Governments do not need the savings of the rich, nor their taxes!
In Chapter 24 of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Concluding Notes on the Social Philosophy towards which the General Theory might Lead, John Maynard Keynes confronted the issue of the “arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes” in capitalist economies. The argument he advances in that Chapter of his 1936 book contains guidelines for the progressive left that some just cannot seem to grasp. In short, governments (as our agents) do not need the savings of the rich to ensure that society prospers. There was another interesting contribution in 1946 from the American statistician and economist – Beardsley Ruml – who wrote that “Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete”. The progressive left would be advised to study his work and stop building political policy platforms on the claim that governments needs to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes so that adequate public services and infrastructure can be provided. The incomes and taxes paid by the rich are largely irrelevant to the capacity of a national, currency-issuing government to provide first-class public services and infrastructure. It is time to re-frame the debate and the way in which progressive political forces state their policy aspirations. This bears on the current interesting struggle in Britain for the leadership of their Labour Party.
In Chapter 24 of the General Theory, Keynes considers that the:
… outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.
He said his work (the General Theory) had obvious relevance for the first fault – “failure to provide for full employment” – because it demonstrated categorically that mass unemployment was the result of a deficiency of total spending in the economy and that governments could easily use their fiscal capacities (spending and taxation) to redress that ill.
This observation destroyed the existing ‘macroeconomics’ of the day which had maintained that unemployment was due to excessive real wages and that wage cuts would restore full employment.
In the early years of the Great Depression, the ‘Treasury View’ (wage cutting) was tried and failed dramatically. Keynes’ insights, which built on what Marx had already understood and explained in detail many decades earlier, were demonstrated to be valid as governments introduced major fiscal stimulus and job creation programs to combat the growing mass unemployment in the 1930s.
The onset of the Second World War and the rise in fiscal deficits as governments sought to prosecute their respective War efforts ended the Great Depression and set the scene in the subsequent peace time for several decades of full employment managed by appropriate fiscal policy use.
That era ended when the neo-liberals stormed back into the policy dominance.
Chapter 24 also noted that their were “two important respects in which … [the General Theory] … is relevant to the second” fault – the “arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes”.
Keynes wrote:
Since the end of the nineteenth century significant progress towards the removal of very great disparities of wealth and income has been achieved through the instrument of direct taxation — income tax and surtax and death duties — especially in Great Britain. Many people would wish to see this process carried much further, but they are deterred by two considerations; partly by the fear of making skilful evasions too much worth while and also of diminishing unduly the motive towards risk-taking, but mainly, I think, by the belief that the growth of capital depends upon the strength of the motive towards individual saving and that for a large proportion of this growth we are dependent on the savings of the rich out of their superfluity. Our argument does not affect the first of these considerations. But it may considerably modify our attitude towards the second. For we have seen that, up to the point where full employment prevails, the growth of capital depends not at all on a low propensity to consume but is, on the contrary, held back by it; and only in conditions of full employment is a low propensity to consume conducive to the growth of capital. Moreover, experience suggests that in existing conditions saving by institutions and through sinking funds is more than adequate, and that measures for the redistribution of incomes in a way likely to raise the propensity to consume may prove positively favourable to the growth of capital.
In other words, the high saving of the rich actually undermine the capacity of the economy to achieve full employment and if they spent more then the government would not have to spend as much to achieve that aim.
But the idea that these savings were essential to fund government spending and could be accessed by taxing the rich was clearly understood by Keynes to be flawed reasoning.
In 1946, Beardsley Ruml published his 4-page article – Taxes for Revenue Are Obsolete – in the journal American Affairs (January 1946, Vol VIII, No 1), which carried the sub-title “A Quarterly Journal of Free Opinion”.
This journal was published by the – National Industrial Conference Board, Inc – which is now known as the Conference Board.
The article is one of those gems that make you wonder why economists and politicians have been able to obscure the truth for so long and generate millions of unemployed and poverty in the process.
Once again, it is consistent with today’s theme – that the viability of the spending programs of a currency-issuing government is not dependent on high-income earners or the wealthy for tax revenue or their savings.
At the tine Beardsley Ruml was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the bio in the “Notes on Contributors” in the Journal described him as “an audacious thinker in the new world of social fiscal policy”.
Ruml’s argument was straightforward:
… given (1) control of a central banking system and (2) an inconvertible currency, a sovereign national government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the purpose of providing itself with revenue. All taxation, therefore should be regarded from the point of view of social and economic consequences.
Regular readers will no doubt identify this sentiment with Abba Lerner’s Functional Finance theories, which provide essential underpinnings to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
Please read my blog – Functional finance and modern monetary theory – for more discussion on this point.
I will come back to that.
Ruml began by noting that:
Taxation is one of the limitations placed by government on the power of business to do what it pleases … issues in the taxation of business are not moral issues, but are questions of practical effect: What will get the best results? How should business be taxes so that business will make the greatest contribution to the common good?
Ruml said that before we answer those questions:
… We must first ask: “Why does the government need to tax at all?”
He noted that a “simple answer” was “likely to be a superficial one”:
… that taxes provide the revenue which the government needs in order to pay its bills.
He noted that this was not true because governments had demonstrated a capacity to borrow to “supplement their revenues”. He observed that when government became reliant on borrowing and hence “the sources from which the money can be obtained”, the bond markets have the power to push up interest rates.
Ultimately such a government had to fall back on taxation to get clear of the power of the bond markets and remain solvent.
But, and this was his substantive point:
The necessity for a government to tax in order to maintain both its independence and its solvency is true for state and local governments, but it is not true for a national government. Two changes of the greatest consequence have occurred in the last twenty-five years which have substantially altered the position of the national state with respect to the financing of its current requirements.The first of these changes is the gaining of vast new experience in the management of central banks.The second change is the elimination, for domestic purposes, of the convertibility of the currency into gold.
So, where the currency issued by the central bank “is not convertible into gold or into other commodity”, then Federal government “has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements.”
And this means that decisions to tax have to be made on non-revenue grounds as noted above. Ruml said “All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue”.
Most recently, I have been critical of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for leadership which has emphasised taxing the rich to fund public expenditure on progressive programs.
Please read my blogs:
Ruml would have made the same criticisms.
Public purpose is the goal (however defined) and taxation policy should support that aim and never be justified as a means of raising funds to permit government to spend.
In 1943, American economist Abba Lerner published his article – Functional Finance and the Federal Debt:
Many of our publicly minded men who have come to see that deficit spending actually works still oppose the permanent maintenance of prosperity because in their failure to see how it works they are easily frightened by fairy tales of terrible consequences.
His aim was to provide a roadmap for governments aiming to eliminate “economic insecurity” and to elucidate the “principles by which appropriate government action can maintain prosperity”.
Lerner understood that people are “easily frightened by fairy tales of terrible consequences” when new ideas are presented. The sense of fright is driven by a lack of education that leaves people unable to comprehend how the economy actually operates.
His approach should be a source of empowerment to progressives. I have read a lot in the last few weeks in the context of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign about how it is correct for him to adopt neo-liberal narratives (eliminating the deficit etc) because otherwise the electorate will reject him.
Lerner never believed that sort of surrender politics. To him it would have represented the anathema of leadership and public purpose pursuit.
Neo-liberals magnify that sense of fright, by demonising what are otherwise sensible and viable explanations of economic matters. They know that by elevating these ideas into the domain of fear and taboo, they increase the probability that political acceptance of the ideas will not be forthcoming.
That strategy advances their ideological agenda.
The basic rules that should guide government fiscal policy are, as Lerner noted, “extremely simple” and “it is this simplicity which makes the public suspect it as too slick”.
Neo-liberals who have vested interests in ensuring that the public does not understand the true options available to a government that issues its own currency manipulate that suspicion. In the place of these simple truths, neo-liberals advance a sequence of myths and metaphors that they know will resonate with the public and become the reality.
Significantly, Lerner distinguished between what he called “functional finance” and “sound finance”, the latter being the orthodoxy he confronted.
‘Sound finance’, which also dominates the public debate in the current period, is usually expressed in terms of some defined fiscal and monetary policy rules. For example, governments should aim for a fiscal balance or not allow deficits to exceed 3 per cent of GDP.
Equally, the central bank should only allow the money supply to increase in line with the rate of output growth. These rules, which are rarely challenged, usually disguise an underlying conservative morality about the role of government (for example, deficits are characterised as “living beyond the means”).
Ruml clearly knew that this morality appeal was fallacious and diverted the public from the truth of the matter.
Abba Lerner considered a government should always use its policy capacity to achieve full employment and price stability and thought that fiscal or monetary policy rules based on conservative morality were not likely to help in that regard.
In contrast to “sound finance”, Lerner said:
The central idea is that government fiscal policy, its spending and taxing, its borrowing and repayment of loans, its issue of new money and its withdrawal of money, shall all be undertaken with an eye only to the results of these actions on the economy and not to any established traditional doctrine about what is sound and what is unsound … The principle of judging fiscal measures by the way they work or function in the economy we may call functional finance.The first responsibility of the government (since nobody else can undertake the responsibility) is to keep the total rate of spending in the country on goods and services neither greater nor less than that rate which at the current prices would buy all the goods that it is possible to produce. If total spending is allowed to go above this there will be inflation, and if it is allowed to go below this there will be unemployment. The government can increase total spending by spending more itself or by reducing taxes so that taxpayers have more money left to spend. It can reduce total spending by spending less itself or by raising taxes so that taxpayers have less money left to spend. By these means total spending can be kept at the required level, where it will be enough to buy the goods that can be produced by all who want to work, and yet not enough to bring inflation by demanding (at current prices) more than can be produced. (Emphasis in original)
Lerner”s “first law of Functional Finance”, recognises that the government responsibility should be to adjust its spending and taxation to ensure that all production is purchased and that this level of production generates jobs for all, such that the society cannot produce any more goods and services with its current available inputs.
What are the financial implications of this? Lerner noted that if in fulfilling its responsibilities, the government recorded a fiscal deficit, then it:
… would have to provide the difference by borrowing or printing money. In neither case should the government feel that there is anything especially good or bad about this result.
The goal is to “concentrate on keeping the total rate of spending neither too small nor too great, in this way preventing both unemployment and inflation” (p. 40). Importantly, assessments of “good” or “bad” are defined purely in terms of whether the government is achieving its goals.
Obviously, moral considerations enter at the stage of setting goals. It is clearly a values-based position to aim for a state where everyone who desires work can find it. Once agreed that this will be the societal goal, then we should be indifferent, if in different circumstances, a deficit of 1 per cent of GDP or a deficit of 5 per cent of GDP is required to meet that goal.
Thinking in this way flushes out the role of ideology. The neo-liberals obscure their disregard for mass unemployment by claiming that the 5 per cent deficit is dangerous and unsustainable.
If the public truly understood that the 5 per cent deficit is as sustainable as the 1 per cent deficit, then the neo-liberals would be forced to debate their preference for mass unemployment.
Clearly, the public would not generally accept that ideological preference and that is why the neo-liberals have to obfuscate their true motivations and hide behind the financial myths concerning the sustainability of government deficits and erect the metaphorical defense structures.
