Colbert en Mazarin over de overheidsschuld

Au sommet de son pouvoir mais à la fin de sa vie, le cardinal Mazarin achève l'éducation du jeune roi Louis XIV, sous le regard de la reine-mère Anne d'Autriche et d'un Colbert qui attend son heure. Tous ces personnages, leurs calculs et leurs rivalités ne sont pas sans rappeler les jeux du pouvoir et ces liens étroits entre affaires publiques et vie privée dont nous sommes témoins aujourd'hui sur la scène politique. Tant il est vrai que les régimes changent mais que les motivations des hommes restent les mêmes...et dans la lumière de l'actualité avec ce passage entre Colbert et Mazarin sur la dette publique 

 

 

Colbert : Pour trouver de l'argent, il arrive un moment où tripoter ne suffit plus. J'aimerais que Monsieur le surintendant m'explique comment on s'y prend pour dépenser encore quand on est déjà endetté jusqu'au cou…

Mazarin : Quand on est un simple mortel, bien sûr, et qu'on est couvert de dettes, on va en prison. Mais l'Etat… L'Etat, lui, c'est différent. On ne peut pas jeter l'Etat en prison. Alors, il continue, il creuse la dette ! Tous les Etats font ça.

Colbert : Ah oui ? Vous croyez ? Cependant, il nous faut de l'argent. Et comment en trouver quand on a déjà créé tous les impôts imaginables ?

Mazarin : On en crée d'autres.

Colbert : Nous ne pouvons pas taxer les pauvres plus qu'ils ne le sont déjà.

Mazarin : Oui, c'est impossible.

Colbert : Alors, les riches ?

Mazarin : Les riches non plus. Ils ne dépenseraient plus. Un riche qui dépense fait vivre des cen­taines de pauvres.

Colbert : Alors, comment fait-on ?

Mazarin : Colbert, tu raisonnes comme un fromage ! Il y a quantité de gens qui sont entre les deux, ni pauvres ni riches… Des Français qui travaillent, rêvant d'être riches et redoutant d'être pauvres ! C'est ceux-là que nous allons taxer, encore plus, toujours plus ! Ceux-là ! Plus tu leur prends, plus ils travaillent pour compenser… C'est un réservoir inépuisable. »

 

 Source

 

Poue en savoir plus sur Antoine Rault, l'auteur du " Diable rouge " : http://www.lefigaro.fr/theatre/2009/04/28/03003-20090428ARTFIG00362-antoine-rault-de-la-politique-a-la-scene-.php

Adam Smith over het fenomeen van de adoratie van de machtigen en wat we vandaag "celebrities" noemen:

"The rich man glories in his riches, because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world, and that mankind are disposed to go along with him in all those agreeable emotions with which the advantages of his situation so readily inspire him. At the thought of this, his heart seems to swell and dilate itself within him, and he is fonder of his wealth, upon this account, than for all the other advantages it procures him." When we consider the condition of the great, in those delusive colours in which the imagination is apt to paint it, it seems to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state which, in all our waking dreams and idle reveries, we had sketched out to ourselves as the final object of all our desires. We feel, therefore, a peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of these who are in it. We favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What pity, we think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a situation! We could even wish them immortal; and it seems hard to us, that death should at last put an end of such perfect enjoyment. It is cruel, we think, in nature, to compel them from their exalted stations, to that humble, but hospitable home, which she has provided for all her children. Great King, live for ever! is the compliment, which, after the manner of eastern adulation, we should readily make them, if experience did not teach us its absurdity. Every calamity that befals them, every injury that is done them, excites in the breast of the spectator ten times more compassion and resentment than he would have felt, had the same hings happened to other men. It is the misfortunes of Kings only which afford the proper subjects for tragedy. They resemble, in this respect, the misfortunes of lovers. Those two situations are the chief which interest us upon the theatre; because, in spite of all that reason and experience can tell us to the contrary, the prejudices of the imagination attach to these two states a happiness superior to any other. To disturb, or to put an end to such perfect enjoyment, seems to be the most atrocious of all injuries. All the innocent blood that was shed in the civil wars, provoked less indignation than the death of Charles I. A stranger to human nature, who saw the indifference of men about the misery of their inferiors, and the regret and indignation which they feel for the misfortunes and sufferings of those above them, would be apt to imagine, that pain must be more agonizing, and the convulsions of death more terrible to persons of high rank, than to those of meaner stations. Upon this disposition of mankind, to go along with all the passions of the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction of ranks, and the order of society. Our obsequiousness to our superiors more frequently arises from our admiration for the advantages of their situation, than from any private expectations of benefits from their good-will. Their benefits can extend but to a few; but their fortunes interest almost every body. We are eager to assist them in compleating a system of happiness that approaches so near to perfection; and we desire to serve them for their own sake, without any other recompence but the vanity or the honour of obliging them. Neither is our deference to their inclinations founded chiefly, or altogether, upon a regard to the utility of such submission, and to the order of society, which is best supported by it. Even when the order of society seems to require that we should oppose them, we can hardly bring ourselves to do it. That kings are the servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of reason and philosophy; but it is not the doctrine of nature.