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The Principles of Political Economy
by John Stuart Mill
Book 4
Chapter 6
Of the Stationary State
p. 124
It must
always have been seen, more or less distinctly, by political
economists, that the increase of wealth is not boundless: that
at the end of what they term the progressive state lies the
stationary state, that all progress in wealth is but a
postponement of this, and that each step in advance is an
approach to it. . . The richest and most prosperous countries
would very soon attain the stationary state, if no further
improvements were made in the productive arts, and if there
were a suspension of the overflow of capital from those
countries into the uncultivated or ill-cultivated regions of
the earth. . .
p. 126
2. I cannot, therefore, regard the
stationary state of capital and wealth with the unaffected
aversion so generally manifested towards it by political
economists of the old school. I am inclined to believe that it
would be, on the whole, a very considerable improvement on our
present condition. I confess I am not charmed with the ideal
of life held out by those who think that the normal state of
human beings is that of struggling to get on; that the
trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other's
heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the
most desirable lot of human kind, or anything but the
disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial
progress. . .
p. 127
. . . I know not why it should be matter of congratulation
that persons who are already richer than any one needs to be,
should have doubled their means of consuming things which give
little or no pleasure except as representative of wealth; or
that numbers of individuals should pass over, every year, from
the middle classes into a richer class, or from the class of
the occupied rich to that of the unoccupied. It
is only in the backward countries of the world that
increased production is still an important object: in those
most advanced, what is economically needed is a better
distribution, of which one indispensable means is a stricter
restraint on population.
p. 129
It is scarcely necessary to remark
that a stationary condition of
capital and population implies no stationary state of human
improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for
all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as
much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more
likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be
engrossed by the art of getting on. Even the industrial arts
might be as earnestly and as successfully cultivated, with
this sole difference, that instead of serving no purpose but
the increase of wealth, industrial improvements would produce
their legitimate effect, that of abridging labour. Hitherto it is questionable if all
the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's
toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater
population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment,
and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make
fortunes. . .
Book 4
Chapter 7
On the Probable Futurity of
the Laboring Classes
p. 132
. . . The suggestions which have been promulgated . . .
have put in evidence the existence of two conflicting
theories, respecting the social position desirable for manual
labourers. The one may be called the theory
of dependence and protection, the other that of
self-dependence.
According to the former
theory, the lot of the poor, in all things which affect them
collectively, should be regulated for them, not by them.
They should not be required or encouraged to think for
themselves, or give to their own reflection or forecast an
influential voice in the determination of their destiny. It is
supposed to be the duty of the higher classes to think for
them, and to take the responsibility of their lot...
p. 132-33
All privileged and powerful classes, as such, have used their
power in the interest of their own selfishness, and have
indulged their self importance in despising, and not in
lovingly caring for, those who were, in their estimation,
degraded by being under the necessity of working for their
benefit. I do not affirm that what has always been must always
be, or that human improvement has no tendency to correct the
intensely selfish fillings engendered by power; but though the
evil may be lessened, it cannot be eradicated, until the power
itself is withdrawn. This, at least, seems to me undeniable,
that long before the superior classes could be sufficiently
improved to govern in the tutelary manner supposed, the
inferior classes would be too much improved to be so governed.
p. 136
2. It is on a far other basis that the
well-being and well-doing of the laboring people must
henceforth rest. The poor have
come out of leading strings, and cannot any longer be
governed or treated like children. To their own qualities
must now be commended the care of their destiny. . .
There is no reason to believe that prospect other than
hopeful. The progress indeed has hitherto been, and still is,
slow. But there is a spontaneous education going on in the
minds of the multitude... The instruction obtained from
newspapers and political tracts may not be the most solid kind
of instruction, but it is an immense improvement upon none at
all. . .
