have chosen opposite sides; the one looks to what it is just that the
individual should receive, the other to what it is just that the
community should give. Each, from his own point of view, is
unanswerable; and any choice between them, on grounds of justice, must
be perfectly arbitrary. Social utility alone can decide the preference.

How many, again, and how irreconcileable, are the standards of justice
to which reference is made in discussing the repartition of taxation.
One opinion is, that payment to the State should be in numerical
proportion to pecuniary means. Others think that justice dictates what
they term graduated taxation; taking a higher percentage from those who
have more to spare. In point of natural justice a strong case might be
made for disregarding means altogether, and taking the same absolute sum
(whenever it could be got) from every one: as the subscribers to a mess,
or to a club, all pay the same sum for the same privileges, whether they
can all equally afford it or not. Since the protection (it might be
said) of law and government is afforded to, and is equally required by,
all, there is no injustice in making all buy it at the same price. It is
reckoned justice, not injustice, that a dealer should charge to all
customers the same price for the same article, not a price varying
according to their means of payment. This doctrine, as applied to
taxation, finds no advocates, because it conflicts strongly with men's
feelings of humanity and perceptions of social expediency; but the
principle of justice which it invokes is as true and as binding as those
which can be appealed to against it. Accordingly, it exerts a tacit
influence on the line of defence employed for other modes of assessing
taxation. People feel obliged to argue that the State does more for the
rich than for the poor, as a justification for its taking more from
them: though this is in reality not true, for the rich would be far
better able to protect themselves, in the absence of law or government,