An Exchange of Views on the Meaning of Distributism
Edward J. Dodson and Michael Greaney
[19 September, 2012]
Michael Greaney
Trying to correct the injustices of the past by assuming collective
guilt of the rich is neither morally justified nor politically
expedient. You cannot punish someone for something that you can't
prove he or she did on the assumption that belonging to a particular
group means someone is guilty. That was Hitler's argument.
Ed Dodson
: What I assert is the existence of long-term privilege under law,
legal means of acquiring wealth others produce without having to
exchange anything in return. Rather than collective guilt, the problem
is collective ignorance and passive acceptance of the status quo as,
perhaps, the best that can be had.
There is a good deal of sound economic research on the subject of "rent-seeking"
as a strategy for gaining wealth. Until our system of law is changed
to capture rents as public revenue, the question arises how do we pay
for public goods and services? If the evidence indicates that a large
portion of higher incomes are rent-derived, then I see nothing very
terrible in using the existing income tax bureaucracy to capture a
good portion of this unearned income. Exempt all individual incomes up
to the national median, or higher if you like, and then apply a
progressively higher rate of taxation to higher ranges of income.
Michael Greaney
It is also not morally justified to redistribute existing wealth. By
doing so you make property insecure for everyone. After all, once
you've made the rich poor, and the poor rich by violating the property
of some for the benefit of others, what is to stop anyone from
reversing the process?
Ed Dodson
Wealth is now being redistributed from those who produce it to those
who by virtue of quasi-monopolistic privileges are able to claim it as
their own. A just distribution of wealth would return to labor and
owners of capital goods but they contribute to wealth production.
Others, absentee owners of land, for example, produce nothing but
claim a portion of what is produced as rent. Political economists and
reformers have been challenging this unjust arrangement (without much
success, to be sure) for centuries.
Michael Greaney
. . . assuming, of course, that you have the power to redistribute in
the first place without establishing and maintaining a totalitarian
State. "Power," as Daniel Webster observed, "naturally
and necessarily follows property." Those with property - and thus
power - are not likely to surrender their wealth involuntarily unless
you put a gun to their heads - and they own the guns.
Ed Dodson
Interestingly, even some of those with the greatest amount of
personal wealth (e.g., Warren Buffet) side with those who call for a
truly progressive income tax. I would welcome this as transitional to
a "rent as revenue" system where in the future the income
tax could be eliminated because all income to private individuals and
businesses would be earned and not derived from rent-seeking
activities.
Michael Greaney
Ed, by making a blanket statement that the only way the rich could
have gained their wealth is illegally or immorally is to assume
collective guilt. You cannot justly deal in generalities like that.
You must have a specific case, present your evidence and argument, and
prove that the accused did what you claim. The plain fact is that most
of the rich either inherited their wealth, or financed capital out of
future savings, not past savings. Both of these are perfectly
legitimate. Since in binary economics you own your capital in the same
way that you own your labor, the profits realized from capital are as
fully "earned" as any other income.
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