From this increase of intelligence, several effects may be
confidently anticipated. First: that they will become even
less willing than at present to be led and governed, and
directed into the way they should go, by the mere authority
and prestige of superiors. . .
p. 138
3. It appears to me impossible
but that the increase of intelligence, of
education, and of the love of independence among the working
classes, must be attended with a corresponding growth of the
good sense which manifests itself in provident habits of
conduct. . .
p. 142 There
can be little doubt that the status of hired labourers will
gradually tend to confine itself to the description of
work-people whose low moral qualities render them unfit for
anything more independent: and that the
relation of masters and work-people will be gradually
superseded by partnership, in one of two forms: in some
cases, association of the labourers with the capitalist; in
others, and perhaps finally in all, association of labourers
among themselves.
5. The first of these forms of association
has long been practiced, not indeed as a rule, but as an
exception... It is already a common practice to remunerate
those in whom peculiar trust is reposed, by means of a
percentage on the profits: and cases exist in which the
principle is, with excellent success, carried down to the
class of mere manual labourers. In the
American ships trading to China, it has long been the custom
for every sailor to have an interest in the profits of the
voyage; and to this has been ascribed the general good conduct
of those seamen, and the extreme rarity of any collision
between them and the government or people of the country.
 p. 147
6. The form of association, however, which
if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to
predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist
as chief, and work. people without a voice in the management,
but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of
equality, collectively owning the capital with which they
carry on their operations, and working under managers elected
and removable by themselves...
It is the
declared principle of most of these associations, that they do
not exist for the mere private benefit of the individual
members, but for the promotion of the co-operative cause. . .
When members quit the association, which they are always at
liberty to do, they carry none of the capital with them: it
remains an indivisible property, of which the members for the
time being have the use, but not the arbitrary disposal. . .
p. 156
7. I agree,
then with the Socialist writers in their conception
of the form which industrial operations tend to assume in the
advance of improvement; and I entirely share their opinion
that the time is ripe for commencing this transformation, and
that it should by all just and effectual means be aided and
encouraged. But while I agree and sympathize with Socialists
in this practical portion of their aims, I
utterly dissent from the most conspicuous and vehement part
of their teaching, their declamations against
competition. With moral conceptions in many respects far ahead
of the existing arrangements of society, they have in general
very confused and erroneous notions of its actual working; and
one of their greatest errors, as I conceive, is to charge upon
competition all the economical evils which at present exist. They forget that wherever
competition is not, monopoly is; and that monopoly, in all
its forms, is the taxation of the industrious for the
support of indolence, if not of plunder. . .
Book 5:
On The Influence of Government
Chapter 1
Of the Functions of
Government in General
p. 159
1. One of the most disputed questions both
in political science and in practical statesmanship at this
particular period, relates to the proper limits of the
functions and agency of governments. . . On the one hand,
impatient reformers, thinking it easier and shorter to get
possession of the government than of the intellects and
dispositions of the public, are under a constant temptation to
stretch the province of government beyond due bounds: while,
on the other, mankind have been so much accustomed by their
rulers to interference for purposes other than the public
good, or under an erroneous conception of what that good
requires, and so many rash proposals are made by sincere
lovers of improvement, for attempting, by compulsory
regulation, the attainment of objects which can only be
effectually or only usefully compassed by opinion and
discussion, that there has grown up a spirit of resistance in
limine to the interference of government, merely as such, and
a disposition to restrict its sphere of action within the
narrowest bounds. . .
p. 160
2. In attempting to enumerate the necessary
functions of government, we find them to be considerably more
multifarious than most people are at first aware of, and not
capable of being circumscribed by those very definite lines of
demarcation, which, in the inconsiderateness of popular
discussion, it is often attempted to draw round them. We
sometimes, for example, hear it said that governments ought to
confine themselves to affording protection against force and
fraud. . . .
Under which of these heads, the repression of force or of
fraud, are we to place the operation, for example, of the laws
of inheritance? Some such laws must exist in all societies. .
