To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.
Interpretation
Higher taxes on larger incomes can discourage hard work and saving.
This quote by John Stuart Mill warns against implementing a progressive tax system that penalizes those who earn more due to their hard work and financial prudence. Mill argues that taxing larger incomes at higher rates discourages people from being industrious and frugal, suggesting that it creates a disincentive for individuals to strive for economic success.
In practice
During a political debate about justice in taxation, one could introduce this quote to argue against disadvantageous tax policies.
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.
There should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences. It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine to suppose that it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another, unless their own interest is involved.
Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but political economy (and therefore knew it ill) have taken upon themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had.
Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.
All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.
Most actions derive not from your own initiative but from your family circumstances, your education, your calling, and so on. You must therefore give up a little time to performing actions which derive from yourself alone. They need not be important; quite insignificant actions fulfill the same purpose.
The creature born is the creature dying.
Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor.
I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.
I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.