The Myth of Private Property

[Marat]

People often complain about high taxes or public welfare programs which seek to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor by claiming that these policies "steal my hard-earned money." One way to undermine such reasoning is to probe the definition of 'my money' in this context.

 

Obviously no one could become very wealthy if he lived isolated on a desert island and accumulated goods just by his own labor in fishing, lashing together bamboo sticks to make huts, or burning the underbrush for heat. Significant amounts of wealth can only be generated in cooperation with other people in a stable society, so no one can claim that the money produced is clearly 'his' rather than belonging to those who helped him, at least not as a matter of fact. But here the law intervenes to define some parts of communal production as belonging to some people and other parts to others. This defines a conventional notion of 'private property,' but this is itself only determined by the agreement of the majority of citizens to legislate the laws which mark off some of the social product as 'belonging to' X rather than to Y.

 

The important thing to realize is that this demarcation is purely conventional, and that changes in tax codes; innovations in civil law rules regarding the requirements of valid contracts; alterations in public zoning laws restricting the use of land; changes in building codes; variations in minimum wage laws; innovative obligatory pension contribution laws; changes in negligence liability and resulting changes in insurance rates, etc., all combine to determine what the public decides to define, quite arbitrarily, as what is yours and what is not. Also, surrounding forces in the social environment further add to or subtract from the wealth you have by decisions of the community as a whole. Thus your factory makes more money if public schooling is better since your workers will be more competent; the reliability of the publicly-provided justice system determines how much money you can make by enforcing contractual obligations in your favor; the honesty, skill, and number of policemen determines whether people can steal your wealth or whether you have to pay for your own private security service, etc.

 

Thus since what you have is determined by decisions which the surrounding community makes, it is perfectly consistent with the social nature of your possessions that the community can also take some of it back in taxes and wealth redistribution policies.

[Pangloss]

Thus since what you have is determined by decisions which the surrounding community makes, it is perfectly consistent with the social nature of your possessions that the community can also take some of it back in taxes and wealth redistribution policies.

 

I wonder how many people actually read the last sentence of your interesting post! Anyway, I'm going to pass right over an explanation of the individual and multiplicative nature of wealth creation and simply ask you two questions:

 

1) We don't have "wealth redistribution" policies in my country (the United States) -- any policy that results in money given to people is for a specific, usually temporary reason, such as unemployment compensation, not the general redistribution of money. The foundation of monetary intervention at the individual level is a whole different concept entirely, called the "safety net". Well a safety net is not "wealth redistribution" -- it's a completely different animal. So wealth redistribution is neither the foundation nor the justification for taxation.

 

Now, mind you, many politicians (such as President Obama, who will, this year, spend $1.3 trillion more than his government will take in -- a deficit greater than the annual revenue of all but three nations on this planet), may indeed have "wealth redistribution" as their ideological goal. But they don't state it directly because it would be political suicide.

 

So my question is: Do they have actual wealth redistribution policies in your country, Marat? I'm curious where that may be, and what those policies are. I'm always fascinated by the politics of other nations, and would love to learn more.

 

2) How much "wealth redistribution" do you feel is morally justified by your argument? 10%? 20%? You're making a moral argument, and you say that it's "some of it", so clearly you think that there is a certain level at which the amount exceeds the justification you've given. What amount would that be? Can you ballpark it for us?

 

Thanks.

[vordhosbn]

But what should government do for people wanting to live outside society - i.e. not paying taxes and not using any of the benefits of civilization.

Edited September 2, 2010 by vordhosbn

[CaptainPanic]

Wealth redistribution is quite common (to a certain extent) in Europe. To take the Netherlands as an example:

 

We have a progressive tax system.

From €0 - € 17.878,- you pay 33,50%

From € 17.878,- € 54.776, you pay 42%

From € 54.776 and over you pay 52%

(source in Dutch)

Then in addition, our VAT (value added tax) is 20% on most products.

We also pay road tax, tax if you have a pet, tax for owning a house, tax for waste processing, tax for inheriting something... and I probably forget quite some taxes.

And most of that money is then spent by the government in such a way that it benefits everyone. That in itself is already quite a wealth redistribution.

 

It's funny to talk to people from North-America, and explain them how much tax I pay. They often nearly faint when they realize that for every euro I spend, at least another euro goes straight to the tax office. But I like paying my taxes. Most of it is spent well, on healthcare, education, public transportation, infrastructure and reduced poverty.