.
p. 164
There is a multitude of cases in
which governments, with general approbation, assume powers and
execute functions for which no reason can be assigned except
the simple one, that they conduce to general convenience. We
may take as an example, the function (which is a monopoly too)
of coining money. This is assumed for no more recondite
purpose than that of saving to individuals the trouble, delay,
and expense of weighing and assaying. No one, however, even of
those most jealous of state interference, has objected to this
as an improper exercise of the powers of government.
Prescribing a set of standard weights and measures is another
instance. Paving, lighting, and cleansing the streets and
thoroughfares, is another; whether done by the general
government, or as is more usual, and generally more advisable,
by a municipal authority. Making or improving harbors,
building lighthouses, making surveys in order to have accurate
maps and charts, raising dykes to keep the sea out, and
embankments to keep rivers in, are cases in point.
Examples might be indefinitely multiplied
without intruding on any disputed ground. But
enough has been said to show that the admitted functions of
government embrace a much wider field than can easily be
included within the ring-fence of any restrictive
definition, and that it is hardly possible to find any
ground of justification common to them all, except the
comprehensive one of general expediency; nor to limit the
interference of government by any universal rule, save the
simple and vague one, that it should never be admitted but
when the case of expediency is strong.
Book 5
Chapter 2
On the General Principles of
Taxation
p. 167
1. The qualities desirable, economically
speaking, in a system of taxation, have been embodied by Adam
Smith in four maxims or principles, which, having been
generally concurred by subsequent writers, may be said to have
become classical, and this chapter cannot be better commenced
than by quoting them.
'1. The subjects of every state ought to
contribute to the support of the government, as nearly as
possible in proportion to their respective abilities:
that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively
enjoy under the protection of the state. In the observation or
neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality
or inequality of taxation.
'2. The tax which each individual is bound
to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. . .
'3. Every tax ought to be levied at the
time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be
convenient for the contributor to pay it. . . Taxes upon such
consumable goods [are paid] little and little, as he has
occasion to buy the goods. . .
p. 168
'4. Every tax ought to be so contrived as
both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people
as little as possible over and above what it brings into the
public treasury of the state. . .
p. 169
The last three of these four maxims require little other
explanation or illustration than is contained in the passage
itself... But the first of the
four points, equality of taxation, requires to be more fully
examined, being a thing often imperfectly
understood...
Equality of taxation, therefore, as a maxim of politics, means
equality of sacrifice. It
means apportioning the contribution of each person towards the
expenses of government, so that he shall feel neither more nor
less inconvenience from his share of the payment than every
other person experiences from his. This standard, like other
standards of perfection, cannot be completely realized; but
the first object in every practical discussion should be to
know what perfection is.
There are persons, however,
who are not content with the general principles of justice as
a basis to ground a rule of finance upon, but must have
something, as they think, more specifically appropriate to the
subject. What best pleases them is, to regard the taxes paid
by each member of the community as an equivalent
for value received... If we wanted to estimate
the degrees of benefit which different persons derive from the
protection of government, we should have to consider who would
suffer most if that protection were withdrawn: to which
question if any answer could be made, it must be, that those
would suffer most who were weakest in mind or body, either by
nature or by position. Indeed, such persons would almost
infallibly be slaves. If there were any justice, therefore, in
the theory of justice now under consideration, those
who are least capable of helping or defending themselves,
being those to whom the protection of government is the most
indispensable, ought to pay the greatest share of its price:
the reverse of the true idea of distributive justice, which
consists not in imitating but in redressing the inequalities
and wrongs of nature.
p. 171
3. Setting out, then, from the maxim that
equal sacrifices ought to be demanded from all, we have next
to inquire whether this is in fact done, by making each
contribute the same percentage on his pecuniary means. Many persons maintain the
negative, saying that a tenth part taken from a small income
is a heavier burden than the same fraction deducted from one
much larger: and on this is grounded the very popular scheme
of what is called a graduated property tax, viz. an
income tax in which the percentage rises with the amount of
the income.
