historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 8. The science of politics. The Institutiones politicae
nowhere questions the necessity of taxation. He sees it as a necessary evil to
provide the commonwealth and those in charge with the means they need
to fulfil their administrative tasks properly and effectively. A primary task
of princes and rulers is the protection of the commonwealth and its inhabitants
and their goods against external aggression. 114 Protection involves
troops. ‘You cannot have troops without pay; and you cannot raise pay without
taxation.’ 115 This held especially true for the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth
century, where the military expenditure, which took up 80% of the
Generality’s total amount of expenditure, was financed primarily through a
detailed and complicated system of ‘funded debt’ that was made up of taxes
and loans raised by the provincial governments. 116
Taxation is a crucial instrument to finance the military means necessary to
survive in a world plagued by continuous warfare on an ever-larger scale and
inhabitated by that ambitious and greedy animal Boxhorn calls man. In such
a world the danger exists that the men responsible for governing the commonwealth
exploit the need for money to oppress those whom they are supposed
to protect with excessive taxation. The prime example here is the duke
of Alva’s introduction of the Tenth Penny that Boxhorn counts among the
reasons for the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt. 117 To prevent rulers from abusing
taxes for their own private gain, Boxhorn advocates a division of financial
responsibilities between different persons. ‘To ward off fraud and deceit
and to prevent the misappropriation of public funds, the power over public
money and its supervision and safe-keeping must be in different hands, while
account of the receipts and expenditures of public money must be given to a
third party.’ 118 It is not prudent to concentrate the power over public money
vectigalia, & tributa indicere, exigere, his nolentibus & invitis. Ad haec alibi certus descriptus est fisco
modus, quo ex utilitate publicâ placuit, non omnia, etiam ob crimen laesae Majestatis, bona damnatorum,
ei inferre, sed certam tantum & modicam eorum partem. Quin & plerunque Imperantes, Regalia,
quae sic vocant, aliaque omnia in quibus vis & opes Reipublicae sitae sunt, donare, vendere, & alienare
alio aliquo titulo, sine expresso populi consensu, prohibentur.’ Ibidem, I.10.18, p. 149. ‘(X.) Tributa sine
injuriis exigi debent, & imperari certis legibus, non praestitutis tantum, sed in vulgus editis, ex quarum
praescripto in exigendis tributis publicani versentur.’
114 Ibidem, I.12, pp. 180-208, and Boxhorn, Disquisitiones politicae, VI, pp. 26-32; VIII, pp. 40-43; XVI,
pp. 74-78; XXIII, pp. 101-3; XXV-XXVI, pp. 109-16; XXX, pp. 132-40; XXXXI, pp. 192-98. See also Nieuwstraten,
“Why the Wealthy should Rule”.
115 Ibidem, I.9, pp. 132-33, and I.10, p. 156; Boxhorn, Commentariolus, XII.1, p. 170; idem, Nederlantsche
historie, pp. 207-8. The quote is from Tacitus, The Histories, IV.74.1-2, p. 223. See also Cassius Dio,
Roman History, LII.28.
116 See chapter 4, especially footnote 17.
117 Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, I.10, p. 155. ‘Est ergò juxta IV. & V. à nimiis, imprimis & quibus
impares sunt subditi abstinendum. Illud semper fit, ut qui nimium petit, etiam illud, quod aequum est,
non consequatur. Inter causas certè Belgicorum motuum & illa censetur, quod Albanus decimas bonorum
ab illis exigeret, quod cùm praestare sine summo rerum suarum dispendio non possent, & tamen
ille tyrannicè urgeret, tanto dulcius libertatis nomen fiebat eis, in quam tandem se vindicarunt.’
118 Ibidem, I.10.22, p. 151. ‘Ad avertendas fraudes & dolos, praeveniendumque crimen publici pecu-