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come, property and inheritance tax, to a height which until then was impossible. "It is one of our demands at the present time that such a tax shall be substituted for all others, especially for the indirect tax. "But even if we had to-day the power to carry through such a measure with the support of the other parties, which is plainly impossible, because no bourgeois party would go so far, we would at once find ourselves in the presence of great difficulties. "It is a well-known fact that the higher the tax the greater the efforts at tax dodging. "But when a condition exists where any concealment of income and property is impossible, even then we would not be in a position to force the income and property tax as high as we wish, because the capitalists, if the tax on their income or property pressed them too closely, would simply leave the State. "Above a certain measure such taxes cannot rise to-day even if we had the political power. "_The situation is completely changed, however, when capitalist property takes the form of public debts._ "The property to-day that is so hard to find then lies in broad day-light. "It would then only be necessary to declare that all bonds must be public, and it would be known exactly what was the value of every property and every capitalist income. "_The tax would then be raised as high as desired_ without the possibility of tax frauds. "It would then also be impossible to escape taxation by emigration, for the tax could simply be taken from the interest before it was paid out. [A similar tax exists in France to-day.] "_If necessary it might be put so high as to be equivalent, or nearly so, to a confiscation of the great properties._ "It might be well to ask what is the advantage of this round-about way of confiscation over that of taking the direct road? "The difference between the two methods is not so trifling as at first appears. "Direct confiscation of all capitalists would strike all, the small and the great, those utterly useless to labor, in the same manner. "It is difficult, often impossible, in this method to separate the large possession from the small, when these are united in the form of money capital in the same undertaking. "Direct confiscat
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