Au commencement était la taxe

Abstract

In the old days, taxing a commodity meant setting its price (i.e., its "rate") through negotiation, to keep it within the reach of as many people as possible. Taxation was an exceptional measure granted by royal authority to the public, who cherished it. In the name of a freedom that would be enjoyed only by merchants, the Enlightenment movement argued that taxation was theft, and the Revolution rigorously prohibited it from the outset. Prices soared. Whereas yesterday we taxed a product to prevent it from going up in price, today the tax is what increases the price to the benefit of the State or a community. History has changed the meaning of words.

Keywords

• taxation
• treatise on the police
• grain police
• fair prices
• monopoly
• enlightenment
• encyclopedia
• physiocrats
• flour war
• turgot
• child labor
• estates-general
• market economy
• abolition of privileges