On the best consideration I am able to give to this question,
it appears to me that the portion of truth which the doctrine
contains, arises principally from the difference between a tax
which can be saved from luxuries, and one which trenches, in
ever so small a degree, upon the necessaries of life. . . The mode of adjusting these
inequalities of pressure, which seems to be the most
equitable, is that recommended by Bentham, of leaving a
certain minimum of income, sufficient to provide the
necessaries of life, untaxed. . . Each would then pay a
fixed proportion, not of his whole means, but of his
superfluities. . .
p. 173
The
exemption in favour of the smaller incomes should not, I
think, be stretched further than to the amount of income
needful for life, health, and immunity from bodily pain. . .
p. 174
Both in England and on the Continent
a graduated property tax has been advocated, on the avowed
ground that the state should use the instrument of taxation as
a means of mitigating the inequalities of wealth. I am as
desirous as any one, that means should be taken to diminish
those inequalities, but not so as to relieve the prodigal at
the expense of the prudent. To
tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the
smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose
a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more
than their neighbors. It is not the fortunes which are
earned, but those which are unearned, that it is for the
public good to place under limitation. . . With respect to
the large fortunes acquired by gift or inheritance, the
power of bequeathing is one of those privileges of property
which are fit subjects for regulation on grounds of general
expediency; and I have already suggested, as a possible mode
of restraining the accumulation of large fortunes in the
hands of those who have not earned them by exertion, a
limitation of the amount which any one person should be
permitted to acquire by gift, bequest, or inheritance. Apart
from this, . . . I conceive that inheritances and legacies,
exceeding a certain amount, are highly proper subjects for
taxation: and that the revenue from them should be as great
as it can be made without giving rise to evasions, by
donation inter vivos or concealment of property,
such as it would be impossible adequately to check. The
principle of graduation (as it is called,) that is, of
levying a larger percentage on a larger sum, though its
application to general taxation would be in my opinion
objectionable, seems to me both just and expedient as
applied to legacy and inheritance duties.
p. 179
The principle, therefore, of equality
of taxation, interpreted in its only just sense, equality of
sacrifice, requires that a
person who has no means of providing for old age, or for
those in whom he is interested, except by saving from
income, should have the tax remitted on all that part of his
income which is really and bona fide applied to that
purpose.
If, indeed, reliance could be placed on the conscience of the
contributors, or sufficient security taken for the correctness
of their statements by collateral precautions, the
proper mode of assessing an income tax would be to tax only
the part of income devoted to expenditure, exempting that
which is saved. For when saved and invested (and all
savings, speaking generally, are invested) it thenceforth
pays income tax on the interest or profit which it brings,
notwithstanding that it has already been taxed on the
principal. Unless, therefore, savings are exempted from
income tax, the contributors are twice taxed on what they
save, and only once on what they spend.
p. 180
No
income tax is really just, from which savings are not
exempted; and no income tax ought to be voted without
that provision, if the form of the returns, and the nature of
the evidence required, could be so arranged as to prevent the
exemption from being taken fraudulent advantage of, by saving
with one hand and getting into debt with the other, or by
spending in the following year what had been passed tax-free
as saving in the year preceding. . .
Gardner
Summary of Mill on Taxation:
Objective and Rationale: To base
society on equality of opportunity and strong incentives
to work and save.
Income should be taxed at
a flat (not progressive) rate, but only after exemptions for
a base level of income needed for immediate subsistence and
for savings that are needed for subsistence in retirement.
On
the other hand, wealth acquired by gifts and inheritance
should be taxed at high and progressive levels (and, he says
elsewhere, at higher rates for more distant relatives),
limited only by the risk of causing excessive tax evasion.
So,
given that we need a certain amount of revenue to fund the
needs of government (domestic and national defense), raise
as much as possible from inheritance taxation, and then
raise the rest with income taxation, keeping the income tax
rate as low as possible, because he believed that income
taxes have a stronger negative influence on incentives and
productivity than inheritance taxes.
