[De la richesse commerciale, Sismondi, 1803, Original, 70-71]
Supposons qu’un impôt sur la consommation ôte à cet ouvrier cinq centimes par jour, il me semble qu’il est assez indifférent pour lui que cet impôt se lève sur les objets de nécessité ou sur ceux de luxe. Dans le premier cas ses denrées lui coûteront 85 centimes, et il ne lui en restera que quinze à consacrer à ses jouissances, dans le second, elles continueront à lui coûter 80 centimes, et ses jouissances 20, mais celles-ci ne seront pas plus grandes que celles qu’il obtenait auparavant avec quinze. Soit que son pain lui coûte un sou de plus, ou que ce soit son vin, il me semble que ce sera toujours sa consommation de vin qu’il diminuera, parce qu’elle fait pour lui partie du superflu et celle de pain partie du nécessaire; il n’y aura pas plus de raison ce me semble, dans un cas que dans l’autre, pour qu’il obtienne une augmentation de salaire. L’accroissement du salaire nécessaire occasionné par l’impôt aura donc diminué le revenu national, mais cette diminution portera sur le revenu de la classe ouvrière, pour toute la portion de denrées taxées qu’elle consomme.
[Translation]
Let us suppose that a tax upon consumption should deprive this labourer of 5 centimes a day, and it seems to me that it would not matter to him whether this tax is levied upon necessaries or luxuries. In the first case, his subsistence would cost him 85 centimes and there would be left only 15 for him to appropriate for his enjoyments; in the second, his subsistence would continue to cost him 80 centimes, and his enjoyments 20, but the latter would not be in as much profusion as he would obtain for 15 centimes in the first case. Whether it may cost him one penny [sue] more to buy bread or wine, it seems to me that it is always his consumption of wine that he would repress, because it comprises of a part of the surplus for him and that of bread a part of the necessary. There would be no more reason in one case than in the other, it seems to me, for which he obtains a rise in wage. The rise of the necessary wages as a consequence of a tax would, therefore, have decreased the national revenue, but this decrease would weigh upon the revenue of the labouring class, for the entire part of taxed staples consumed by that class.
