Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

We now turn to the last major subsection of Book V, Chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations: “Taxes upon Consumable Commodities” (WN, V.ii.k). Here, Adam Smith makes a number of timeless points, all of which are still relevant today: … Continue reading →

🤡 Happy April Fools Day! 👹 Today, I will discuss Adam Smith’s timeless answer to the following April-fools-like question: should the government impose a Bernie Sanders-style wealth tax on billionaires? To see Smith’s answer to this query, we must turn … Continue reading →

It was the North American libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick who famously argued that redistributive taxation is the moral equivalent of forced labour in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), his book-length response to John Rawls’s Theory of Justice. For his part, … Continue reading →

“What in France is called the personal taille is, perhaps, the most important tax upon the profits of stock employed in agriculture that is levied in any part of Europe.” (WN, V.ii.g.5) How should business firms and self-employed workers (e.g. … Continue reading →

One of my daughters (Adys Ann) asked me to post this number today; it’s her new favorite Laufey song. According to Wikipedia (links in the original; footnotes omitted), “‘How I Get’ was released as a single for the album’s deluxe … Continue reading →

We began our review of Adam Smith’s survey of “stamp-duties and duties upon registration” — i.e. stamp taxes and registration/recording fees — in my previous post. Today, I want to focus on Smith’s nuanced critique of France’s unpopular “tax farm” … Continue reading →

“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.” (V.ii.h.12; my emphasis) At this point in The Wealth of Nations — i.e. between Articles 2 and 3 … Continue reading →

“In general there is not, perhaps, any one article of expence or consumption by which the liberality or narrowness of a man’s whole expence can be better judged of than by his house-rent.” (WN, V.ii.e.7) Thus far this week, we … Continue reading →

“The attention of the sovereign can be at best but a very general and vague consideration of what is likely to contribute to the better cultivation of the greater part of his dominions. The attention of the landlord is a … Continue reading →

Alternative title: Adam Smith’s Maxims of Taxation What does ICE and the IRS have in common? Broadly speaking, the main job of the IRS is to collect federal taxes; ICE’s job, by contrast, is to deport taxpayers! [1] For his … Continue reading →