In The Triumph of Liberty, author Jim Powell tells the stories of the men and women who helped give freedom to the world. The stories cover "the struggle to abolish slavery, stop wars, and overthrow tyrants, as well as the fight for human rights, religious toleration, individualism, the liberation of women and other such freedoms."
One of the standouts, among many in the book, was the story of Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1778).
As we approach a period of excessive taxation through increased business license taxes, the proposed Value Added Tax, increases of National Insurance premiums, and the introduction of mandatory pensions, Turgot's warnings during the 18th Century are worth considering. He wrote from 1749 until his death in 1778.
In 1774 Turgot was named Comptroller-General of France he got the king to support the following intiatives:
No Bankruptcy.
No Increase of Taxes.
No Loans.
No bankruptcy, either avowed or disguised by illegal reductions.
No increase of taxes; the reason for this being in the condition of your people, and still more, in that of your Majesty’s own generous heart.
No loans; because every loan diminishes always the free revenue and necessitates at the end of a certain time, either bankruptcy or the increase of taxes. In times of peace it is permissible to borrow only in order to liquidate old debts, or in order to redeem other loans contracted on less advantageous terms.
To meet these three points there is but one means. It is to reduce expenditure below revenue, and sufficiently below it to insure each year a saving of twenty millions, to be applied in redemption of the old debts. Without that, the first gunshot will force the State into bankruptcy.
The question will be asked incredulously, ‘On what can we retrench?’ and each one, speaking for his own department, will maintain that nearly every particular item of expense is indispensable. They will be able to allege very good reasons, but these must all yield to the absolute necessity of economy.
It is, then, of absolute necessity for your Majesty to require that the heads of all the departments should concert with the Minister of Finance. It is indispensable that he should discuss with them, in presence of your Majesty, the degree of necessity for all your proposed expenses. It is above all necessary, as soon as you, Sire, shall have decided upon the strictly necessary scale of maintenance of each department, that you prohibit the official in charge of it to order any new expenditure without having first arranged with the Treasury the means of providing for it. . . .
Read more from Powell's majestic work on Turgot here…
Yet our political elite continue as if there are no historical references for sensible public policy and limited government.
Maybe it's time they heed Turgot's warning that government is incapable of guaranteeing economic security?
As Hans F. Sennholz pointed out in the forward to a 1993 Freeman Classic series of essays, Politicized Medicine, "A society that creates such rights (to services and benefits) becomes a conflict society in which political might is the source of all rights. And the rights of some become the tyranny of others." (Emphasis added)
So I ask again, where is our Turgot?
