Knowledge that Transforms

Taxation was originally, and still is primarily, merely a means for raising revenue. For many years, however, certain taxes have been levied with a secondary object in view, almost, if not quite, as ardently desired as the revenue itself. Thus tariff taxes have had "protection" either as an incidental or as a chief aim; saloon licenses have been made costly with the avowed object of diminishing the number of saloons; and various other forms of tax have been put into effect, or proposed, as much or more on account of the benefits presumed to arise from the secondary effects of the tax as on account of the revenue likely to be produced. We thus have the single tax always prominently kept before us; and certain modifications of the single tax, such as are in effect in Vancouver where land is taxed but buildings are wholly tax-free, have been adopted here and there. Propaganda are now actively under way for the introduction of the Vancouver system in other places. There seems to be, for example, hardly a waking hour in the twentyfour, during which street orators are not actively campaigning on Manhattan Island in an effort to obtain enough public support to introduce the Vancouver system in Greater New York. While the value of the various secondary objects aimed at through taxes not wholly for revenue is always debatable, it is probably true that public opinion in this country is ready to approve the expediency and morality of levying taxes for such indirect purposes. It is true that one great political party not long ago did take the position that tariff taxes for the purpose of protection were immoral, but that particular portion of the party's platform was not brought strongly into the foreground, and seemed to receive scant consideration. On the other hand, there have been many instances where taxes aimed partly at ends other than the simple production of revenue have seemed to receive popular approval. Indeed, there is at least one important instance in which the federal government imposed a tax with no expectation at all of collecting any appreciable revenue. When the national bank

among unsolved economic problems. Yet conflicting theories of the development of political economy involve this quest for the ultimate. One school insists that the history of theory is the record of an orderly and progressive development toward the goal of eternal economic verity. Another maintains that bodies of eco? nomic doctrine are mere isolated attempts theoretically to vindicate contemporary industrial "systems," with their conglomerate med? leys of special interests. The former beholds an unfolding from within; the latter discerns a directive movement from without. The chasm yawning between is occupied by innumerable inter? mediate theories, expressive of a compromise of the two extremes in every possible permutation. Despite such basic differences, theorists are nevertheless agreed in assigning a place in the development of doctrine to external cir? cumstance, which includes, among other things, the literature of protest. According to the school first mentioned its function is to dispense the inspiration of provocation; to compel a more syste? matic and thorough analysis of problems; to induce a more careful and critical statement of principles; in short, in the old-fashioned way, to play the part of temptation in the formation of staunch character. In the eyes of the latter its presence is proof that older theories are out of keeping with existing fact; its increase in volume attests the impossibility of finding relevancy by refining abstrac? tions; and its function is to draw theory away from scholastic speculation back to the concerns of life. Differ as they may as to the nature of their influence, the schools are agreed that the thrilling crises in the history of theory center about the names of such protestants as Quesnay and Smith and Bentham, of George and Marx,, of Hobson and Veblen.