Re: Lucas: Shame on the redistributionists

From: sinister (sinister_at_nospam.invalid)
Date: 06/07/04 

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 10:57:56 GMT

"Matt Timmermans" <mt0000@sympatico.nospam-remove.ca> wrote in message
news:x8Swc.4741$8k4.186668@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
> "sinister" <sinister@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:rNJwc.7944$QI2.5944@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> >
> > "Matt Timmermans" <mt0000@sympatico.nospam-remove.ca> wrote in message
> > > Determining the optimal distribution and how best to encourage
movement
> in
> > > that direction is far more practically important than worrying about
> _how_
> > > it got to be the way it is.
> >
> > Not when one of the most important factors behind the current
distribution
> > is government forcing people to pay holders of titles to scarce natural
> > resources like land for the use of said resources.
>
> If the most socially efficient distribution of wealth is highly skewed,
and
> I believe it is, and if it's better to have one's wealth determined by
past
> economic success than by lottery or decree, and I believe it is, then
there
> must be some mechanism in place to give wealth some inertia, i.e., to make
> it easy for wealthy people to acquire wealth, so that they can stay
wealthy
> even with their increased consumption.
>
> Without such mechanisms, the distribution of wealth would tend to go flat.
>
> Since any income produced by any such mechanism is economically classified
> as rent, I have to confess that I think a little rent is a good thing.
> There may be too much rent available today, and deciding how much is best
is
> part of the problem I referred to as important above, but the basic notion
> of rent is not inherently evil when it is created and maintained by
> consensus.
>
> I, and most people, I think, want whatever wealth I leave to my children
to
> be of benefit to them, for example -- that's one of the primary reasons I
> work for it. Since I can't expect a free society to allow special rent
just
> for my kids, I must concede it to everyone else. Similarly, I expect
> whatever wealth I manage to accrue during my lifetime to be of benefit to
> me, so I grant the same to everyone else as well. We should all have to
> play the game by the same rules, and we pretty much do.
>
> In short, while I accept Georgists' argument that rent taxes are
> economically efficient, I don't accept their claim to the moral high
ground.
> I think that the benefits of wealth should exist, and I accept the
> fundamental mechanism that produces them -- rent -- because it's better
than
> the alternatives, and so a lot of the hue and cry about the "evil
landlords"
> who currently have the wealth and get to collect these rents sounds like
> petty jealousy to me.

That's because you don't understand the moral force of the Georgist
position.

In the case of land, it's not just some abstract economic rent---it's
*scarcity* rent. The land you give your kids is a scarce resource---if your
kids have privileged claim to it, that means someone else is *not* allowed
any access to it. And that position is enforced by the threat of government
violence.

Your position, at least on that of land, is feudalistic. You're not
conceding rent to "everyone else"; you're conceding it to those that already
have title to scarce resources.

As for "We should all have to play the game by the same rules, and we pretty
much do," that's a meaningless statement from a moral perspective. The
institution of slavery was also built on a system of rules. The question is
whether the rules are *fair*.

>
> --
> Matt.
>
>

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Lucas: Shame on the redistributionists
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