Lerner noted that:
… taxing is never to be undertaken merely because the government needs to make money payments … [it should] … be imposed only when it is desirable that the taxpayers shall have less money to spend”
Lerner also understood (as Ruml did) that a federal deficit could be matched by central bank credits (the so-called “printing money” option).
The term “printing money” is not used in MMT because it is not descriptive of the actual process that underpins government spending. The term also invokes irrational emotional responses about hyperinflation with the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe immediately entering the conversation, and reasoned debate then becomes impossible.
Lerner was keenly aware that the conservative economists considered the “printing money” option to be taboo. He remarked that the:
… almost instinctive revulsion that we have to the idea of printing money, and the tendency to identify it with inflation, can be overcome if we calm ourselves and take note that this printing does not affect the amount of money spent.
To put it another way, the only reason the government would increase its deficit would be to fill a widening shortfall between the total spending required to maintain full employment and current private spending.
This would not be inflationary if the sales boost allows firms to maintain their current levels of production and eliminate unsold inventory. If governments expanded the deficits beyond that point then inflation would threaten. But the inflation risk lies in the spending growth rate, not whether the government matches its deficit with debt issuance or new money.
If the non-government sector, upon receipt of this new money, decided to reduce its current saving rate and to spend more, then the deficit would have to be lower to avoid higher inflation.
Equally, holders of government bonds could decide to liquidate their stocks and spend more. In the same way as before, this would require a lower deficit. The choice of debt issuance or new money creation is separate to the desire to avoid a surge in inflation.
For example, the Labour politicians in the United Kingdom confront the austerity debate with claims that they would “fix the budget” over a longer time period to avoid the massive damage that immediate austerity brings. Of course, even debating the “health” of the fiscal position in terms of some financial ratios is ceding ground to the conservatives, ground that is illegitimate.
Lerner (1951: 15) called progressives who argued in this way “proponents of organized prosperity” and said:
A kind of timidity makes them shrink from saying anything that might shock the respectable upholders of traditional doctrine and tempts them to disguise the new doctrine so that it might be easily mistaken for the old. This does not help much, for they are soon found out, and it hinders them because in endeavoring to make the new doctrine appear harmless in the eyes of the upholders of tradition, they often damage their case. Thus instead of saying that the size of the national debt is of no great concern … [and] … that the budget may have to be unbalanced and that this is insignificant when compared with the attainment of prosperity, it is proposed to disguise an unbalanced budget (and therefore the size of the national debt) by having an elaborate system of annual, cyclical, capital, and other special budgets.
Progressives should first and foremost seek to educate the public about how the economy and money actually operate and what opportunities the government has to act on our behalf to advance our well-being.
If we think in this way, then options that have been constructed by the neo-liberals to be “dangerous”, “radical” or “taboo” will start to appear reasonable and grounded in reality.
The next step is that they eventually become the mainstream orthodoxy. Progressives should avoid petty conversations that lead to statements such as ‘we will reduce the deficit more slowly than you but we will still reduce it’.
Ruml clearly was operating with this understanding. He said that “Federal taxes … serve four principle purposes of a social and economic character”:
1. As an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar;2. To express public policy in the distribution of wealth and income …3. To express public policy in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups;4. To isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security.
So the government might impose taxes:
1. To control inflation.
2. To redistribute purchasing power from the rich to the poor (high income to low income).
3. To alter the allocation of resources away from undesirable ends – such as tobacco taxes.
4. To provide some hypothecated public transparency for major projects/programs.
So from a functional finance perspective, taxation must be designed to advance these purposes and the public discussion must be about the idea of public purpose and never about raising revenue.
In my recent blog – Correcting political ignorance and misperceptions – I made the point that the progressive challenge is to reframe macroeconomics to ensure that the neo-liberal myths are exposed. But it must begin, not with discussions about “facts” and “logic”, but rather broader outlines of the the social purpose of government policy.
This broad vision is in sharp contrast with the neo-liberal view of the economy as a natural entity, separated from us, which gets sick if government attempts to alter its natural course.
The social purpose of government policy should be articulated and narrated in ways that will resonate with and activate the frames in our brains that constrain the way we interpret information.
This is what Ruml is on about when he said that the starting point are not “tax questions” but “questions as to the kind of country we want and the kind of life we want to lead”.
He understood that a primary role for taxation was “the maintenance of a dollar which has a stable purchasing power … the avoidance of inflation”:
If federal taxes are insufficient or of the wrong kind, the purchasing power in the hands of the public is likely to be greater than the output of goods and services with which this purchasing demand can be satisfied.
The result would be inflation. Note that implicit in this statement is that the government wants to command a certain quantity of the available real goods and services to fulfillits socio-economic program.
The excessive private sector purchasing power is thus assessed relative to the total available real output and the government’s desire to command some of that output.
He went on to discuss the other purposes of taxation and when a tax might be considered a “bad tax”, which he considers undermine the capacity of corporations to advance public purpose. I will leave it to your interest to read the rest of his argument which really just illustrates his substantive point that “Taxes for Revenue Are Obsolete”.
Interestingly, in the same issue of American Affairs, there was an article by a Bradford B. Smith, who was introduced as a “one of the brilliant young economists on the conservative side”. His article – “Why We Can’t Buy Full Employment” – was a textbook exposition of what we would now consider to be neo-liberal thinking.
Lerner would have considered it to be one of those “fairy tales of terrible consequences” that scare people into conservativism.
How one could construct Smith’s exposition as that of a “brilliant” mind is beyond me. He goes through the “three ways to find the money” that the government would need to generate full employment and concludes they would all be disasters.
He focused on “The Printing Press” – that is the central bank just crediting bank accounts on behalf of the government. His argument against this essentially comes down to this:
If the government should print money wholesale it would scare people, for too many of them have heard about “continentals,” “greenbacks,” the “trillion-to-one” depreciation of the German mark. So, just to print money in too obvious a fashion would require a great deal of explaining and reassuring, and this could well prove rather inconvenient.
If that wasn’t enough, he went on to claim that allowing a government to pursue full employment via increased fiscal deficits would “constitute a major victory for totalitarianism in America.” Forced labour at slave wage rates follows.
Hmm, not much has changed in nigh on 70 years has it.
Conclusion
Beardsley Ruml was an important contributor to our understanding of the opportunities available to a government which uses its central bank to advance public purpose.
His insights – as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – were consistent with the body of work that Abba Lerner provided under the guise of Functional Finance.
Both economists contributed to the literature that has been woven into what we now refer to as MMT.
In the current context, it demonstrates how lame the British Labour leadership debate is. The statements from Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents appear to be asinine in the extreme when one applies a deep understanding of the issues being debated.
But as I have said previously, statements about eliminating the deficit are also based on false premises and should be abandoned.
As Lerner said when he addressed the problem of progressives who present their arguments in a conservative way because the public might not understand the fundamentals of functional finance:
The scholars who understand it hesitate to speak out boldly for fear that the people will not understand. The people, who understand it quite easily, also fear to speak out while they wait for the scholars to speak out first. The difference between our present situation and that of the story is that it is not an emperor but the people who are periodically made to go naked and hungry and insecure and discontented – a ready prey to less timid organizers of discontent for the destruction of civilization. (Emphasis in original)
Developing comprehension is just the first step. A bold confidence is also required to withstand the vilification that comes with expressing ideas that are contrary to the neo-liberal norms.
Upcoming Event – Reframing the Debate: Economics for a Progressive Politics, London, August 27, 2015
The NHA is very pleased to be able to present an evening with Professor Bill Mitchell, Professor of Economics and renowned proponent of Modern Monetary Theory, during his visit to the UK at the end of this month.
Come and join Professor Mitchell in conversation with Richard Murphy (Tax Research) and Ann Pettifor (Prime Economics), both currently economic advisors to Jeremy Corbyn”s campaign.
Come and join Professor Mitchell in conversation with Richard Murphy (Tax Research) and Ann Pettifor (Prime Economics), both currently economic advisors to Jeremy Corbyn”s campaign.
The original venue has proven to be (very) small relative to demand. It was fully subscribed in a few hours. The organisers are now seeking a larger venue.
All readers who have E-mailed me indicating that you wanted to attend but could not get tickets please go to the WWW site for Registration and use the Contact link (at the bottom) to send your name and contact details to the organisers so they can ensure you get in to the new venue – should they find a larger venue.
The Event will be held on Thursday, August 27, 2015 from 18:30 to 20:30 (BST)
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2015 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
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歳入のための税金は時代遅れ（ビアズリー・ラムル） - Mr.Ruml in Progress
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/tam_tororonto/e/eb1ee26cfbe9f972f052acabfdac25b5歳入のための税金は時代遅れ（ビアズリー・ラムル）
18/03/05 16:58
（※）原文は対照に便利なように併記してあります。
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歳入のための税金は時代遅れ
ビアズリー・ラムル
米連邦準備制度理事会(FRB)議長
TAXES FOR REVENUE ARE OBSOLETE
by Beardsley Ruml,
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
ラムル氏はこの論文を〔第二次〕世界大戦の最後の年に、アメリカ法曹協会の前で読み上げた。
Mr. Ruml read this paper before the American Bar Association during the last year of the war [World War II]. It attracted then less attention than it deserved and is even more timely now, with the tax structure undergoing change for peacetime. His thesis is that given (1) control of a central banking system and (2) an inconvertible currency, a sovereign national government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the purpose of providing itself with revenue. All taxation, therefore, should be regarded from the point of view of social and economic consequences. The paragraph that embodies this idea will be found italicized in the text. Mr. Ruml does not say precisely how in that case the government would pay its own bills. One may assume that it would either shave its expenses out of the proceeds of taxes levied for social and economic ends or print the money it needs. The point may be academic. The latter end of his paper is devoted to an argument against taxing corporation profits. --- Editor.
政府が企業よりも上位の立場を占めていることは、政府が企業に対して課税する権限を持つという点に最もはっきりとあらわれている。企業はルールづくりを行う上での権限の大半を政府から得ている。政府は企業がこれらのルール制定の権限を行使するにあたって制限をもうけ、政府〔自ら〕の裁量によって企業活動の自由に安全装置を施している。課税とは企業が思うままに力を振るうのを抑えつけるために設けられた制限の一つなのだ。
The superior position of public government over private business is nowhere more clearly evident than in government's power to tax business. Business gets its many rule-making powers from public government. Public government sets the limits to the exercise of these rule-making powers of business, and protects the freedom of business operations within this area of authority. Taxation is one of the limitations placed by government on the power of business to do what it pleases.
このような政府の処置に非難すべきところはない。税を課せられる企業は、血肉でできた生命でもなく、自由市民でもないのだ。
企業は自分がどのように統制されるべきかについて発する声を持たないし、持つべきでもない。企業への課税は倫理的な事柄ではなく、実利上の論点である。〔すなわち、〕何が最善の結果をもたらすのか？企業が公益に対して最大の貢献をなすようになるには、企業はどのように課税されるべきなのか？
There is nothing reprehensible about this procedure. The business that is taxed is not a creature of flesh and blood, it is not a citizen. It has no voice in how it shall be governed --- nor should it. The issues in the taxation of business are not moral issues, but are questions of practical effect: What will get the best results? How should business be taxed so that business will make its greatest contribution to the common good?