 

Then, in addition, there is a progressive (depending on income again) refund of the health insurance.

Universities are heavily subsidized (yearly fee for any university is about € 1,600), but students get some additional money from the government. The amount they get depends on the income of their parents.

Public transportation is heavily subsidized. It's free for students, and I believe that elderly people get a reduction.

Healthcare is heavily subsidized as well, and equal for all (no special clinics for rich people - everybody goes to the same hospitals).

 

There are a few systems that seem to favor rich people too though. Subsidies for buying a house are not lower for more expensive houses. Road tax depends on the weight, not the price, of a car.

 

Hope this little summary of taxes in a system quite different from the USA is interesting.

[Pangloss]

That was interesting, yes, and thanks for the reply. But what is the underlying philosophical/legal basis for taxation in the Netherlands? The amount of tax you pay doesn't tell me this. Maybe if you could expand on this a bit:

 

Most of it is spent well, on healthcare, education, public transportation, infrastructure and reduced poverty.

 

In particular the bolded part?

[Mr Skeptic]

2) How much "wealth redistribution" do you feel is morally justified by your argument? 10%? 20%? You're making a moral argument, and you say that it's "some of it", so clearly you think that there is a certain level at which the amount exceeds the justification you've given. What amount would that be? Can you ballpark it for us?

 

I think what he's saying is that, in a sense, it's all wealth redistribution. We allow some forms of wealth redistribution, such as buying an item, and disallow others, such as stealing an item. Every government service, including the military, is wealth redistribution. So why do people get upset when the government takes money from one person and gives it to another, since that is effectively what the government does all the time?

[CaptainPanic]

That was interesting, yes, and thanks for the reply. But what is the underlying philosophical/legal basis for taxation in the Netherlands? The amount of tax you pay doesn't tell me this. Maybe if you could expand on this a bit:

Most of it is spent well, on healthcare, education, public transportation, infrastructure and reduced poverty.

In particular the bolded part?

I struggled with your question, because I am not sure there is a philosophy behind the system we have, other than that it seems to work quite well, and we became very wealthy while using it. The answer may be as complicated as the age-old discussion about what is better: socialism or capitalism.

 

I think that solidarity is a core-value of humans, especially of those who share a background, or in this case, of those who share a country. The point is that everyone can lose their job. Everyone can fall upon hard times. And therefore it is only humanitarian to assist those who go through tough times. At the same time, the poor people are also simply greedy. Rich people give, poor people receive.

 

But, take for example education. It is also simply an economic investment to educate almost everybody, and to allow almost everybody to study until their early twenties. The same goes (to a certain extent) for healthcare. Healthy people work harder. Healthcare and education cost money, but also (indirectly) generate money.

 

So, I believe the answer is more complicated than one or two core values that underlie our system. There are economic, humanitarian and other motivations.

 

The reduced poverty part means that people who have no work, no income, get money from the state. For a single person, this is € 652.19 (link in Dutch) per month... and that nearly doubles for people married people (unless the other partner is working). That also excludes some of the subsidies I mentioned earlier.

At this point I should probably add that this somehow doesn't mean that people aren't motivated to work. Unemployment is at 5.7% now, despite the crisis.

 

In the end, the goal of our economic system may be something along the lines of reducing poverty rather than increasing the cumulative wealth. But I should definitely add that this is something that is constantly debated in Dutch politics and media, and there are plenty of people who seem to think that our goal should simply be to increase our overall wealth, even if this wealth is all in the hands of a happy few. This balance shifts with every election and government we have.

 

I believe this to be an interesting statistic. And I also believe that high taxation can actually lead to increased wealth, if tax money is spent for the benefit of the people.

Edited September 2, 2010 by CaptainPanic

[Zolar V]

I struggled with your question, because I am not sure there is a philosophy behind the system we have, other than that it seems to work quite well, and we became very wealthy while using it. The answer may be as complicated as the age-old discussion about what is better: socialism or capitalism.

 

Isn't the above system you have so eloquently described a form of socialism? From what I have been able to discern, the more socialistic the state is the more it has the ability to grow wealth. While capitalism has less of an ability to grow capitalism due to the aggressive nature of individualistic economics? In accordance with what has been written socialism allows the majority of the people to do/work more, while capitalism forces work out of the majority but also hinders a significant amount of people from working and from amassing wealth.

