Ferghane Azihari is general delegate of the Free Academy of Human Sciences (ALSH) and member of the Society of Political Economy (SEP). He published
The Ecologists Against Modernity
.
The trial of Prométhée at the Presses de la Cité
(which received the Turgot 2021 Prize in the “young talent” category).
"A nation that tries to prosper by taxation is like a man in a seal trying to lift himself by the hilt,"
said Churchill. You don't need to be an economist to understand his point. All tax specialists concede its dissuasive effects on men. The protectionist wants tariffs to weaken world trade. The ecologist wants to discourage pollution through environmental taxes. So what are the supporters of a heavier confiscation looking for on these sources of prosperity that are labor and capital? It makes you wonder if collective ruin is not their ulterior objective.
Let us judge rather by the words that the Communard Tony Moilin made in the 19th century:
"Whether or not this conforms to the principles of political economy [...], we no longer want the rich, and the only way to destroy undoubtedly wealth is to confiscate purely and simply any portion of income exceeding the limit drawn by law ”
. Thus, regardless of the lessons of economics, confiscation would have no other objective than to
"destroy wealth"
and not to stimulate it! Socialists once had the honesty to admit that their projects were motivated less by philanthropy than by the desire to appease that envious resentment which Aristotle defined as the pain caused by the good fortune of others.
When the French revolution forbade disinheriting
The issue of inheritance and donations is the area where this resentment is most palpable: we want to despoil those who pass on a heritage that has been taxed all their life, on the grounds that we are not the beneficiaries of their generosity.
It is no coincidence that the libertarian thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon qualified inheritance rights as
“real theft”
.
Theft is all the more perverse in that it usurps the clothes of virtue.
The enemies of inheritance are based on a misguided meritocracy.
Contrary to what we regularly hear, the republican tradition has never opposed merit to donations.
On the contrary, it is the Mountain Convention which, at the height of Robespierrism, falls into the opposite excess by destroying, by the law of 17 Nivôse Year II, the right of fathers to disinherit children.
However, let us remember that it is in the name of the legator's right to reward his successors who are the most deserving from his point of view, both inside and outside the family, that the opponents of egalitarian division, of the hereditary reserve or of the birthright resulting from feudalism demanded total testamentary freedom.
Revolutionaries are wary of the freedom left to the father of a family.
Marta Peguera-Poch
But the revolutionaries did not hear it that way. By guaranteeing all children an identical portion of their parents' patrimony, they believed they were working for equality by weakening "paternal despotism".
“Revolutionaries are wary of the freedom left to the father of a family. Mainly because they presuppose that fathers are reactionary, whereas young people are, by definition; enthusiastic about the Revolution ”
, notes the jurist Marta Peguera-Poch (
At the origins of the hereditary reserve of the Civil Code: legitimacy in a land of customs, Presses Universitaires d'Aix-Marseille, 2010
). Finally, at a time when child labor was the norm, it seemed right to reserve for them part of the heritage that they were helping to form.
In praise of idleness
In France, the legislation of the end of the 18th and 19th centuries remains unrelated to the idea that the reception of an inheritance constitutes a usurpation.
The historian Nicolas Delalande recalls that in 1894, the average rate of confiscation on estates was 3.28%.
It was not until 7 years later that progressivity took hold in terms of inheritance taxation under the influence of collectivist doctrines.
At the start of the 20th century, direct line inheritances were taxed at 1 to 5%, while transmissions between non-relatives were taxed between 15 and 20.5%.
Up to now, meritocracy has not condemned “natural” inequalities, nor the advantages of luck. She fought exclusively against discrimination which closed access to a profession because of arbitrary social criteria. This protectionism was widespread under the old regime and the era of corporations before being called into question by the Allarde decree of 1791 which established free competition.
It is however true that, from 1830, the disciples of Saint-Simon, like Prosper Enfantin and Armand Bazard, ended up confusing “merit” and “effort”. They condemned all wealth which, even peacefully acquired, had not been obtained by the sweat of the forehead of its holder. But this ethic of torture, from which confiscators in a hurry to strip the patrimony of others escape, is defective in that it condemns human solidarity and civilizational progress.
After all, those living in the 21st century do not owe their comfort to their efforts alone. We are all heirs. Each generation benefits from the knowledge and capital accumulated by its ancestors. This is what Condorcet recalls when he proclaims with enthusiasm that “each century will add new insights to the century which will have preceded it; and this progress […] will have no other limits than that of the universe ”.