この根本的な問いを投げかける二者択一の選択肢に直面することは、時には我々に教訓を与えてくれることもある。
もしも我々が企業への課税にかかわる問題を理解すべき状況になったならば、我々は最初に尋ねなければならない、「いったいなぜ政府は税金をとる必要があるのか？」と。これは簡単な質問に見える。しかし、簡単な質問にとって、明々白々な回答は浅薄なものになりそうだ。明々白々な回答とはもちろん、政府が支出するために必要とする歳入を税金が供給してくれる、というものである。
It is sometimes instructive when faced with alternatives to ask the underlying question. If we are to understand the problems involved in the taxation of business, we must first ask: "Why does the government need to tax at all?" This seems to be a simple question, but, as is the case with simple questions, the obvious answer is likely to be a superficial one. The obvious answer is, of course, that taxes provide the revenue which the government needs in order to pay its bills.
大恐慌
もし我々が近年の金融史に目を向けるならば、国家はその税収が支出分に満たないときでさえ、支払いを行うことが出来るのは明らかである。これらの国々は徴収した租税よりも多額の貨幣が入り用だったのだが、必要分の貨幣を借り入れることで支払いをすませた。それゆえ、政府による貨幣の借り入れとは、支払いに必要な資力を得るために租税によって歳入〔を得ること〕に付け加えられる〔他の〕代替手段である。
It Happened
If we look at the financial history of recent years it is apparent that nations have been able to pay their bills even though their tax revenues fell short of expenses. These countries whose expenses were greater than their receipts from taxes paid their bills by borrowing the necessary money. The borrowing of money, therefore, is an alternative which governments use to supplement the revenues from taxation in order to obtain the necessary means for the payment of their bills.
A government which depends on loans and on the refunding of its loans to get the money it requires for its operations is necessarily dependent on the sources from which the money can be obtained. In the past, if a government persisted in borrowing heavily to cover its expenditures, interest rates would get higher and higher, and greater and greater inducements would have to be offered by the government to the lenders. These governments finally found that the only way they could maintain both their sovereign independence and their solvency was to tax heavily enough to meet a substantial part of their financial needs, and to be prepared ---if placed under undue pressure --- to tax to meet them all.
The necessity for a government to tax in order to maintain both its independence and its solvency is true for state and local governments, but it is not true for a national government. Two changes of the greatest consequence have occurred in the last twenty-five years which have substantially altered the position of the national state with respect to the financing of its current requirements.
The first of these changes is the gaining of vast new experience in the management of central banks.
The second change is the elimination, for domestic purposes, of the convertibility of the currency into gold.
Free of the Money Market
Final freedom from the domestic money market exists for every sovereign national state where there exists an institution which functions in the manner of a modern central bank, and whose currency is not convertible into gold or into some other commodity.
The United States is a national state which has a central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, and whose currency, for domestic purposes, is not convertible into any commodity. It follows that our Federal Government has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements. Accordingly, the inevitable social and economic consequences of any and all taxes have now become the prime consideration in the imposition of taxes. In general, it may be said that since all taxes have consequences of a social and economic character, the government should look to these consequences in formulating its tax policy. All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue.
税が本当に目指すもの
連邦税は社会的、そして経済的な性質〔を有する〕４つの主要な目的に奉仕するために作られなければならない。
その目的とは、
1. 財政政策の補助手段として〔用い〕、ドルの購買力を安定させるのを助けるため。
2. 累進的所得税、累進的遺産税などの例のように、富と所得の分配政策を表明するため。
3. 様々な産業や経済集団に補助的便宜を与える、あるいは罰則を科する政策を表明するため。
4. 公道や社会保障制度など、特定の公共サービスにかかる費用を分離し、〔そのための費用を〕直接的に徴収するため。
What Taxes Are Really For
Federal taxes can be made to serve four principal purposes of a social and economic character. These purposes are:
1. As an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar;
2. To express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income, as in the case of the progressive income and estate taxes;
3. To express public policy in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups;
4. To isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security.
最近、私達は意識的に連邦税プログラムをこれらの目的のために使った。これらの目標に務めるにあたって、租税プログラムは締めくくりの手段となる。目的それ自体は基本的な国家政策に関わることで、第一にまず、いかなる国家の租税プログラムからも独立して、確立されるべきものだ。
In the recent past, we have used our federal tax program consciously for each of these purposes. In serving these purposes, the tax program is a means to an end. The purposes themselves are matters of basic national policy which should be established, in the first instance, independently of any national tax program.
Among the policy questions with which we have to deal are these:
Do we want a dollar with reasonably stable purchasing power over the years?
Do we want greater equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone?
Do we want to subsidize certain industries and certain economic groups?
Do we want the beneficiaries of certain federal activities to be aware of what they cost?
These questions are not tax questions; they are questions as to the kind of country we want and the kind of life we want to lead. The tax program should be a means to an agreed end. The tax program should be devised as an instrument, and it should be judged by how well it serves its purpose.
By all odds, the most important single purpose to be served by the imposition of federal taxes is the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as "the avoidance of inflation"; and without the use of federal taxation all other means of stabilization, such as monetary policy and price controls and subsidies, are unavailing. All other means, in any case, must be integrated with federal tax policy if we are to have tomorrow a dollar which has a value near to what it has today.
戦争が政府に教え、政府が人々に教えたことは、連邦政府による課税はインフレｰションとデフレーション、物を売り買いするときに支払わなければならない価格と大きな関係があるということだ。
The war has taught the government, and the government has taught the people, that federal taxation has much to do with inflation and deflation, with the prices which have to be paid for the things that are bought and sold. If federal taxes are insufficient or of the wrong kind, the purchasing power in the hands of the public is likely to be greater than the output of goods and services with which this purchasing demand can be satisfied. If the demand becomes too great, the result will be a rise in prices, and there will be no proportionate increase in the quantity of things for sale. This will mean that the dollar is worth less than it was before --- that is inflation. On the other hand, if federal taxes are too heavy or are of the wrong kind, effective purchasing power in the hands of the public will be insufficient to take from the producers of goods and services all the things these producers would like to make. This will mean widespread unemployment.
The dollars the government spends become purchasing power in the hands of the people who have received them. The dollars the government takes by taxes cannot be spent by the people, and, therefore, these dollars can no longer be used to acquire the things which are available for sale. Taxation is, therefore, an instrument of the first importance in the administration of any fiscal and monetary policy.
富を分配するために
連邦税の第２の主要な目的は、経済的諸力が働くままにして置くことにより起こるであろう結果よりも、より優れた富と所得の平等を実現することだ。この目的に効果的な税は、累進的個人所得税、累進的遺産税、そして〔累進的〕贈与税である。これらの税は富と所得の分配についての政策と連動させるべきだ。さて、重要なことだが、遺産税および贈与税はドルの価値を安定させるための税制措置としての意義はほとんど、あるいは全くないことを指摘しておこう。それらの〔税の〕目的は、社会的な目的、すなわち日用の必需品〔を購入する〕ために支出されるのではない所得の投資あるいは再投資の結果として、富と所得が少数のものに極度に集中することを防ぐためである。これらの税はアメリカ〔国民〕の生活状態への影響によって是非を問われるべきであって、歳入の手段として議論されるべきではない。
To Distribute the Wealth
The second principal purpose of federal taxes is to attain more equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone. The taxes which are effective for this purpose are the progressive individual income tax, the progressive estate tax, and the gift tax. What these taxes should be depends on public policy with respect to the distribution of wealth and of income. It is important, here, to note that the estate and gift taxes have little or no significance, as tax measures, for stabilizing the value of the dollar. Their purpose is the social purpose of preventing what otherwise would be high concentration of wealth and income at a few points, as a result of investment and reinvestment of income not expended in meeting day-to-day consumption requirements. These taxes should be defended and attacked it terms〔訳者注：in termsの間違いか？〕 of their effects on the character of American life, not as revenue measures.
連邦税の３つ目の〔存在〕理由は特定の産業的、経済的利害団体に対して補助的便宜を与えるためだ。最も明白な例は関税である。もともと、この種の税は１５０年ほど前にとある二重の目的のため、〔すなわち〕アメリカ政府が支出を行うための歳入を得るために課せられたものだ。今日では関税は歳入を目的として課せられる必要はない。これらの税は任意の産業に目的税を設定するための方策に過ぎない。その社会的な目的は、ある国内産業が〔海外の同じ産業によって〕海外で生産され、関税による保護分がなければアメリカ国内で〔国内産業のものより〕もっと安価に販売される財と競争するために販売価格に底値を与えるためだ。目的税は輸入品が課税される通関港で支払われるのではなく、国内で生産され販売されるのと同じ種類の〔海外生産の〕財すべての価格水準を上昇させることで徴収される。
The third reason for federal taxes is to provide a subsidy for some industrial or economic interest. The most conspicuous example of these taxes is the tariffs on imports. Originally, taxes of this type were imposed to serve a double purpose since, a century and a half ago, the national government required revenues in order to pay its bills. Today, tariffs on imports are no longer needed for revenue. These taxes are nothing more than devices to provide subsidies to selected industries; their social purpose is to provide a price floor above which a domestic industry can compete with goods which can be produced abroad and sold in this country more cheaply except for the tariff protection. The subsidy is paid, not at the port of entry where the imported goods are taxed, but in the higher price level for all goods of the same type produced and sold at home.
連邦税の第４の目的は、直接的で目に見える形で特定の公共サービスの費用を徴収することだ。
このような課税〔方式〕は、そのおかげを被る人々が払おうと思える規模にまで公共サービスを制限するためには大変望ましい。このような基準のもっとも目立つ例は、社会保障の公共サービス、高齢者保険と失業保険だ。社会が何のためにこのような公共サービスを提供し、その費用に見合った特定の税金を徴収するのかは明白だ。不幸にも、そして不必要にも、この両者のケースでは〔租税〕プログラムは驚くほどデフレ的な結果を伴ってきた。現在の〔実際の〕支出に対する過剰な〔徴収の〕領収書の帰結として。
The fourth purpose served by federal taxes is to assess, directly and visibly, the costs of certain benefits. Such taxation is highly desirable in order to limit the benefits to amounts which the people who benefit are willing to pay. The most conspicuous examples of such measures are the social security benefits, old-age and unemployment insurance. The social purposes of giving such benefits and of assessing specific taxes to meet the costs are obvious. Unfortunately and unnecessarily, in both cases, the programs have involved staggering deflationary consequences as a result of the excess of current receipts over current disbursements.
悪い税
法人の利潤に対する連邦税は企業活動への影響を考えると、もっとも重要な税である。〔また、〕特殊な部類の企業にとっては重大であるような他の税〔も〕ある。 営利企業に課せられる国税と地方税には多くの問題があり、とりわけ会社が利益をまったくあげていないときには、それは火急の問題となる。
The Bad Tax
The federal tax on corporate profits is the tax which is most important in its effect on business operations. There are other taxes which are of great concern to special classes of business. There are many problems of state and local taxation of business which become extremely urgent, particularly when a corporation has no profits at all. However, we shall confine our discussion to the federal corporation income tax, since it is in this way that business is principally taxed. We shall also confine our considerations to the problems of ordinary peacetime taxation since, during wartime, many tax measures, such as the excess-profits tax, have a special justification.