 

Socialism's ability to allow more people to work is directly related to the wealth redistributive polices it has. These include school systems, road systems and health care. If the people are healthy and they are educated then they have the ability to work more.

Socialism also indirectly allows people to work more and also work on something they want to work at/for, by providing peace of mind. They do this through their safety net programs. Mental Health is under evaluated as a major factor in allowing people to work more

 

Capitalism's hindrances to work is also directly related to it's Lasse Fair policies regarding the industries that provide the products. Such as Health Insurance, College programs and Banking/Investment institutes. These free economic Industries directly influence the ability for the people to work. They do so by removing safety nets and increasing the amount of time a person has to work to afford the goods and services required to maintain a healthy and well educated life.

[ParanoiA]

Obviously no one could become very wealthy if he lived isolated on a desert island and accumulated goods just by his own labor in fishing, lashing together bamboo sticks to make huts, or burning the underbrush for heat.

 

I do not agree with this assumption. This is purely dynamic and this statement is a bit faith based. There may be no one around to find value in this wealth, but one can accumulate massive wealth under the right conditions and personal attributes.

 

Significant amounts of wealth can only be generated in cooperation with other people in a stable society, so no one can claim that the money produced is clearly 'his' rather than belonging to those who helped him, at least not as a matter of fact. But here the law intervenes to define some parts of communal production as belonging to some people and other parts to others. This defines a conventional notion of 'private property,' but this is itself only determined by the agreement of the majority of citizens to legislate the laws which mark off some of the social product as 'belonging to' X rather than to Y.

 

Very true. Other members of the animal kingdom contribute to an individual's wealth as well, not just humans, and they don't get any credit for it either. We only recognize other humans as owners of wealth. It should be noted that this private property concept is a peaceful substitute for pure might determining who gets what. Further, this private property concept influences the psychology of production and motivation which also benefits the rest of society.

 

Essentially, the extent to which people help each other produce in the aggregate, is immeasurable. And since we effect each other with every decision we make, from buying a house to eating twinkies, we cannot claim these effects are one sided and not reciprocated absent government redistribution.

 

The important thing to realize is that this demarcation is purely conventional, and that changes in tax codes; innovations in civil law rules regarding the requirements of valid contracts; alterations in public zoning laws restricting the use of land; changes in building codes; variations in minimum wage laws; innovative obligatory pension contribution laws; changes in negligence liability and resulting changes in insurance rates, etc., all combine to determine what the public decides to define, quite arbitrarily, as what is yours and what is not.

 

And note the difference between coercive confiscation and voluntary trade. Civil laws covering contracts are designed to facilitate a fair trade or agreement, whereas changes in tax code cover confiscating property from the individual involuntarily.

 

Also, surrounding forces in the social environment further add to or subtract from the wealth you have by decisions of the community as a whole. Thus your factory makes more money if public schooling is better since your workers will be more competent; the reliability of the publicly-provided justice system determines how much money you can make by enforcing contractual obligations in your favor; the honesty, skill, and number of policemen determines whether people can steal your wealth or whether you have to pay for your own private security service, etc.

 

Again, this suggest no reciprocation. If your factory makes more money because the workers are more competent, then their efficiency and total wealth creation is higher, which adds to the total wealth of the community, not to mention the increase in quality of life or standard of living for the employees. Contracts are between two or more people, there is no "your favor" - it's all party's favor.

 

Thus since what you have is determined by decisions which the surrounding community makes, it is perfectly consistent with the social nature of your possessions that the community can also take some of it back in taxes and wealth redistribution policies.

 

As a moral or ethical statement, I disagree. I disagree with the assumptions and one sided nature of your analysis. If we ignore the motivation to redistribute property, then all is well with this logic, if not incomplete. If we distinguish the difference between forceable confiscation of property by the state and voluntary trade between free people, then this logic crumbles.

 

We can do the same thing with murder. It is perfectly consistent to murder your neighbor since we know that armies murder too when invaded by another country. But when we distinguish the difference between national defense and personal joy killing it becomes clear that one is a moral imperative while the other is clearly immoral and unethical.

 

Further, to confiscate property by might undermines the entire purpose of the concept of private property in a civilized society in the first place - we're right back to using might to determine who gets what.