Book 5
Chapter 11
Of the Grounds and Limits of
the Laisser-faire or
Non-interference Principle
p. 324
1. We have now reached the last part of our
undertaking; the discussion, so far as suited to this treatise
(that is, so far as it is a question of principle, not detail)
of the limits of the province of government: the question, to
what objects governmental intervention in the affairs of
society may or should extend, over and above those which
necessarily appertain to it. . .
Without professing entirely to supply this deficiency of a
general theory, on a question which does not, as I conceive,
admit of any universal solution, I shall attempt to afford
some little aid towards the resolution of this class of
questions as they arise, by examining, in the most general
point of view in which the subject can be considered, what are
the advantages, and what the evils or inconveniences, of
government interference.
We must set out by distinguishing between two
kinds of intervention by the government, which,
though they may relate to the same subject, differ widely in
their nature and effects, and require, for their
justification, motives of a very different degree of urgency.
The intervention may extend to controlling the free agency of
individuals. Government may interdict all persons from doing
certain things; or from doing them without its authorization;
or may prescribe to them certain things to be done, or a
certain manner of doing things which it is left optional with
them to do or to abstain from. This is the authoritative interference of
government. There is another kind of intervention which is not
authoritative: when a government, instead of issuing a command
and enforcing it by penalties, adopts the course so seldom
resorted to by governments, and of which such important use
might be made, that of giving advice
and promulgating information; or when, leaving
individuals free to use their own means of pursuing any object
of general interest, the government, not meddling with them,
but not trusting the object solely to their care, establishes,
side by side with their arrangements, an agency of its own for
a like purpose. . .
2. It is evident, even at first sight, that the
authoritative form of government intervention has a much
more limited sphere of legitimate action than the other.
It requires a much stronger necessity to justify it in any
case . . .
p. 327
It is otherwise with governmental
interferences which do not restrain
individual free agency. When a government
provides means of fulfilling a certain end, leaving
individuals free to avail themselves of different means if in
their opinion preferable, there is no infringement of liberty,
no irksome or degrading restraint. One of the principal
objections to government interference is then absent. There
is, however, in almost all forms of government agency, one
thing which is compulsory. the provision of the pecuniary
means. These are derived from taxation...
p. 328
3. A second general objection to government
agency, is that every increase of the functions devolving on
the government is an increase
of its power, both in the form of authority, and
still more, in the indirect form of influence. . .
p. 329
4. A third general objection to government
agency, rests on the principle of the division
of labour. Every additional function undertaken by
the government, is a fresh occupation imposed upon a body
already overcharged with duties. . .
p. 331
5. But though a better organization of
governments would greatly diminish the force of the objection
to the mere multiplication of their duties, it would still
remain true that in all the more advanced communities, the
great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of
government, than the individuals most interested in the matter
would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to
themselves. The grounds of this truth are expressed with
tolerable exactness in the poplar dictum, that people
understand their own business and their own interests better,
and care for them more, than the government does, or can be
expected to do.
p. 332
6. I have reserved for the last place one
of the strongest of the reasons against the extension of
government agency, Even if the government could comprehend ...
all the most eminent intellectual capacity and active talent
of the nation, it would not be the less desirable that the
conduct of a large portion of the affairs of the society
should be left in the hands of the persons immediately
interested in them. The
business of life is an essential part of the practical
education of a people; without which, book and school
instruction, though most necessary and salutary, does not
suffice to qualify them for conduct, and for the adaptation
of means to ends.
p. 334
7. The preceding are the principal reasons,
of a general character, in favour of restricting to the
narrowest compass the intervention of a public authority in
the business of the community: and few will dispute the more
than sufficiency of these reasons, to throw, in every
instance, the burden of making
out a strong case, not on those who resist, but on those who
recommend, government interference. Laisser-faire,
in short, should be the general practice: every departure
from it, unless required by some great good, is a certain
evil.
p. 337
We have observed that, as
a general rule, the business of life is better performed
when those who have an immediate interest in it are
left to take their own course, uncontrolled either by the
mandate of the law or by the meddling of any public
functionary. The persons, or some of the persons, who do the
work, are likely to be better judges than the government, of
the means of attaining the particular end at which they aim.
p. 338
8. Now, the proposition that the consumer
is a competent judge of the commodity, can be admitted
only with numerous abatements and exceptions. He is
generally the best judge (though even this is not true
universally) of the material objects produced for his use.