法人の利潤にかかる税は３つの主要な結果をもたらす――３つすべてが悪しきものだ。手短に言えば、法人所得税による３つの悪影響とは以下のようになる。
Taxes on corporation profits have three principal consequences --- all of them bad. Briefly, the three bad effects of the corporation income tax are:
1. The money which is taken from the corporation in taxes must come in one of three ways. It must come from the people, in the higher prices they pay for the things they buy; from the corporation's own employees in wages that are lower than they otherwise would be; or from the corporation's stockholders, in lower rate of return on their investment. No matter from which sources it comes, or in what proportion, this tax is harmful to production, to purchasing power, and to investment.
2. The tax on corporation profits is a distorting factor in managerial judgment, a factor which is prejudicial to clear engineering and economic analysis of what will be best for the production and distribution of things for use. And, the larger the tax, the greater the distortion.
3. The corporation income tax is the cause of double taxation. The individual taxpayer is taxed once when his profit is earned by the corporation, and once again when he receives the profit as a dividend. This double taxation makes it more difficult to get people to invest their savings in business than if the profits of business were only taxed once. Furthermore, stockholders with small incomes bear as heavy a burden under the corporation income tax as do stockholders with large incomes.
分析
法人の利潤にかかる税による、これら３つの悪影響をもっと詳細に考察してみよう。我々がすでに見た第１の影響は法人税が、次のいずれか、つまり、物価の上昇、賃金の低下、投資による収益の減少、もしくはこれらすべての組み合わせを引き起こすことだった。
Analysis
Let us examine these three bad effects of the tax on corporation profits more closely. The first effect we observed was that the corporation income tax results in either higher prices, lower wages, reduced return on investment, or all three in combination. When the corporation income tax was first imposed it may have been believed by some that an impersonal levy could be placed on the profits of a soulless corporation, a levy which would be neither a sales tax, a tax on wages, or a double tax on the stockholder. Obviously, this is impossible in any real sense. A corporation is nothing but a method of doing business which is embodied in words inscribed on a piece of paper. The tax must be paid by one or more of the people who are parties at interest in the business, either as customer, as employee, or as stockholder.
It is impossible to know exactly who pays how much of the tax on corporation profits. The stockholder pays some of it, to the extent that the return on his investment is less than it would be if there were no tax. But, it is equally certain that the stockholder does not pay all of the tax on corporate income --- indeed, he may pay very little of it. After a period of time, the corporation income tax is figured as one of the costs of production and it gets passed on in higher prices charged for the company's goods and services, and in lower wages, including conditions of work which are inferior to what they otherwise might be.
The reasons why the corporation income tax is passed on, in some measure, must be clearly understood. In the operations of a company, the management of the business, directed by the profit motive, keeps its eyes on what is left over as profit for the stockholders. Since the corporation must pay its federal income taxes before it can pay dividends, the taxes are thought of --- the same as any other uncontrollable expense --- as an outlay to be covered by higher prices or lower costs, of which the principal cost is wages. Since all competition in the same line of business is thinking the same way, prices and costs will tend to stabilize at a point which will produce a profit, after taxes, sufficient to give the industry access to new capital at a reasonable price. When this finally happens, as it must if the industry is to hold its own, the federal income tax on corporations will have been largely absorbed in higher prices and in lower wages. The effect of the corporation income tax is, therefore, to raise prices blindly and to lower wages by an undeterminable amount. Both tendencies are in the wrong direction and are harmful to the public welfare.
貨幣はどこへ行くのか？
法人所得税がなくなったとしたら、現在税の支払いに当てられている貨幣はどこへ行くのだろうか？
それは条件による。もしその産業の競争は激しければ、小売業の場合のように、多くが〔財の〕価格の引き下げのために使われ、より少ない分が賃金の増加に回され、その産業へ投資された貯蓄による収益が増加することになるだろう。 もしその産業の労働者が、鉄道、鉄鋼、自動車産業のように、強力に組織化されているなら、賃金の引き上げに回る分け前が増加していくだろう。もしも、その産業が競争的でもなく、〔労働者が〕組織化されておらず、規制もされていないなら――そのような産業はきわめて少ないが――多くの分け前が株主のもとへ行くだろう。それゆえ、現在の法人所得税の排除は物価を下げ、すべての人の生活基準を引き上げるだろう。
Where Would the Money Go?
Suppose the corporation income tax were removed, where would the money go that is now paid in taxes? That depends. If the industry is highly competitive, as is the case with retailing, a large share would go in lower prices, and a smaller share would go in higher wages and in higher yield on savings invested in the industry. If labor in the industry is strongly organized, as in the railroad, steel, and automotive industries, the share going in higher wages would tend to increase. If the industry is neither competitive nor organized nor regulated --- of which industries there are very few --- a large share would go to the stockholders. In so far as the elimination of the present corporation income tax would result in lower prices, it would raise the standard of living for everyone.
法人所得税の第２の悪影響とは、法人税がすべての〔意思〕決定に介入して経営判断を歪める因子であり、純粋な営利事業の領域においてはとられないような行動をとらせることだ。
The second bad effect of the corporation income tax is that it is a distorting factor in management judgment, entering into every decision, and causing actions to be taken which would not have been taken on business grounds alone. The tax consequences of every important commitment have to be appraised. Sometimes, some action which ought to be taken cannot be taken because the tax results make the transaction valueless, or worse. Sometimes, apparently senseless actions are fully warranted because of tax benefits. The results of this tax thinking is to destroy the integrity of business judgment, and to set up a business structure and tradition which does not hang together in terms of the compulsion of inner economic or engineering efficiency.
負債におけるプレミアム
Premium on Debt
The most conspicuous illustration of the bad effect of tax consideration on business judgment is seen in the preferred position that debt financing has over equity financing. This preferred position is due to the fact that interest and rents, paid on capital used in business, are deductible as expense; whereas dividends paid are not. The result weighs the scales always in favor of debt financing, since no income tax is paid on the deductible costs of this form of capital. This tendency goes on, although it is universally agreed that business and the country generally would be in a stronger position if a much larger proportion of all investment were in common stocks and equities, and a smaller proportion in mortgages and bonds.
It must be conceded that, in many cases, a high corporation income tax induces management to make expenditures which prudent judgment would avoid. This is particularly true if a long-term benefit may result, a benefit which cannot or need not be capitalized. The long-term expense is shared involuntarily by government with business, and, under these circumstances, a long chance is often well worth taking. Scientific research and institutional advertising are favorite vehicles for the use of these cheap dollars. Since these expenses reduce profits, they reduce taxes at the same time; and the cost to the business is only the margin of the expenditure that would have remained after the taxes had been paid --- the government pays the rest. Admitting that a certain amount of venturesome expenditure does result from this tax inducement, it is an unhealthy form of unregulated subsidy which, in the end, will soften the fibre of management and will result in excess timidity when the risk must be carried by the business alone.
The third unfortunate consequence of the corporation income tax is that the same earnings are taxed twice, once when they are earned and once when they are distributed. This double taxation causes the original profit margin to carry a tremendous burden of tax, making it difficult to justify equity investment in a new and growing business. It also works contrary to the principles of the progressive income tax, since the small stockholder, with a small income, pays the same rate of corporation tax on his share of the earnings as does the stockholder whose total income falls in the highest brackets. This defect of double taxation is serious, both as it affects equity in the total tax structure, and as a handicap to the investment of savings in business.
端的に邪悪
法人所得税が引き起こすこれら３つの悪影響のいずれもが、法人税をひどく劣勢に立たせ得るものだ。３つの影響が合わされば、この税に不利な圧倒的事態を生み出す。法人所得税は邪悪な税であり、廃止されるべきである。
Shortly, an Evil
Any one of these three bad effects of the corporation income tax would be enough to put it severely on the defensive. The three effects, taken together, make an overwhelming case against this tax. The corporation income tax is an evil tax and it should be abolished.
〔しかし〕法人所得税は、法人形態が個人所得税からの避難所として利用される場合や、必要のない、投資されない剰余を蓄積するための手段にされるような事態を回避する何らかの方法が見つかるまでは廃止してはならない。
The corporation income tax cannot be abolished until some method is found to keep the corporate form from being used as a refuge from the individual income tax and as a means of accumulating unneeded, uninvested surpluses. Some way must be devised whereby the corporation earnings, which inure to the individual stockholders, are adequately taxed as income of these individuals.
法人所得税の弱点と危険性は長年にわたって知られてきたが、
The weaknesses and dangers of the corporation income tax have been known for years, and an ill-fated attempt to abolish it was made in 1936 in a proposed undistributed profits tax. This tax, as it was imposed by Congress, had four weaknesses which soon drove it from the books. First, the income tax on corporations was not eliminated in the final legislation, but the undistributed profits tax was added on top of it. Second, it was never made absolutely clear, by regulation or by statute, just what form of distributed capitalization of withheld and reinvested earnings would be taxable to the stockholders and not to the corporation. Third, the Securities and Exchange Commission did not set forth special and simple regulations covering securities issued to capitalize withheld earnings. Fourth, the earnings of a corporation were frozen to a particular fiscal year, with none of the flexibility of the carry-forward, carry-back provisions of the present law.
Granted that the corporation income tax must go, it will not be easy to devise protective measures which will be entirely satisfactory. The difficulties are not merely difficulties of technique and of avoiding the pitfalls of a perfect solution impossible to administer, but are questions of principle that raise issues as to the proper locus of power over new capital investment.
政府には法人所得税を放棄する余裕があるだろうか？そのことは実は問題ではない。問題とは、「それは人々に税を課するのに好ましい方法なのか？」ということだ。結局のところ唯一の実際の納税者たちであるところの、消費者、労働者、投資者に税を課するのに好ましいやり方なのか？いかなる観点からも次のことは明白だ、すなわち法人所得税がもたらすのは悪い影響だということである。課税によってとげられるべき公的理念がうまく実行されているわけではない。〔法人〕税はドルを安定させる効果に関しては不確かで、個人所得に対する累進課税の一環としては不公正だ。
Can the government afford to give up the corporation income tax? This really is not the question. The question is this: Is it a favorable way of assessing taxes on the people --- on the consumer, the workers and investors --- who after all are the only real taxpayers? It is clear from any point of view that the effects of the corporation income tax are bad effects. The public purposes to be served by taxation are not thereby well served. The tax is uncertain in its effect with respect to the stabilization of the dollar, and it is inequitable as part of a progressive levy on individual income. It tends to raise the prices of goods and services. It tends to keep wages lower than they otherwise might be. It reduces the yield on investment and obstructs the flow of savings into business enterprise.
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歳入のための税金は時代遅れ
ビアズリー・ラムル
米連邦準備制度理事会(FRB)議長
TAXES FOR REVENUE ARE OBSOLETE
by Beardsley Ruml,
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
ラムル氏はこの論文を〔第二次〕世界大戦の最後の年に、アメリカ法曹協会の前で読み上げた。
Mr. Ruml read this paper before the American Bar Association during the last year of the war [World War II]. It attracted then less attention than it deserved and is even more timely now, with the tax structure undergoing change for peacetime. His thesis is that given (1) control of a central banking system and (2) an inconvertible currency, a sovereign national government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the purpose of providing itself with revenue. All taxation, therefore, should be regarded from the point of view of social and economic consequences. The paragraph that embodies this idea will be found italicized in the text. Mr. Ruml does not say precisely how in that case the government would pay its own bills. One may assume that it would either shave its expenses out of the proceeds of taxes levied for social and economic ends or print the money it needs. The point may be academic. The latter end of his paper is devoted to an argument against taxing corporation profits. --- Editor.
