3.7 Contributors To Public Consumption

It is a principle of equity that those who benefit from consuming something are responsible for paying it. As such he considers that citizens are best governed by governments that attentively reckon the value each person derives from a public resources and arranges a method of taxation such that it is proportionate.

However, for much of public consumption, it is difficult to identify with accuracy which individuals benefit, and to what degree. Consider the criminal courts, which arrest and try offenders: this action results in the security of those he has not victimized, but would had the service not been rendered. As such, all must contribute a share to the cost of a service.

On the other hand, consider the civil courts, who settle disputes of a more commercial nature. It's clear at the outcome of a trial as to which side derived a benefit, though it is more customary for costs of court to be paid by a party who files suit if the suit is without merit. This is one of few instances in which the cost of a public service can be accurately assessed and properly charged.

But this is a rare instance: in most instances the benefit of a public good is shared by many individuals in a manner that is not practical to observe or measure, and the means by which government derives the revenue to pay for public goods are indiscriminate for lack of the ability to discriminate.

Local government tends to be better government in this regard: many public goods give the most benefit to people proximate to them - such that paying for such goods accurately places their cost on those who most benefit. A side benefit is that people have more direct access, and can give greater scrutiny, to the expenses of a local government: the government of a town or a small nation is generally held to task with greater vigilance than one who governs a larger territory.

There is a stray note about revenue derived from public land, in which the state acts as landlord to tenant farmers - but the land is obtained in some means from the public. Likewise, government-owned factories are reckoned to generate revenue for the state. Aside of the expense of their initial construction, the cost of which is extracted from citizens, few such institutions operate profitably when expenses are considered, and they are as such a drain upon the public rather than a contributor.

There is also some mention of acts of charity to the public by wealthy individuals, which was more common in the classical ages: wealthy men would erect monuments or build parks, provide funding for circuses and festivals, and other acts of magnanimity to gratify their vanity or win public favor. It is conveniently overlooked that the wealth of such individuals was at the deprivation of the very people upon whom these gifts were bestowed, or by the pillage of neighboring states, which taints the nobility of the act.

Say perceives that in the present age, public gifts are more unusual. There are more individuals who enjoy wealth, but less wealth per capita, and what they have is generally hard-won of their own industriousness and frugality, and the way in which they spend takes greater account of the benefit they wish to derive. Besides, such individuals are often motivated by vanity to provide gifts of little practical value to a community, such as roads or bridges, and more inclined to provide parks, statuaries, museums, and the like that contribute little to the public welfare besides the pleasure of spectacle.

(EN: My sense is there may be more private acts in the present day, and that the number of parks, libraries, and the like that are privately funded exceed in quantity and quality that which is publicly maintained. However, corporate charity falls into a gray area: when a corporation undertakes charitable acts, my sense is that few of the shareholders have input into the decision.)