These are destined to supply some physical want, or gratify
some taste or inclination. . . But there
are other things, of the worth of which the demand of the
market is by no means a test ... and the want of which is
least felt where the need is greatest. This is peculiarly
true of those things which are chiefly useful as tending to
raise the character of human beings. The uncultivated cannot
be competent judges of cultivation. Those who most
need to be made wiser and better, usually desire it least, and
if they desired it, would be incapable of finding the way to
it by their own lights. . .
 p. 339
With regard to elementary
education, the exception to ordinary rules may, I
conceive, justifiably be carried still further. There are
certain primary elements and means of knowledge, which it is
in the highest degree desirable that all human beings born
into the community should acquire during childhood. If their
parents, or those on whom they depend, have the power of
obtaining for them this instruction, and fail to do it, they
commit a double breach of duty, towards the children
themselves, and towards the members of the community
generally, who are all liable to suffer seriously from the
consequences of ignorance and want of education in their
fellow-citizens. It is
therefore an allowable exercise of the powers of government,
to impose on parents the legal obligation of giving
elementary instruction to children. This, however, cannot
fairly be done, without taking measures to insure that such
instruction shall be always accessible to them, either
gratuitously or at a trifling expense. . .
 p. 341
One thing must be strenuously insisted on;
that the government must claim
no monopoly for its education, either in the lower or
in the higher branches; must exert neither authority nor
influence to induce the people to resort to its teachers in
preference to others, and must confer no peculiar advantages
on those who have been instructed by them. Though the government
teachers will probably be superior to the average of private
instructors, they will not embody all the knowledge
and sagacity to be found in all instructors taken together,
and it is desirable to leave open as many roads as possible to
the desired end. It is not endurable that a government should,
either de jure or de facto, have a complete
control over the education of the people. To
possess such a control, and actually exert it, is to be
despotic. . .
p. 342
The ground of the practical principle of
non-interference must here be, that most persons take a juster
and more intelligent view of their own interest, and of the
means of promoting it, than can either be prescribed to them
by a general enactment of the legislature, or pointed out in
the particular case by a public functionary. The maxim is
unquestionably sound as a general rule; but there is no
difficulty in perceiving some very large and conspicuous
exceptions to it. These may be classed under several heads.
First: -- The individual who is presumed to be the best judge
of his own interests may be incapable of judging or acting for
himself; may be a lunatic, an idiot, an
infant: or though not wholly incapable, may be of
immature years and judgment. In this case the foundation of
the laisser faire principle breaks down entirely.
p. 345
10. A second exception to the doctrine that
individuals are the best judges of their own interest, is when
an individual attempts to decide
irrevocably now, what will be best for his interest at some
future and distant time. . . The practical maxim of
leaving contracts free, is not applicable without great
limitations in case of engagement in perpetuity; and the law
should be extremely jealous of such engagements; should refuse
its sanction to them, when the obligations they impose are
such as the contracting party cannot be a competent judge of.
. . These considerations are eminently applicable to marriage,
the most important of all cases of engagement for life.
p. 346
11. The third exception ... has reference
to the great class of cases in which the individuals
can only manage the concern by delegated agency, and
in which the so-called private management is, in point of
fact, hardly better entitled to be called management by the
persons interested, than administration by a public officer.