 

It's just more organized and looks prettier when we call it "government".

 

 

Private property is a myth in that ultimately we hold property by might, though we design social systems that obscure this reality into a cooperative arrangement of law. This is better for the group as a whole since it promotes developing attributes that benefit the group.

 

Fighting and killing to determine who gets what doesn't promote a society's evolution very well at all. Any society that uses a peaceful solution to allocate resources will likely overtake one that doesn't. And any society that can successfully design their system with the same competitive forces found in the former, while maintaining the peace and cooperation of the latter, will likely overtake them all.

Edited September 2, 2010 by ParanoiA

[ewmon]

Excellent OP!

 

Yes, people’s view of society seems like a form of justice.

How much are we willing to work for society? How much is society worth to us? What's "fair"?

Why must I pay for people who smoke too much or eat too much or who dropped out of high school?

Why fuss and complain about injustice here, instead of moving elsewhere? Is "there" really any better than "here"?

Wouldn't we all love to trim back or add onto our society in certain ways, but what would actually happen if we did?

 

"It's not fair" means it's not just.

[tomgwyther]

On the subject of "The myth of private property"

For the most part, private property is some what of a myth. [in the UK at least]

If you were wondering who owns your car, try not buying a tax disc for it; you'll find out quite quickly who owns it. you must pay for the privilege of having a car.

The DVLA openly state that they have the power to take away and crush your car. Since one cannot lawfully crush what one does not lawfully own, they must assume ownership. Hence your V5C document states that your are the cars 'keeper', not the owner.

Moreover, not paying for the right to own property will land you in similar Schick, The government can and do make compulsory purchases of land.

The money you have in the bank isn't yours either, it is merely the bank's liability to you (Icelandic savings account anyone?)

The money supposedly in your account is actually the bank's money, they might not be able to give it back, unless the bank is saved by the taxpayer or lender of last resort.

lamentably, the money in your pocket isn't really yours either. almost all money is owed to the bank as it is created as bank credit under the borrowers pledge to repay it.

 

“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”

 

Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board

 

"If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible -- but there it is."

 

Robert Hemphill. Credit Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

 

"I am afraid that the ordinary citizen

will not like to be told that banks

can and do create money

...And they who control

the credit of the nation

direct the policy of Governments

and hold in the hollow of their hands

the destiny of the people"

 

Reginald McKenna,

past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England

 

But hay-ho, look on the bright side, it's not all bad. Once you realise it all B******S you can actually live a very rich and fulfilling life. I'm off to the pub to exchange some bits of coloured linen-paper for some yummy beer.

[Marat]

Pangloss: Some other posters have already answered your question about whether the U.S. has redistributive policies, since any system of progressive taxation, such as the U.S. has, will operate with the effect of redistributing wealth from the richer (who pay more taxes to the government's coffers) to the poorer (who need more services from government programs). I grew up in the U.S. and have since lived in England, Austria, Germany, and Canada, so I have some personal experience of the way different wealth distribution systems operate.

 

When I note that some 'parts' of the social pool of wealth are private property, this is only because various legal regimes arbitrarily define them as private, not because they are actually generated independently of the surrounding social matrix and thus belong to the owner as of right. When there was no minimum wage law, much more of the income generated by factories could be defined as a result of this community legislative choice as the 'private property' of the factory owners than today, even though the factory, the work, the workers, and the owners might all stay the same.

 

No one would ever have any money or private property for more than a few minutes if there were not a justice system to authorize police action to enforce contracts and to defend accumulations of wealth against theft. This justice system has to be publicly funded to guarantee its objectivity and neutrality among the various parties opposing each other, so private property is shown to be possible only through public support, and from this origin it cannot be treated as necessarily private and insulated from seizure for the common good.

 

Paranoia: Contract law often has redistributive effects built into it, such as when contracts for employment are forced by statute to pay at least minimum wage, to provide workers with free accidental injury protection, or to cover the tort liability of employees on the job. Rules regarding good faith dealings, fiduciary duties, necessarily implied warranties, and minimum disclosure of information about something being sold all limit the kind of trades that courts will enforce by imposing on them purely social obligations, many of which make the deal less profitable for one party or the other. If you had a huge sugar plantation in the tropics you might be irritated to hear that the government had outlawed contracts for slavery.

