I’ve always thought the argument set forth by some conservatives, that individuals shouldn’t have to pay an extra share of taxes on their wealth because they made it themselves, i.e. without assistance from the government taxes support, was a sop for the dopes. However a person may have acquired property, after all, it’s government that lends that property value by securing it and by ensuring a public order in which the value of more nebulous forms of property – e.g. money, copyrights, sports franchises – can be realized. As usual, Rousseau puts the point better than I could have done:
“A third [reason for taxing the rich at a higher rate], and one which we should always rank first, is that of the use-values that each person draws from the social confederation, which strongly protects the immense possessions of the rich man and hardly leaves the poor man free to enjoy the shack he has built with his own hands. All the advantages of society, aren’t they for the powerful and the rich? All lucrative employments, aren’t they filled by these men alone? All exceptions and exemptions, aren’t they reserved for them? And public authority, doesn’t it favor them? If a wealthy man robs his creditors or does other such base things, is he not sure of impunity? The blows he hands out, the violaions he commits, even the murders and assassinations of which he makes himself guilty, aren’t these the kind of affairs one simply puts to sleep, and after six months no one speaks of them anymore? If that same man gets robbed, the whole police force is set in motion, and woe to any innocents that they suspect. Is he passing through a dangerous place? Behold, there are escorts in the field. Has the axle of his carriage just snapped? Everyone flies to his aid. Is someone making noise at his door? One word, and everything is quiet. Does the crowd inconvenience him? He makes a sign, and everything arranges itself. A carter happens to be in his way? His men are ready to shove him out of it, and fifty honest footman going about their business will be crushed before this lazy knave in his carriage suffers any delay. All these signs and measures of respect don’t cost the rich man a penny; they’re the right of the wealthy, not the price of wealth. How different is the situation of a poor man! The more humanity owes him, the more society refuses him. For him, every door is closed, even when he has the right to expect to find them open; and, if at some time he should get the justice he deserves, it is with more effort than another would expend to get forgiveness. If there’s work (corvee) to do, if there’s a militia to raise, that’s when the poor man gets preferred; he carries always, aside from his own burden, that of his neighbor who’s rich enough to get himself exempted. When the least accident befalls him, everybody runs away. If his little cart flips over, never mind his getting any help: I’d count him lucky if he can avoid abuse from the thugs of a young duke. In a word, all free aide flees him in his moment of need, precisely because he has nothing with which to pay it; but I take him for a man beyond saving if he has the bad luck to have an honest soul, a pretty daughter, and a powerful neighbor…
“Let us sum up, in a few words, the social pact that unites these two classes: ‘You need me, because I’m rich and you’re poor; so, let’s make a deal: I’ll permit you to have the honor of serving me, provided you give me what little you have left for the effort I take to give you orders.’
“If we add all these things up with care, we will find that, to share out the tax burden in an equitable and truly proportional manner, the imposition should not be made only in the ratio of the goods of those contributing, but also in a composite ratio according to the difference between their conditions and the superfluity of their goods. A very important and difficult calculation, which honest civil servants who know their arithmetic nonetheless perform every day, but which men like Plato and Montesquieu don’t dare undertake except in fear and trembling, begging heaven for enlightenment and integrity.”
That much-vaunted “resentment” of Rousseau which has caused modern political scientists to approach his work only “in fear and trembling” really amounts to nothing more than this: Rousseau understands that the rich enjoy privileges that go very far indeed beyond what they may have “earned,” and he proposes measures to remedy the situation.