Whatever, if left to spontaneous agency, can only be done by
joint-stock associations, will often be as well, and sometimes
better done, as far as the actual work is concerned, by the
state. . .
p. 349
There are many cases in which the agency, of whatever nature,
by which a service is performed, is certain, from the nature
of the case, to be virtually single; in which a practical
monopoly, with all the power it confers of taxing the
community, cannot be prevented from existing. I have already
more than once adverted to the case of the gas and water
companies, among which, though perfect freedom is allowed to
competition, none really takes place, and practically they are
found to be even more irresponsible, and unapproachable by
individual complaints, than the government...
p. 349
12. To a fourth case of exception I must
request particular attention, it being one to which as it
appears to me, the attention of political economists has not
yet been sufficiently drawn. There are matters in which the
interference of law is required, not to overrule the judgment
of individuals respecting their own interest, but to
give effect to that judgment:
they being unable to give effect to it except by concert,
which concert again cannot be effectual unless it receives
validity and sanction from the law. (Gardner:
Maybe requiring pharmacies to post their prices?)
p. 353
13. Fifthly; the argument against
government interference ... cannot apply to the very large
class of cases, in which those acts of individuals with which
the government claims to interfere, are not done by those
individuals for their own interest, but for the interest of
other people. This includes, among other things, the important
and much agitated subject of public
charity.
p. 355
In so far as the subject admits of any general doctrine or
maxim, it would appear to be this -- that if assistance is
given in such a manner that the condition of the person helped
is as desirable as that of the person who succeeds in doing
the same thing without help, the assistance, if capable of
being previously calculated on, is mischievous: but if, while
available to everybody, it leaves to every one a strong motive
to do without it if he can, it is then for the most part
beneficial. . . But if, consistently with guaranteeing
all persons against absolute want, the condition of those
who are supported by legal charity can be kept considerably
less desirable than the condition of those who find support
for themselves, none but beneficial consequences can
arise from a law which renders it impossible for any person,
except by his own choice, to die from insufficiency of food. .
.
Subject to these conditions, I conceive it
to be highly desirable, that the
certainty of subsistence should be held out by law to the
destitute able-bodied, rather than that their relief should
depend on voluntary charity. In the first place,
charity almost always does too much or too little: it lavishes
its bounty in one place, and leaves people to starve in
another. Secondly, since the state must necessarily provide
subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment,
not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to
give a premium on crime. And lastly, if the poor are left to
individual charity, a vast amount of mendacity is inevitable.
What the state may and should abandon to private charity, is
the task of distinguishing between one case of real necessity
and another. Private charity can give more to the more
deserving. The state must act by general rules. It cannot
undertake to discriminate between the deserving and the
undeserving indigent. It owes no more than subsistence to the
first, and can give no less to the last. . . Private
charity can make these distinctions; and in bestowing its own
money, is entitled to do so according to its own judgment. . .
p. 366
16. The preceding heads comprise, to the
best of my judgment, the whole of the exceptions to the
practical maxim, that the business of society can be best
performed by private and voluntary agency. It is, however,
necessary to add, that the intervention of government cannot
always practically stop short at the limit which defines the
cases intrinsically suitable for it. In the particular
circumstances of a given age or nation, there
is scarcely anything really important to the general
interest, which it may not be desirable, or even necessary,
that the government should take upon itself, not because
private individuals cannot effectually perform it, but
because they will not. At some times and places,
there will be no roads, docks, harbors, canals, works of
irrigation, hospitals, schools, colleges, printing-presses,
unless the government establishes them; the public being
either too poor to command the necessary resources, or too
little advanced in intelligence to appreciate the ends, or not
sufficiently practised in joint action to be capable of the
means...
Gardner
Summary on Public Charity:
Protect all from "absolute want,"
but do it in a way that preserves incentives - a person will
always benefit from working if they are able. Basic
subsistence needs should be guaranteed by the state, based
on objective criteria, and should NOT go only to the
"deserving" poor, because the state also provides
subsistence to prisoners. Private charities can give
additional support to the "deserving" poor.
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