A Vital Measure

16 When considering the growth of plunder, dependent as it is on violence, it is well to reflect on a principle and to observe how violence expands and operates in a wealthy country. The principle: Man tends to satisfy his desires along the lines of least possible resistance. There are two ways, economically speaking, to satisfy desires: the eco nomic means, and the political means. By the economic means is meant the satisfaction of desires with the fruits of one's own labor. By the political means is meant the satisfaction of de sires with the fruits of the labor of others. The Evil of Tariffs The tariff was one of the earliest applications of plunder by political means. In principle it admitted of numerous evils of which the progressive income tax is guilty.* In this respect - that is, as the breeder of other evils which it implicitly endorsed - the tariff stands as the justifica tion for all the communistic ills that we have heaped upon ourselves. But in scope, in relative direct bearing on the total economy, the tariff has played a small, second fiddle to the Sixteenth Amendment and to many of the other devices of plunder. The tariff, itself, has not been an important octopus. Its role has been even worse: It has spawned octopi!