政府が企業よりも上位の立場を占めていることは、政府が企業に対して課税する権限を持つという点に最もはっきりとあらわれている。企業はルールづくりを行う上での権限の大半を政府から得ている。政府は企業がこれらのルール制定の権限を行使するにあたって制限をもうけ、政府〔自ら〕の裁量によって企業活動の自由に安全装置を施している。課税とは企業が思うままに力を振るうのを抑えつけるために設けられた制限の一つなのだ。
The superior position of public government over private business is nowhere more clearly evident than in government's power to tax business. Business gets its many rule-making powers from public government. Public government sets the limits to the exercise of these rule-making powers of business, and protects the freedom of business operations within this area of authority. Taxation is one of the limitations placed by government on the power of business to do what it pleases.
このような政府の処置に非難すべきところはない。税を課せられる企業は、血肉でできた生命でもなく、自由市民でもないのだ。
企業は自分がどのように統制されるべきかについて発する声を持たないし、持つべきでもない。企業への課税は倫理的な事柄ではなく、実利上の論点である。〔すなわち、〕何が最善の結果をもたらすのか？企業が公益に対して最大の貢献をなすようになるには、企業はどのように課税されるべきなのか？
There is nothing reprehensible about this procedure. The business that is taxed is not a creature of flesh and blood, it is not a citizen. It has no voice in how it shall be governed --- nor should it. The issues in the taxation of business are not moral issues, but are questions of practical effect: What will get the best results? How should business be taxed so that business will make its greatest contribution to the common good?
この根本的な問いを投げかける二者択一の選択肢に直面することは、時には我々に教訓を与えてくれることもある。
もしも我々が企業への課税にかかわる問題を理解すべき状況になったならば、我々は最初に尋ねなければならない、「いったいなぜ政府は税金をとる必要があるのか？」と。これは簡単な質問に見える。しかし、簡単な質問にとって、明々白々な回答は浅薄なものになりそうだ。明々白々な回答とはもちろん、政府が支出するために必要とする歳入を税金が供給してくれる、というものである。
It is sometimes instructive when faced with alternatives to ask the underlying question. If we are to understand the problems involved in the taxation of business, we must first ask: "Why does the government need to tax at all?" This seems to be a simple question, but, as is the case with simple questions, the obvious answer is likely to be a superficial one. The obvious answer is, of course, that taxes provide the revenue which the government needs in order to pay its bills.
大恐慌
もし我々が近年の金融史に目を向けるならば、国家はその税収が支出分に満たないときでさえ、支払いを行うことが出来るのは明らかである。これらの国々は徴収した租税よりも多額の貨幣が入り用だったのだが、必要分の貨幣を借り入れることで支払いをすませた。それゆえ、政府による貨幣の借り入れとは、支払いに必要な資力を得るために租税によって歳入〔を得ること〕に付け加えられる〔他の〕代替手段である。
It Happened
If we look at the financial history of recent years it is apparent that nations have been able to pay their bills even though their tax revenues fell short of expenses. These countries whose expenses were greater than their receipts from taxes paid their bills by borrowing the necessary money. The borrowing of money, therefore, is an alternative which governments use to supplement the revenues from taxation in order to obtain the necessary means for the payment of their bills.
A government which depends on loans and on the refunding of its loans to get the money it requires for its operations is necessarily dependent on the sources from which the money can be obtained. In the past, if a government persisted in borrowing heavily to cover its expenditures, interest rates would get higher and higher, and greater and greater inducements would have to be offered by the government to the lenders. These governments finally found that the only way they could maintain both their sovereign independence and their solvency was to tax heavily enough to meet a substantial part of their financial needs, and to be prepared ---if placed under undue pressure --- to tax to meet them all.
The necessity for a government to tax in order to maintain both its independence and its solvency is true for state and local governments, but it is not true for a national government. Two changes of the greatest consequence have occurred in the last twenty-five years which have substantially altered the position of the national state with respect to the financing of its current requirements.
The first of these changes is the gaining of vast new experience in the management of central banks.
The second change is the elimination, for domestic purposes, of the convertibility of the currency into gold.
Free of the Money Market
Final freedom from the domestic money market exists for every sovereign national state where there exists an institution which functions in the manner of a modern central bank, and whose currency is not convertible into gold or into some other commodity.
The United States is a national state which has a central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, and whose currency, for domestic purposes, is not convertible into any commodity. It follows that our Federal Government has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements. Accordingly, the inevitable social and economic consequences of any and all taxes have now become the prime consideration in the imposition of taxes. In general, it may be said that since all taxes have consequences of a social and economic character, the government should look to these consequences in formulating its tax policy. All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue.
税が本当に目指すもの
連邦税は社会的、そして経済的な性質〔を有する〕４つの主要な目的に奉仕するために作られなければならない。
その目的とは、
1. 財政政策の補助手段として〔用い〕、ドルの購買力を安定させるのを助けるため。
2. 累進的所得税、累進的遺産税などの例のように、富と所得の分配政策を表明するため。
3. 様々な産業や経済集団に補助的便宜を与える、あるいは罰則を科する政策を表明するため。
4. 公道や社会保障制度など、特定の公共サービスにかかる費用を分離し、〔そのための費用を〕直接的に徴収するため。
What Taxes Are Really For
Federal taxes can be made to serve four principal purposes of a social and economic character. These purposes are:
1. As an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar;
2. To express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income, as in the case of the progressive income and estate taxes;
3. To express public policy in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups;
4. To isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security.
最近、私達は意識的に連邦税プログラムをこれらの目的のために使った。これらの目標に務めるにあたって、租税プログラムは締めくくりの手段となる。目的それ自体は基本的な国家政策に関わることで、第一にまず、いかなる国家の租税プログラムからも独立して、確立されるべきものだ。
In the recent past, we have used our federal tax program consciously for each of these purposes. In serving these purposes, the tax program is a means to an end. The purposes themselves are matters of basic national policy which should be established, in the first instance, independently of any national tax program.
Among the policy questions with which we have to deal are these:
Do we want a dollar with reasonably stable purchasing power over the years?
Do we want greater equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone?
Do we want to subsidize certain industries and certain economic groups?
Do we want the beneficiaries of certain federal activities to be aware of what they cost?
These questions are not tax questions; they are questions as to the kind of country we want and the kind of life we want to lead. The tax program should be a means to an agreed end. The tax program should be devised as an instrument, and it should be judged by how well it serves its purpose.
By all odds, the most important single purpose to be served by the imposition of federal taxes is the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as "the avoidance of inflation"; and without the use of federal taxation all other means of stabilization, such as monetary policy and price controls and subsidies, are unavailing. All other means, in any case, must be integrated with federal tax policy if we are to have tomorrow a dollar which has a value near to what it has today.
戦争が政府に教え、政府が人々に教えたことは、連邦政府による課税はインフレｰションとデフレーション、物を売り買いするときに支払わなければならない価格と大きな関係があるということだ。
The war has taught the government, and the government has taught the people, that federal taxation has much to do with inflation and deflation, with the prices which have to be paid for the things that are bought and sold. If federal taxes are insufficient or of the wrong kind, the purchasing power in the hands of the public is likely to be greater than the output of goods and services with which this purchasing demand can be satisfied. If the demand becomes too great, the result will be a rise in prices, and there will be no proportionate increase in the quantity of things for sale. This will mean that the dollar is worth less than it was before --- that is inflation. On the other hand, if federal taxes are too heavy or are of the wrong kind, effective purchasing power in the hands of the public will be insufficient to take from the producers of goods and services all the things these producers would like to make. This will mean widespread unemployment.
The dollars the government spends become purchasing power in the hands of the people who have received them. The dollars the government takes by taxes cannot be spent by the people, and, therefore, these dollars can no longer be used to acquire the things which are available for sale. Taxation is, therefore, an instrument of the first importance in the administration of any fiscal and monetary policy.
富を分配するために
連邦税の第２の主要な目的は、経済的諸力が働くままにして置くことにより起こるであろう結果よりも、より優れた富と所得の平等を実現することだ。この目的に効果的な税は、累進的個人所得税、累進的遺産税、そして〔累進的〕贈与税である。これらの税は富と所得の分配についての政策と連動させるべきだ。さて、重要なことだが、遺産税および贈与税はドルの価値を安定させるための税制措置としての意義はほとんど、あるいは全くないことを指摘しておこう。それらの〔税の〕目的は、社会的な目的、すなわち日用の必需品〔を購入する〕ために支出されるのではない所得の投資あるいは再投資の結果として、富と所得が少数のものに極度に集中することを防ぐためである。これらの税はアメリカ〔国民〕の生活状態への影響によって是非を問われるべきであって、歳入の手段として議論されるべきではない。
To Distribute the Wealth
The second principal purpose of federal taxes is to attain more equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone. The taxes which are effective for this purpose are the progressive individual income tax, the progressive estate tax, and the gift tax. What these taxes should be depends on public policy with respect to the distribution of wealth and of income. It is important, here, to note that the estate and gift taxes have little or no significance, as tax measures, for stabilizing the value of the dollar. Their purpose is the social purpose of preventing what otherwise would be high concentration of wealth and income at a few points, as a result of investment and reinvestment of income not expended in meeting day-to-day consumption requirements. These taxes should be defended and attacked it terms〔訳者注：in termsの間違いか？〕 of their effects on the character of American life, not as revenue measures.
連邦税の３つ目の〔存在〕理由は特定の産業的、経済的利害団体に対して補助的便宜を与えるためだ。最も明白な例は関税である。もともと、この種の税は１５０年ほど前にとある二重の目的のため、〔すなわち〕アメリカ政府が支出を行うための歳入を得るために課せられたものだ。今日では関税は歳入を目的として課せられる必要はない。これらの税は任意の産業に目的税を設定するための方策に過ぎない。その社会的な目的は、ある国内産業が〔海外の同じ産業によって〕海外で生産され、関税による保護分がなければアメリカ国内で〔国内産業のものより〕もっと安価に販売される財と競争するために販売価格に底値を与えるためだ。目的税は輸入品が課税される通関港で支払われるのではなく、国内で生産され販売されるのと同じ種類の〔海外生産の〕財すべての価格水準を上昇させることで徴収される。
The third reason for federal taxes is to provide a subsidy for some industrial or economic interest. The most conspicuous example of these taxes is the tariffs on imports. Originally, taxes of this type were imposed to serve a double purpose since, a century and a half ago, the national government required revenues in order to pay its bills. Today, tariffs on imports are no longer needed for revenue. These taxes are nothing more than devices to provide subsidies to selected industries; their social purpose is to provide a price floor above which a domestic industry can compete with goods which can be produced abroad and sold in this country more cheaply except for the tariff protection. The subsidy is paid, not at the port of entry where the imported goods are taxed, but in the higher price level for all goods of the same type produced and sold at home.
