The Political Economy of Juan de Mariana - Ludwig von Mises Institute

FISCAL CONTRIBUTIONS
may also pursue an economic purpose. This is the underlying
principle in the modern protective tariff policy. Mariana
advocated high tariffs on imported goods partly in
order to protect native simplicity, and partly to encourage
home production. According to him it would he better to
draw various artisans and skilled laborers to the country
than to export precious metal abroad for goods which might
easily he produced in the country. This would also mean
an increase in population and would meet the problem of
emigration.
Our survey shows that the history of Public Finance as it
has been taught in the past needs considerable modification.
If it is true that until recently the benefit theory was accepted
both as a basis and a norm for taxation, this is in part due
to the utter neglect of scholasticism. It is not the German
Cameralists who discovered the principle of "ability to pay,"
as German scholars are in the habit of asserting. Had these
scholars interrogated mediaeval scholasticism, they would
have found that this principle was clearly understood by the
Churchmen of the later Middle Ages. The three "conditions"
to which every just tax must conform were likewise
considered by these writers as a matter of course. St. Thomas
had accepted the Aristotelian view of the State and the principle
of distributive justice in apportioning the honors and
burdens in a commonwealth. The principle of "ability to
pay" is but a practical application of distributive justice. It
was further amplified by the three "conditions" with which
every just tax must comply.
The author of this monograph does not claim for the
Spanish Jesuits the credit of having first set: forth the
scholastic doctrine of taxation but he does maintain that they
have more fully elaborated what was already in substance
taught by St. Thomas and other earlier writers. It is Molina
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