Christianity And the Social Rage

ortance both to the subject of religion and also to that of taxation. For let it be understood at the outset that a tax is itself the symbol of some sort of collectivism. Even when it takes the crudest and least attractive form of brute tribute, gathered by force, it nevertheless emphasizes a certain sort of relationship between the spoiler and the spoiled. For the despoiler who once enriches himself at the expense of some one else has within him the natural tendency to repeat the process and is, naturally disappointed to find that his preserve is either gone or has been seized by some one else. In the evolution of the process which we now call taxation, there has come the universal expectation practise and application of taxation of some sort. Even when it does not take some visible, tangible and expressed form, the thing is known to be there and there is nobody now who believes in an untaxed existence or its possibility. There is, of course, a great deal of delusion on the subject and the deluded do not belong exclusively to any class of society. Many believe they are avoiding taxes which they pay as surely as daylight comes. Others think they are escaping taxes, which they believe others are bearing for them, usually not knowing that the solidarity of society is such that in the long run nobody successfully escapes what is properly his. History is the ironical comment of Providence on the stupid attempts of mankind to avoid their just responsibilities. They avo...