連邦税の第４の目的は、直接的で目に見える形で特定の公共サービスの費用を徴収することだ。
このような課税〔方式〕は、そのおかげを被る人々が払おうと思える規模にまで公共サービスを制限するためには大変望ましい。このような基準のもっとも目立つ例は、社会保障の公共サービス、高齢者保険と失業保険だ。社会が何のためにこのような公共サービスを提供し、その費用に見合った特定の税金を徴収するのかは明白だ。不幸にも、そして不必要にも、この両者のケースでは〔租税〕プログラムは驚くほどデフレ的な結果を伴ってきた。現在の〔実際の〕支出に対する過剰な〔徴収の〕領収書の帰結として。
The fourth purpose served by federal taxes is to assess, directly and visibly, the costs of certain benefits. Such taxation is highly desirable in order to limit the benefits to amounts which the people who benefit are willing to pay. The most conspicuous examples of such measures are the social security benefits, old-age and unemployment insurance. The social purposes of giving such benefits and of assessing specific taxes to meet the costs are obvious. Unfortunately and unnecessarily, in both cases, the programs have involved staggering deflationary consequences as a result of the excess of current receipts over current disbursements.
悪い税
法人の利潤に対する連邦税は企業活動への影響を考えると、もっとも重要な税である。〔また、〕特殊な部類の企業にとっては重大であるような他の税〔も〕ある。 営利企業に課せられる国税と地方税には多くの問題があり、とりわけ会社が利益をまったくあげていないときには、それは火急の問題となる。
The Bad Tax
The federal tax on corporate profits is the tax which is most important in its effect on business operations. There are other taxes which are of great concern to special classes of business. There are many problems of state and local taxation of business which become extremely urgent, particularly when a corporation has no profits at all. However, we shall confine our discussion to the federal corporation income tax, since it is in this way that business is principally taxed. We shall also confine our considerations to the problems of ordinary peacetime taxation since, during wartime, many tax measures, such as the excess-profits tax, have a special justification.
法人の利潤にかかる税は３つの主要な結果をもたらす――３つすべてが悪しきものだ。手短に言えば、法人所得税による３つの悪影響とは以下のようになる。
Taxes on corporation profits have three principal consequences --- all of them bad. Briefly, the three bad effects of the corporation income tax are:
1. The money which is taken from the corporation in taxes must come in one of three ways. It must come from the people, in the higher prices they pay for the things they buy; from the corporation's own employees in wages that are lower than they otherwise would be; or from the corporation's stockholders, in lower rate of return on their investment. No matter from which sources it comes, or in what proportion, this tax is harmful to production, to purchasing power, and to investment.
2. The tax on corporation profits is a distorting factor in managerial judgment, a factor which is prejudicial to clear engineering and economic analysis of what will be best for the production and distribution of things for use. And, the larger the tax, the greater the distortion.
3. The corporation income tax is the cause of double taxation. The individual taxpayer is taxed once when his profit is earned by the corporation, and once again when he receives the profit as a dividend. This double taxation makes it more difficult to get people to invest their savings in business than if the profits of business were only taxed once. Furthermore, stockholders with small incomes bear as heavy a burden under the corporation income tax as do stockholders with large incomes.
分析
法人の利潤にかかる税による、これら３つの悪影響をもっと詳細に考察してみよう。我々がすでに見た第１の影響は法人税が、次のいずれか、つまり、物価の上昇、賃金の低下、投資による収益の減少、もしくはこれらすべての組み合わせを引き起こすことだった。
Analysis
Let us examine these three bad effects of the tax on corporation profits more closely. The first effect we observed was that the corporation income tax results in either higher prices, lower wages, reduced return on investment, or all three in combination. When the corporation income tax was first imposed it may have been believed by some that an impersonal levy could be placed on the profits of a soulless corporation, a levy which would be neither a sales tax, a tax on wages, or a double tax on the stockholder. Obviously, this is impossible in any real sense. A corporation is nothing but a method of doing business which is embodied in words inscribed on a piece of paper. The tax must be paid by one or more of the people who are parties at interest in the business, either as customer, as employee, or as stockholder.
It is impossible to know exactly who pays how much of the tax on corporation profits. The stockholder pays some of it, to the extent that the return on his investment is less than it would be if there were no tax. But, it is equally certain that the stockholder does not pay all of the tax on corporate income --- indeed, he may pay very little of it. After a period of time, the corporation income tax is figured as one of the costs of production and it gets passed on in higher prices charged for the company's goods and services, and in lower wages, including conditions of work which are inferior to what they otherwise might be.
The reasons why the corporation income tax is passed on, in some measure, must be clearly understood. In the operations of a company, the management of the business, directed by the profit motive, keeps its eyes on what is left over as profit for the stockholders. Since the corporation must pay its federal income taxes before it can pay dividends, the taxes are thought of --- the same as any other uncontrollable expense --- as an outlay to be covered by higher prices or lower costs, of which the principal cost is wages. Since all competition in the same line of business is thinking the same way, prices and costs will tend to stabilize at a point which will produce a profit, after taxes, sufficient to give the industry access to new capital at a reasonable price. When this finally happens, as it must if the industry is to hold its own, the federal income tax on corporations will have been largely absorbed in higher prices and in lower wages. The effect of the corporation income tax is, therefore, to raise prices blindly and to lower wages by an undeterminable amount. Both tendencies are in the wrong direction and are harmful to the public welfare.
貨幣はどこへ行くのか？
法人所得税がなくなったとしたら、現在税の支払いに当てられている貨幣はどこへ行くのだろうか？
それは条件による。もしその産業の競争は激しければ、小売業の場合のように、多くが〔財の〕価格の引き下げのために使われ、より少ない分が賃金の増加に回され、その産業へ投資された貯蓄による収益が増加することになるだろう。 もしその産業の労働者が、鉄道、鉄鋼、自動車産業のように、強力に組織化されているなら、賃金の引き上げに回る分け前が増加していくだろう。もしも、その産業が競争的でもなく、〔労働者が〕組織化されておらず、規制もされていないなら――そのような産業はきわめて少ないが――多くの分け前が株主のもとへ行くだろう。それゆえ、現在の法人所得税の排除は物価を下げ、すべての人の生活基準を引き上げるだろう。
Where Would the Money Go?
Suppose the corporation income tax were removed, where would the money go that is now paid in taxes? That depends. If the industry is highly competitive, as is the case with retailing, a large share would go in lower prices, and a smaller share would go in higher wages and in higher yield on savings invested in the industry. If labor in the industry is strongly organized, as in the railroad, steel, and automotive industries, the share going in higher wages would tend to increase. If the industry is neither competitive nor organized nor regulated --- of which industries there are very few --- a large share would go to the stockholders. In so far as the elimination of the present corporation income tax would result in lower prices, it would raise the standard of living for everyone.
法人所得税の第２の悪影響とは、法人税がすべての〔意思〕決定に介入して経営判断を歪める因子であり、純粋な営利事業の領域においてはとられないような行動をとらせることだ。
The second bad effect of the corporation income tax is that it is a distorting factor in management judgment, entering into every decision, and causing actions to be taken which would not have been taken on business grounds alone. The tax consequences of every important commitment have to be appraised. Sometimes, some action which ought to be taken cannot be taken because the tax results make the transaction valueless, or worse. Sometimes, apparently senseless actions are fully warranted because of tax benefits. The results of this tax thinking is to destroy the integrity of business judgment, and to set up a business structure and tradition which does not hang together in terms of the compulsion of inner economic or engineering efficiency.
負債におけるプレミアム
Premium on Debt
The most conspicuous illustration of the bad effect of tax consideration on business judgment is seen in the preferred position that debt financing has over equity financing. This preferred position is due to the fact that interest and rents, paid on capital used in business, are deductible as expense; whereas dividends paid are not. The result weighs the scales always in favor of debt financing, since no income tax is paid on the deductible costs of this form of capital. This tendency goes on, although it is universally agreed that business and the country generally would be in a stronger position if a much larger proportion of all investment were in common stocks and equities, and a smaller proportion in mortgages and bonds.
It must be conceded that, in many cases, a high corporation income tax induces management to make expenditures which prudent judgment would avoid. This is particularly true if a long-term benefit may result, a benefit which cannot or need not be capitalized. The long-term expense is shared involuntarily by government with business, and, under these circumstances, a long chance is often well worth taking. Scientific research and institutional advertising are favorite vehicles for the use of these cheap dollars. Since these expenses reduce profits, they reduce taxes at the same time; and the cost to the business is only the margin of the expenditure that would have remained after the taxes had been paid --- the government pays the rest. Admitting that a certain amount of venturesome expenditure does result from this tax inducement, it is an unhealthy form of unregulated subsidy which, in the end, will soften the fibre of management and will result in excess timidity when the risk must be carried by the business alone.
The third unfortunate consequence of the corporation income tax is that the same earnings are taxed twice, once when they are earned and once when they are distributed. This double taxation causes the original profit margin to carry a tremendous burden of tax, making it difficult to justify equity investment in a new and growing business. It also works contrary to the principles of the progressive income tax, since the small stockholder, with a small income, pays the same rate of corporation tax on his share of the earnings as does the stockholder whose total income falls in the highest brackets. This defect of double taxation is serious, both as it affects equity in the total tax structure, and as a handicap to the investment of savings in business.
端的に邪悪
法人所得税が引き起こすこれら３つの悪影響のいずれもが、法人税をひどく劣勢に立たせ得るものだ。３つの影響が合わされば、この税に不利な圧倒的事態を生み出す。法人所得税は邪悪な税であり、廃止されるべきである。
Shortly, an Evil
Any one of these three bad effects of the corporation income tax would be enough to put it severely on the defensive. The three effects, taken together, make an overwhelming case against this tax. The corporation income tax is an evil tax and it should be abolished.
〔しかし〕法人所得税は、法人形態が個人所得税からの避難所として利用される場合や、必要のない、投資されない剰余を蓄積するための手段にされるような事態を回避する何らかの方法が見つかるまでは廃止してはならない。
The corporation income tax cannot be abolished until some method is found to keep the corporate form from being used as a refuge from the individual income tax and as a means of accumulating unneeded, uninvested surpluses. Some way must be devised whereby the corporation earnings, which inure to the individual stockholders, are adequately taxed as income of these individuals.
法人所得税の弱点と危険性は長年にわたって知られてきたが、
The weaknesses and dangers of the corporation income tax have been known for years, and an ill-fated attempt to abolish it was made in 1936 in a proposed undistributed profits tax. This tax, as it was imposed by Congress, had four weaknesses which soon drove it from the books. First, the income tax on corporations was not eliminated in the final legislation, but the undistributed profits tax was added on top of it. Second, it was never made absolutely clear, by regulation or by statute, just what form of distributed capitalization of withheld and reinvested earnings would be taxable to the stockholders and not to the corporation. Third, the Securities and Exchange Commission did not set forth special and simple regulations covering securities issued to capitalize withheld earnings. Fourth, the earnings of a corporation were frozen to a particular fiscal year, with none of the flexibility of the carry-forward, carry-back provisions of the present law.
