Re: Lucas: Shame on the redistributionists

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

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 11:39:48 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 misread this the first time I saw it, probably because it's extremely odd.

Why would you ever think that the "most socially efficient distribution of
wealth is highly skewed"? What does that even mean?

> 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.

Bizarre. You're taking the position that the wealthy should be able to
consume at higher levels and not work or take high risks to maintain their
wealth.

> Without such mechanisms, the distribution of wealth would tend to go flat.

And the problem with that is...?

> 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.

Fine, except that your line of reasoning is morally repugnant.

> 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.

No, it should be maintained by *informed 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

Bizarre and incoherent. Rent is zero-sum---when you collect rent, someone
else pays for it. So when your kids benefit by collecting rent, others'
kids lose. Not only that; the benefits are conferred by an enforcement
regime backed by the government's monopoly on violence.

> 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.

It's not petty jealousy---it's a position informed by a *coherent* theory of
social justice as well as theory and empirical results on economic
efficiency, as opposed to incoherent feudalistic rantings informed by a
sense of entitlement.

>
> --
> Matt.
>
>

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  • Re: Lucas: Shame on the redistributionists
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