274 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

In dealing with the first of the aspects of equity in taxarion,
 named above, it is to be remembered that, in modern
social conditions, the services of government are a matter
of prime necessity to every citizen. The wealth he owns,
the revenue he enjoys, even life itself, depend on efficient
administration of well-devised laws. The total utility, then,
of the services of the government to the citizen is measurable
only by the total of his possessions, which are secured to him
through the operations of the organs of the government.
But, as in reference to the necessaries of physical life, it is
their marginal utility rather than their total utility which is
the measure of what is given for them, so, in reference to
these necessaries of social life, the relative importance to
different persons will correspond to the marginal utility of
the services of government to each. This same conception,
extended to cover the aggregate of citizens, gives a standard
by which to judge of the point raised at the end of the last
paragraph, namely, the amount which it is reasonable for a
society to devote to government expenditures.
The view has sometimes been supposed to commend
itself, that a fair contribution to taxation is secured when
all citizens pay equally. As each owes everything he has
to what the government represents, in the maintenance of
law and order and in security from external violence, each
pays justly when each pays equally with his neighbours.
This would certainly be reasonable if all citizens were roughly
equal in wealth, or in revenue, or both. In any state of
society where wealth is distributed with approximate equality,
the services or payments, required for the general ends of
the society as an aggregate, would be equal from each
member of the society. But where wealth is distributed
anequally, there is a consciousness of inequality in such
equal distributiom of public burdens. Whether clearly
conceived, or only operative as a vague idea, the differences
in the marginal utility of the services of government are felt
to make equality of burdens, in the sense here described, an
unjust distribution of those burdens.
In passing, it may be observed that the suggestion is
sometimes urged that the recipient of government services