Granted that the corporation income tax must go, it will not be easy to devise protective measures which will be entirely satisfactory. The difficulties are not merely difficulties of technique and of avoiding the pitfalls of a perfect solution impossible to administer, but are questions of principle that raise issues as to the proper locus of power over new capital investment.
政府には法人所得税を放棄する余裕があるだろうか？そのことは実は問題ではない。問題とは、「それは人々に税を課するのに好ましい方法なのか？」ということだ。結局のところ唯一の実際の納税者たちであるところの、消費者、労働者、投資者に税を課するのに好ましいやり方なのか？いかなる観点からも次のことは明白だ、すなわち法人所得税がもたらすのは悪い影響だということである。課税によってとげられるべき公的理念がうまく実行されているわけではない。〔法人〕税はドルを安定させる効果に関しては不確かで、個人所得に対する累進課税の一環としては不公正だ。
Can the government afford to give up the corporation income tax? This really is not the question. The question is this: Is it a favorable way of assessing taxes on the people --- on the consumer, the workers and investors --- who after all are the only real taxpayers? It is clear from any point of view that the effects of the corporation income tax are bad effects. The public purposes to be served by taxation are not thereby well served. The tax is uncertain in its effect with respect to the stabilization of the dollar, and it is inequitable as part of a progressive levy on individual income. It tends to raise the prices of goods and services. It tends to keep wages lower than they otherwise might be. It reduces the yield on investment and obstructs the flow of savings into business enterprise.
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20.5 税と主権国家の支出
政府が発行する貨幣を使用した課税は、その貨幣に対する需要を生み出すと言うことを我々は以前に説明した。また、主権国家の政府は支出をするために秋雨乳を必要としないと言うことも説明した。政府の予算における「収入」について言及するときでさえ、民間部門（家計や企業）におけるような「支出のための収入」と同じような概念で言及することは少し不適切である。しかし、次のことは明確である。政府が受け取る税収は、政府支出をやりくりするために本質的に必要であるというわけではない。
それはとても衝撃的である。なぜなら我々は、政府支出のために課税されていると言う考えることに慣れているからだ。このように考えることは、貨幣を発行できない州といった地方政府の財政に言及するときは適切である。また、外国通貨を自国通貨として採用する国や、外国通貨に対して固定相場制を採用する国の貨幣に言及するときも、おおむねこの考え方で正しい。
固定相場制を取っているとき、設定した相場で外国通貨や金と自国通貨を交換するために、それら外国通貨・金を保有していなければならない。貨幣が流通すると、金や外国通貨との交換の提供が誰に対しても難しくなるため、貨幣の流通の循環経路から徴税している。すなわち、固定相場制を採用する国の政府支出は、税収と同じ水準に制約される。
しかし自国通貨を外国通貨や金との固定相場で交換しない政府（変動相場制を採用する政府）の場合、我々は全く異なる税の捉え方をしなければならない。
さらに、論理を逆にして以下のように考えることもできる。納税者が貨幣によって納税が可能となる前に、政府は自らの発行する貨幣を使用した支出（あるいは貸出）を、経済の中で必ず行なっていると。
「支出が先で、課税が後」。これが適切な論理的順序である。
この論理的順序の提案を最初に聞く人の中の何人かは、ある論理的に考えた結果として疑問を抱くだろう。「では、税を完全になくしてしまえば良いのではないか？」と。しかし、それは不可能である。税が存在する理由は、「政府支出のため」に存在しているわけではないが、いくつかの理由が存在する。1つ目として、税は貨幣によって収められている。もし我々が税を廃止した場合、人々はおそらくただちに（納税に使用していた）貨幣を使わなくなると言うことはないだろうが、多くの人が使用することをやめるだろう。
2つ目として、（すでに広く受け入れられている貨幣で納税される）税は総需要を縮小する効果がある。
税は、政府が社会経済的な権限を活かすための支出ができる、「実物の資源の余地」を生み出す。税は非政府部門の購買力を奪うことができる。したがって、税は実物の資源を運営する能力を備えている。税の能力は、政府が自らの支出により実物の資源を運営できるように、実物の資源を焼却することである。
国のGDPの30%を政府支出が占め、税収がGDPの27%を占める事例を考えてみよう。それゆえ、政府支出の純粋な注入は3%である。もしここで税を廃止した場合(他の事情が同じならば）、支出の純粋な注入はGDPに対して30%になる。それによって大きく総需要は増加し、インフレを引き起こす。
したがって、税は実物の資源（労働力や設備）を解放する。それがなければ、非政府部門が自らの下心のために自由にそれらの実物の資源を利用する。全ての資源が活用された時にインフレが発生する。それゆえ税は政府に、インフレによる制約に直面することなく支出をすることを可能にする。
理想を言えば、反循環的な課税（景気が悪い時に課税を減らし、景気が良い時に課税を増やす）をするのが良い。その課税は政府が反循環的な経済（好景気も不景気もある経済）に実質的な貢献をすることを助け、総需要が安定することを助ける。この状況では、財政支出は自動安定化装置として働く。
これらの全てについて、1940年代に連邦準備銀行の理事長を務めたビアーズリー・ラムルによって勘案されている。彼は税の役割についての重要な論文を書いている（Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete and Tax Policies for Prosperity,Ruml,1946a 及び 1946B）。
まず、彼の「政府は税収を必要としない」という説得力のある主張を説明し、その後、彼の視点に立って税の役割について考えてみよう。彼は次のように強調した。「国家の財政政策の目的は何より貨幣と効率的な金融機構を維持することにある。しかし基礎的な本旨に沿って考えれば、高度に生産性な雇用と繁栄を獲得するための偉大な活動を可能にする」(1946b:82-3）。この視点は、この本の冒頭で提示したものと似ている。
またラルムは、アメリカは第二次世界大戦後の2つの変化によって上記の社会目標を達成するための能力を獲得したとも言っている。「最初の変化は、中央銀行の運営における膨大な新しい経験である。2つめの変化は、貨幣を金やその他の財と交換することを国家の目標として設定することをやめたことである」（1950:91）。この2つの状況は「当然の結果として、貨幣市場における金融上要求に対して、連邦政府は最後の砦となる」、「政府は自らの費用を賄うために税が足りないことを心配する必要はない」（Ruml,1946b:84）。この見解は自国通貨を発行する政府に適用できる。
ではなぜ政府は課税を必要とするのだろうか？ラルムは4つの理由を提示した（1946b:84）。
1.税はドルの購買力（アメリカの総需要）を調整する税制政策の手法として機能する。
2.税は、累進的な所得・資産税を採用した場合、富・所得の分配としての公共政策となる。
3.税は、ある特定の産業・集団に対して助成を与えたり、罰を与える公共政策となる。
4.高速道路や社会保障といった、直接的で明白な国家の利益があるとする。税は、その利益の費用（もちろん「金銭的な費用」ではない）を区分・評価することができる。
1はすでに先ほど述べたようなインフレに関連した話題である。2は、税を使用することによって人々の所得・富を変化させられることを言ったものだ。例えば、累進課税の場合、高所得者に高い税率がかかり、低所得者には低い税率がかかる。3は、税が望ましくないと思われる行動を抑制できることを言ったものだ。大気や水の汚染、タバコやアルコールの摂取に対して課税してそれを抑制することができる。また、関税によって輸入品購入の費用を上げ、国内品の購入を奨励することができる。4は、税が特定の社会計画の受益者に、その計画の費用を分配できることをいったものだ。例えば、高速道路を使う人にその使用料金を支払わせるために、ガソリンに税がかけられるのが普通である(高速道路の料金は、それと同じ機能を果たす、ある1つの方法である）。
多くの人々が政府の支出のために税が必要だと考えている一方で、彼は著作の主な主張の中でその考えに猛烈に反対していたということに注目すべきだ。収入として税は時代遅れであると思っていた。政府は高速道路を作る費用を賄うために税を必要としない。その税（ガソリン税・道路料金）は、道路を使う人々に「その道路の建設を自分たちが支援している」と思わせるために考案されたものだ。
政府はタバコ税からの収入を必要としているのではない。むしろ、その税は人々の健康を改善する。税は人々の行動を抑制するために、タバコを買う費用を税によってあげることができる。
これらの税の要点は、収入を生み出すということではない。政府は常に医療に関する設備建設や政策を実行するための貨幣を賄うことができる。税は、タバコを吸う人を健康にするために、実物の資源の無駄を減らす。タバコ税の根本概念は、喫煙を減らす手段として機能することである。政府の収入を最大化することではない。ラルムは次のように言った（1946b:84）。「提案される公共目的は、収入を上げることを目的とする税の仮面によって覆い隠されたことは一度もない」。
ラルムは1946年の2つの著作を次のように締めくくった。我々が税が何のために存在しているかを一度理解してしまえば、我々は全体的な税収の適切な水準を明らかにできる、と。彼は以下のように結論づけた（1946b:85）。
我々の課税政策の裏にある、簡単な発想は以下のようになるべきである。税は貨幣の安定を保つために、高さを調整されるべきである。現在、税は、我々が満足できる雇用状況を達成するためにはどのような連邦予算の構成が良いだろうか、という原理の元に運営されている。
この原理はこの本で採用されているものの１つである。しかし、1つ注意が必要である。ラルムは海外部門を無視できる状況にいた（海外部門を無視する考え方は、第二次世界大戦後直後の状況では不合理な考え方ではなかった）。今日の世界では、あるいくつかの国で大きな当座預金の黒字が発生しており、その他のいくつかの国では一方で大きな当座預金の赤字が発生している。我々はラウムの原理を修正して現在に適用しなければならない。
その原理は次のように言い換えられるだろう。完全雇用を達成・継続する政府支出ができるように、税率は設定されるべきである。
オーストラリア、アメリカ、イギリスといった慣例的に完全雇用を達成するために財政赤字を増やそうとする国の政府は、普通それを継続しようとする（ちなみに何度も言うようだが、財政赤字は同額の民間部門の黒字を生み出す）。
日本のような国は、少ない財政赤字で完全雇用を達成しようとしている（これはすなわち、民間部門の黒字を少なくしている）。ノルウェーのような財政黒字を生み出しながら完全雇用を達成している国は、インフレを抑制している。
Herald’s Ross Gittins – No infrastructure unless you borrow(published October 31, 2009).
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=5762
Functional finance and modern monetary theory
billSunday, November 1, 2009
Today I am continuing my recent theme of considering the flaws in the standard progressive attack on neo-liberalism. I will write sometime about manufacturing but it is Sunday and it has been a beautiful day here and I don’t feel like setting off the flamethrowers out there that clearly think manufacturing is important. It might be, but the standard arguments are based on a vertically integrated conception of the sector that we haven’t had for years anyway. But later. Today, I consider the “public debt is good” approach that progressive use to counter the manic “public debt is always bad” arguments proferred by the mainstream of my profession.
The vehicle I use to explore this issue is yesterday’s economic commentary by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Ross Gittins – No infrastructure unless you borrow (published October 31, 2009).
Gittins begins:
Get this straight: if you think we should be spending a lot more on economic infrastructure, you can’t be chicken-hearted about government debt. Similarly, if you think debt-free is the only acceptable way for governments to be, resign yourself to living in an economy characterised by bottlenecks at ports, inadequate rail and road systems, rising congestion on urban roads, inadequate public transport and the threat of urban water shortages.