 

While it is true that all socially operative wealth could be said to benefit the whole of society and so to be to the benefit of all, and so not to be 'in favor' of anyone in particular, obviously if I win a million dollars in the lottery and help improve the profit margin of the local businesses when I buy more products, the money is more 'in my favor' than in that of the entire community, although we all benefit to some degree.

 

I don't think your interesting distinction between forceable redistribution and voluntary redistribution ultimately solves the issue, since we all begin in a society which already exists and which is prepared to use force to enforce its taxation and redistribution policies. We might imagine some original contract in the state of nature when we all got together and decided to pool our resources to protect ourselves from surrounding tribes and internal lawlessness, and here there would be a voluntary agreement on how much we would pay in contributions for which services, just as though society were the product of an ordinary contract between equally free parties. This is what Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and more recently Rawls have imagined. But this is really only an intellectual model, not something that ever really happened, or if it did, we cannot know now whether these early people came together by agreement or by force. So from this we can't be sure that the taxes we pay are ultimately the product of our agreement. Even the theory that we have all agreed to these taxes because the form of government is a fiction, since not all of us have agreed by voting in favor of all tax programs in operation, and elections are seldom truly democratic, but are instead subject to all sorts of corrupting factors like campaign contributions which in effect give money a vote alongside real people.

[Pangloss]

Nice post from ParanoiA in #9 above.

 

 

I think what he's saying is that, in a sense, it's all wealth redistribution. We allow some forms of wealth redistribution, such as buying an item, and disallow others, such as stealing an item. Every government service, including the military, is wealth redistribution. So why do people get upset when the government takes money from one person and gives it to another, since that is effectively what the government does all the time?

 

Mr Skeptic:

If there's a difference in terminology that's cool, I don't wish to put words in anyone's mouth.

 

In answer to your question, I'll hold off and answer Marat directly, since I see he's already replied.

 

 

So, I believe the answer is more complicated than one or two core values that underlie our system. There are economic, humanitarian and other motivations.

 

CaptainPanic:

Okay, and another interesting post. But what I was wondering was if you could give some examples of wealth redistribution policies in your country that clearly have a foundation in the ideological concept of reducing poverty. Socialized health care, for example, would not be an example of this because the argument there is not reducing poverty or redistributing wealth to the poor; it's either healing people because they're sick (regardless of income level), or perhaps for some it's seen as a pragmatic action to preserve the work pool.

 

What policies do you have that exist on the basis of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, for use however they see fit?

 

 

Some other posters have already answered your question about whether the U.S. has redistributive policies, since any system of progressive taxation, such as the U.S. has, will operate with the effect of redistributing wealth from the richer (who pay more taxes to the government's coffers) to the poorer (who need more services from government programs).

 

Marat:

You're certainly welcome (and accurate) to observe that that's its effect, but its stated purpose is not socialistic at all. And that being the case, it makes sense that we be quite vigilant about what programs are initiated, what their goals are, and what, exactly, they will accomplish. Since there's no standing legal precedent for socialist income redistribution, such would represent a critical change in the country's nature, and is therefore validly questioned.

 

You should also understand that the mainstream political left predominantly rejects socialism just as does the right. President Obama is a vocal public supporter of our regulated capitalist form, and it was President Bill Clinton who famously said in 1996, when he signed the Welfare Reform Act, that we were going to "end welfare as we know it". (And he was right, and that legislation is generally viewed as having ended our national foray into ideological redistribution, thus removing the precedent you're seeking.)

 

I also think Americans have a fundamental problem with the idea of soft-selling socialism (i.e. your argument that they shouldn't be concerned because we're already doing X or Y, which comes across to Main Street America as "just sit back and relax while we give it to you up the derriere"). I think that's what television and movies have been doing for most of the last century, and I think it helps to explain the rise of Fox News Channel and Conservative Talk Radio -- people are tired of being back-stepped towards socialism. It's not what we're about, and they believe we have good reasons for not being that way. And frankly there's no irrefutable argument that they're wrong.

 

There were two things I never thought I'd see the end of when I was growing up: The Cold War, and the Welfare State. Both were demolished within half a decade. Sadly, aside from 9/11, this country has never seemed to agree on anything since.