The accumulation and transmission of progress through the ages in the service of the human condition are at the heart of the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
"Isn't it wonderful that we ourselves are embarrassed to cover the country with railways, on which perhaps none of us will travel?" »
, Asked the liberal writer Frédéric Bastiat in the middle of the industrial revolution. How would this benevolent process at the level of civilizations be malicious at the level of individuals?
The rigorous application of ethics which forbids each generation to receive the fruit of the efforts of its ancestors would perpetually assign men to the prehistoric way of life.
We can see how stupid the Saint-Simonian proposal to penalize inheritance to punish idleness is.
And even if this observation is not worth an argument, let us mention that we have to be naive to believe that the receipt of capital is sufficient to secure unconditional ease.
Alas, it is not.
Being born into a wealthy family does not dispense with the need to demonstrate entrepreneurial skills if one aspires to preserve and increase the capital received.
Ferghane azihari
Just as the annals of history are filled with civilizations that sank into decrepitude after a fantastic golden age, so do we count the individuals who have inherited tremendous capital that has depreciated for want of been well exploited. Arnaud Lagardère's difficulties sound like a reminder: being born into a wealthy family does not dispense with the need to demonstrate entrepreneurial skills if one aspires to preserve and increase the capital received.
Ensuring that heritage is owned by those most able to make it grow is, moreover, the function of the capital market. It rewards diligent owners with a capital gain, generous interest and an appreciation of the heritage. It punishes negligent owners with capital losses, mediocre interest (or even losses) and depreciation of assets. Finally, it allows the former to buy back the goods of the latter at a low price. Those who fear industrial dynasties capable of increasing their fortune over time praise, in spite of themselves, the entrepreneurial qualities of their members.
However, it is true that people are killing themselves less as their fortunes increase.
In 1870, the average French worker was working 3,000 hours a year to afford the standard of living of the 19th century.
He buys the standard of living today for half the hours now.
There again, it would be absurd to deplore the fact that the accumulation of capital and productivity gains over the centuries allowed the peoples who benefit from it to work less if they wish.
The aim of societies is to alleviate the pain of men.
The left which fantasizes about the "right to laziness" knows this well.
To disinherit individuals is to disinherit society
In his lessons on jurisprudence and his theory of moral sentiments, Adam Smith was not satisfied with stating that the faculty of freely bequeathing one's property is one of the most fundamental attributes of this right of property which distinguishes free men from slaves. He also recalls that testamentary succession is based on the social virtue of sympathy, which extends to relations between the living and the dead. Bequests are the quintessence of human brotherhood. That these altruistic transactions inspire such hostility is proof that solidarity is an insincere pretext among those whom Jean Bodin called the “impostors” responsible for imagining new taxes.
Thus, the jealousy which animates the enemies of the inheritance leads them to accuse the beneficiary of a legacy of committing an injustice against the one who is deprived of it.
This disfigured egalitarianism is of the same ilk as the discourse which would accuse the able-bodied of harming the infirm by the mere fact of being born in good health.
In both cases, and unlike “impostors”, someone who inherits an advantageous genetic and financial heritage from their social environment does not take anything away from their neighbor and does not prevent them from building up their own capital.
If it is not legitimate to receive what has been peacefully transmitted to him, no one is.
A critic of inheritance like Keynes conceded that bequest is one of the reasons a person refrains from spending their income.
Ferghane azihari
This is all the more true as the plundering of the legatee - and consequently of the testator who appointed him - is typical of what Frédéric Bastiat called
"unintelligent egoism"
: in the same way that the invalid gains nothing. that his fellows are as crippled as him, the most deprived of the earth has an interest in prospering in a society which rewards the increase in the mass of savings and capital among all social strata.
It is this accumulation that distinguishes developed nations from Third World countries.
However, the ability to dispose of our goods as we wish and bequeath the best social position to those we love is a powerful driving force for this accumulation.
It deters dissipation.
A critic of inheritance like Keynes conceded that bequest is one of the reasons a person refrains from spending their income. Alas, the one who was obsessed with consumption never understood that squandering is, unlike saving, by definition destructive and not creating wealth. At a time when the specter of “overconsumption” haunts generations anxious to bequeath to their children the most beautiful planet possible, will we finally get rid of the Keynesian prejudice which sees consumerism as the engine of ease when it doesn? is that its consequence?
It is therefore right that Frédéric Bastiat insisted before Keynes on the fact that the saver
always
acts
in the interest of society by putting an interval between the moment when he renders him services and when he withdraws products from them. equivalents, while promoting the multiplication of capital.
This is why his temperance is generally remunerated by interest.
It follows that the inheritance also benefits those for whom it is not intended.
Hence the warning from Frédéric Passy, great liberal economist and first Nobel Peace Prize winner: a society which disinherits its members disinherits itself.