ヘラルドのロス・ギティンズ - 借りなければインフラなし(2009年10月31日公開)
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=5762
機能金融と現代貨幣論
bill2009年11月1日（日
今日は、最近のテーマである、新自由主義に対する標準的な進歩的攻撃の欠陥について考えることの続きです。製造業についてはいつか書くつもりだが、今日は日曜日だし、ここはとてもいい天気だったので、製造業が重要だと考えている人たちに火炎放射器を向けたくはない。そうかもしれないが、標準的な議論は垂直統合された製造業の概念に基づいている。しかし、それは後の話だ。今日は、私の職業の主流である「公的債務は常に悪い」という躁鬱屈した議論に対抗するために進歩的な人たちが使っている「公的債務は良い」というアプローチについて考えてみたいと思います。
私はこの問題を探求するために使用する車両は、シドニーモーニングヘラルドのロス-ギティンズによる昨日の経済解説である - あなたが借りない限り、インフラストラクチャはありません（2009年10月31日公開）。
ギティンスはこう始める。
もしあなたが経済インフラにもっと多くを費やすべきだと思うなら、政府の借金に臆病になることはできない。同様に、無借金が政府にとって唯一受け入れられる方法だと考えるなら、港湾のボトルネック、不十分な鉄道や道路システム、都市道路の渋滞の増加、不十分な公共交通機関、都市部の水不足の脅威によって特徴づけられる経済の中で生活することを諦めるべきである。
ラムル1946 税は財源ではない TAX POLICIES FOR PROSPERITY By BEARDSLEY RUML
https://iitomo2010.blogspot.com/2021/10/1946-2.html 作業中
「税は財源ではない」関連参考
以下レイ金ぴか本5.2より孫引き、ラムルの言葉
《National states no longer need taxes to get the wherewithal to meet their expenses” (1946b, pp. 267–8). 》
《国民国家は、自らの出費を賄うのに必要な資金を得るために、もはや租税を必要としない。》
(邦訳kindle:No.4041)
（Ruml, Beardsley. 1946b. “Tax Policies for Prosperity,” American Economic Review, Vol. 36, No. 2: 265‐274. ）
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1818210?socuuid=ccac5a87-cae3-48a0-8740-106b7535b63f&socplat=email&utm_source=email# 要登録
金ぴか本帯に改変して使われた。
（島倉原氏『MMT〈現代貨幣理論〉とは何か』(2019)の第三章及び「おわりに」で「税金は財源ではなく、
国債は資金調達手段ではない」という言葉が使われている。）
金ぴか本の帯裏(画像↓)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5hgKKG7o0U/YXZICG9vBsI/AAAAAAACpVE/dKaSYoZ53DYF707CdQBQEQWWc9lYPSZpACLcBGAsYHQ/s407/48A754DA-C5C4-48FB-80CA-48295D35ED91.jpeg
ちなみに、
ケルトンは政府予算についての循環型フローのイメージは危険だと言う。
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1133002891201933313/pu/vid/1280x720/WhePUmi_ZpvaVkpH.mp4
「税は財源ではない」関連参考
以下レイ金ぴか本5.2より孫引き、ラムルの言葉
《National states no longer need taxes to get the wherewithal to meet their expenses” (1946b, pp. 267–8). 》
《国民国家は、自らの出費を賄うのに必要な資金を得るために、もはや租税を必要としない。》
(邦訳kindle:No.4041)
（Ruml, Beardsley. 1946b. “Tax Policies for Prosperity,” American Economic Review, Vol. 36, No. 2: 265‐274. ）
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1818210?socuuid=ccac5a87-cae3-48a0-8740-106b7535b63f&socplat=email&utm_source=email# 要登録
金ぴか本帯に改変して使われた。
（島倉原氏『MMT〈現代貨幣理論〉とは何か』(2019)の第三章及び「おわりに」で「税金は財源ではなく、
国債は資金調達手段ではない」という言葉が使われている。）
金ぴか本の帯裏(画像↓)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5hgKKG7o0U/YXZICG9vBsI/AAAAAAACpVE/dKaSYoZ53DYF707CdQBQEQWWc9lYPSZpACLcBGAsYHQ/s407/48A754DA-C5C4-48FB-80CA-48295D35ED91.jpeg
ちなみに、
ケルトンは政府予算についての循環型フローのイメージは危険だと言う。
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1133002891201933313/pu/vid/1280x720/WhePUmi_ZpvaVkpH.mp4
「税は財源ではない」関連参考
以下レイ金ぴか本5.2より孫引き、ラムルの言葉
《National states no longer need taxes to get the wherewithal to meet their expenses” (1946b, pp. 267–8). 》
《国民国家は、自らの出費を賄うのに必要な資金を得るために、もはや租税を必要としない。》
(邦訳kindle:No.4041)
（Ruml, Beardsley. 1946b. “Tax Policies for Prosperity,” American Economic Review, Vol. 36, No. 2: 265‐274. ）
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1818210?socuuid=ccac5a87-cae3-48a0-8740-106b7535b63f&socplat=email&utm_source=email# 要登録
金ぴか本帯に改変して使われた。
（島倉原氏『MMT〈現代貨幣理論〉とは何か』(2019)の第三章及び「おわりに」で「税金は財源ではなく、
国債は資金調達手段ではない」という言葉が使われている。）
金ぴか本の帯裏(画像↓)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5hgKKG7o0U/YXZICG9vBsI/AAAAAAACpVE/dKaSYoZ53DYF707CdQBQEQWWc9lYPSZpACLcBGAsYHQ/s407/48A754DA-C5C4-48FB-80CA-48295D35ED91.jpeg
ちなみに、
ケルトンは政府予算についての循環型フローのイメージは危険だと言う。
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1133002891201933313/pu/vid/1280x720/WhePUmi_ZpvaVkpH.mp4
「税は財源ではない」関連参考
以下レイ金ぴか本5.2より孫引き、ラムルの言葉
《National states no longer need taxes to get the wherewithal to meet their expenses” (1946b, pp. 267–8). 》
《国民国家は、自らの出費を賄うのに必要な資金を得るために、もはや租税を必要としない。》
(邦訳kindle:No.4041)
（Ruml, Beardsley. 1946b. “Tax Policies for Prosperity,” American Economic Review, Vol. 36, No. 2: 265‐274. ）
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1818210?socuuid=ccac5a87-cae3-48a0-8740-106b7535b63f&socplat=email&utm_source=email# 要登録
金ぴか本帯に改変して使われた。
（島倉原氏『MMT〈現代貨幣理論〉とは何か』(2019)の第三章及び「おわりに」で「税金は財源ではなく、
国債は資金調達手段ではない」という言葉が使われている。）
金ぴか本の帯裏(画像↓)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5hgKKG7o0U/YXZICG9vBsI/AAAAAAACpVE/dKaSYoZ53DYF707CdQBQEQWWc9lYPSZpACLcBGAsYHQ/s407/48A754DA-C5C4-48FB-80CA-48295D35ED91.jpeg
ちなみに、
ケルトンは政府予算についての循環型フローのイメージは危険だと言う。
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1133002891201933313/pu/vid/1280x720/WhePUmi_ZpvaVkpH.mp4
「税は財源ではない」関連参考
以下レイ金ぴか本5.2より孫引き、ラムルの言葉
《National states no longer need taxes to get the wherewithal to meet their expenses” (1946b, pp. 267–8). 》
《国民国家は、自らの出費を賄うのに必要な資金を得るために、もはや租税を必要としない。》
(邦訳kindle:No.4041)
（Ruml, Beardsley. 1946b. “Tax Policies for Prosperity,” American Economic Review, Vol. 36, No. 2: 265‐274. ）
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1818210?socuuid=ccac5a87-cae3-48a0-8740-106b7535b63f&socplat=email&utm_source=email# 要登録
金ぴか本帯に改変して使われた。
（島倉原氏『MMT〈現代貨幣理論〉とは何か』(2019)の第三章及び「おわりに」で「税金は財源ではなく、
国債は資金調達手段ではない」という言葉が使われている。）
金ぴか本の帯裏(画像↓)
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m5hgKKG7o0U/YXZICG9vBsI/AAAAAAACpVE/dKaSYoZ53DYF707CdQBQEQWWc9lYPSZpACLcBGAsYHQ/s407/48A754DA-C5C4-48FB-80CA-48295D35ED91.jpeg
ちなみに、
ケルトンは政府予算についての循環型フローのイメージは危険だと言う。
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1133002891201933313/pu/vid/1280x720/WhePUmi_ZpvaVkpH.mp4
992 名無しさん＠お腹いっぱい。[sage] 2021/10/30(土) 04:47:27.05 ID:qbtKKCcN
参考：
特別寄稿 迫り来る令和「金融恐慌」／評論家 中野剛志氏：FACTA ONLINE
2020/04/25
https://facta.co.jp/article/202005016.html
MMTの源流「ラムルの叡智」
ラムルは、終戦後間もない1946年に「歳入のための租税は時代遅れ」と「繁栄のための租税政策」と
いう二つの論文を書き、そこでMMTと同じ洞察を、極めて簡潔に示して見せた（以下の引用は、この二
つの論文からである）。
ラムルは言う。「大戦中に、我々は、租税とその財政政策との関係について多くを学んだ」。戦争から
学んだこととは、何か。それは、「国民国家は、支出をまかなうのに必要な財源を得るために、租税を
必要とはしない」ということであった。それは、現代的な中央銀行が創設されたこと、それから金本位制が
廃止され、貨幣が金との兌換義務という制約から解放されたことによって実現したものであった。
こうして、歳入のための租税という発想は、時代遅れとなった。今や、政府は、課税が経済社会にどの
ような帰結をもたらすかを中心に考えて、税制を設計すればよくなったのである。
具体的に、ラムルは、租税の目的として、次の四つを挙げている。①ドルの購買力の安定を促進する
ための財政政策、②累進所得税や遺産税のような、富と所得の分配に関する公共政策、③様々な産業や
経済団体を支援したり、罰したりする公共政策、④高速道路や社会保障のような便益に対する費用の評価。
…
参考
《ある君主が、かれの税の一定部分は一定の種類の紙幣で支はらわれなければならないという、法令をだすとすれば、かれはそうすることによって、この紙幣に一定の価値をあたえうるであろう。》
アダム・スミス『国富論』2:2最終部
世界の大思想上
参考：
新フィッシャー主義とFTPL - himaginaryの日記
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/himaginary/20170109/EconReporter_Cochrane_interview
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1818210?socuuid=ccac5a87-cae3-48a0-8740-106b7535b63f&socplat=email&utm_source=email#
@hidetomitanaka 元ネタはラムルという人らしいです。
《National states no longer need taxes to get the wherewithal to meet their expenses" (1946b, pp. 267–8). 》
（国民国家は、自らの出費を賄うのに必要な資金を得るために、もはや租税を必要としない。）
jstor.org/stable/1818210… 要登録
2021/11/11 14:44
https://twitter.com/tiikituukahana/status/1458672007017824257?s=21
https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2017/05/21/taxation-for-revenue-is-obsolete-january-1946-american-affairs-costed-manifestos-wheres-the-beef/
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