unjust that a man who ou-ns a big factory
doesn't have to pay any income tax this vvar. while a man \**ho makes only
$300 a month has to pav." It ^^'2s not unjust fiom the pome of view of the
bw; that year the big factory- ou-ner had no "income."
The authors m promulganng these income-tax laws had not the
slightest idea of what "capital" and "income" m the economic system really
meant. What thev* didn't see \%-as that the greater pan of the great profits
and great incomes wasn't spent bv' the businessmen, but reimrsted in
capital goods and plourd back into the enterprise to increase production.
This was precisely the v%-a>' in which economK pto^re«. impnovrment
in material conditions, took pbce FortunateK* I do not havr to deal xkith
the income-tax hyxs. nor with the mentalirv- that led to these \jiw% It n
enough to say that, from the point of siev^- of the individual v^T>rker. it
would be much more reast^naWc to tax onK- income spent, mot income
saved and reinvrsted.
In many cases, it l^ ditficult for a man in the late ve^n of his lite to
nuke i living, or Ji iea\t to earn as much as he had earned in his prime.
To nuke it simple, take the situation ol'stngen whose vran d'btg earning
are definitely linuted
What I want to deal with is the idea that vising in general, or thai
saving under special cinumstances. is supptncdK bad (mm the p«»inl of
view ot the wcltarr ol' the i ominonuralth and. therefore, that something
should he done ti» rrstrut viving »»r to direct it into special channeh.
In tact. Nvc may say. and iu»bsHK tan ilein it. that all nutrrial pnjgress.
ever\'thiiig that distinguishes i>ur conditK>ns tironi tho%e of earlier age>.
IS that nmrc has been savrd and accumubted as capital goods This aho
dlstInglnshc^ the United States fnnn. let us va>. India or China The moit
important ditfcrciuc is t»nlv a difference in time It w wM too bie for
them Wc just started earlier to sasr H>me ot the excrw of production
over consuinptu>n
The most important institunonal factor in the devrloptnrnt of lutiora
was the establishment ot a s\-stem ol gosTrnment and of leKtUatXMi that
made large wale saving possible Large -u ale vising MtrM impossible tnd still
IS impossible tiniav in all thtne countries in which the governments believr
that when t>nc nun has more it must necesvarUy be the cause of other