[Marat]

I agree with your diagnosis of the general American attitude towards any policies which label themselves as socialistic. However, even though it is seldom explicitly claimed that any policies have a redistributive intent, the fact that you agree that they do often have such an effect supports my general point that in reality all private wealth is immersed in a vast, social, causal network which infects it heavily with a public character. Once you have a tax system which taxes people according to their wealth, and a social service system which either provides services without user fees to everyone needing them (e.g., most roads, bridges, the benefit of military and police protection), or provides more services to those who need them more (e,g., welfare programs, funding of county hospitals, tuition at public universities subsidized by grants to poor students and funded by taxes and higher tuition fees for richer students), then the apparatus of the state is essentially redistributive, even though it doesn't advertise itself as such. Even reduced bus fare for senior citizens and students, who generally have less income than the middle-aged workers who pay full fare, is a mild device for redistributing wealth.

[CharonY]

Public health care is definitely and probably a very strong element of health distribution. See it that way. Without a public system high-quality healthcare is generally only limited to the rich. By taking higher taxes from them, they help to pay for the poor. Who, incidentally have worse health than the rich.

[pioneer]

Say we did the taxes and redistribution using grades in college instead of income. We have students who are bright, and others who work real hard who also get good grades. There are others who are less gifted, as well as those who go to too many Frat parties and like to play. What we will do is set up a grade tax to redistribute grade wealth, with the A's needing give a higher percent of their grade than the B's, then C's etc.

 

For the A's to keep an A they may need to do a lot of extra credit work beyond their course load. But since they are in the highest grade bracket 50-75% of that work will be given away to help boost the lower end of the grade spectrum. They get to keep some. Those who are about to fail, they might get a grade boost to passing. They might even be people who can do better, but find they can coast and party at D and still get a C due to a grade tax support program.

 

Why is this not done in colleges or high schools?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Say we did the taxes and redistribution using grades in college instead of income. We have students who are bright, and others who work real hard who also get good grades. There are others who are less gifted, as well as those who go to too many Frat parties and like to play. What we will do is set up a grade tax to redistribute grade wealth, with the A's needing give a higher percent of their grade than the B's, then C's etc.

 

For the A's to keep an A they may need to do a lot of extra credit work beyond their course load. But since they are in the highest grade bracket 50-75% of that work will be given away to help boost the lower end of the grade spectrum. They get to keep some. Those who are about to fail, they might get a grade boost to passing. They might even be people who can do better, but find they can coast and party at D and still get a C due to a grade tax support program.

 

Why is this not done in colleges or high schools?

 

Because grades are meant to be an assessment of your ability instead of a currency. Grades cannot be traded for essential services such as health. ("For an appendectomy, we charge four Bs or three As. A thesis will also be accepted.") Grades cannot be traded for goods or other services. Taxing grades defeats the purpose of assessing your knowledge of the course material.

[Marat]

Also, I think Pioneer's interesting and useful analogy between wealth and grades ultimately goes too far, since while both wealth and grades are at least in part socially determined products (your wealth depends on how your actions intersect with society's rules; your intelligence and knowledge are in part produced by the teachers and accumulated learning around you), grades are in significantly larger proportion the true possession, the real property, independent of social factors, of the people earning them. Similar social influences are usually all present in the same environment for all people competing with each other for grades, so the difference in the grades earned largely reflects the individual's ability and efforts, rather than the multiplying or discounting effect of surrounding social influences.

 

With wealth, in contrast, the expert and hard-working buggy-whip maker can go bankrupt almost overnight because the society where he lives suddenly and unexpectedly decides to allow cars to be imported, so the bottom falls out of the market for carriage parts. However, with knowledge, intelligence, aptitude, and willingness to study, these properties are less open to sudden and dramatic changes from factors totally external to the individuals possessing them than wealth.

[Pangloss]

(in fact much of President Obama's election campaign revolved around convince voters that he was NOT a socialist)

 

 

However, even though it is seldom explicitly claimed that any policies have a redistributive intent, the fact that you agree that they do often have such an effect supports my general point that in reality all private wealth is immersed in a vast, social, causal network which infects it heavily with a public character.

 

It's a valid point, and nicely reasoned. I resisted it when I first read it, but in so far as it goes I think it's a perfectly reasonable argument.

 

However, I have to point out that by defending the current system you're also defending its hybrid nature which combine both socialist and free-market ideals.

 

Which I believe is absolutely correct. As a radical centrist, I believe that we don't want pure capitalism any more than we want pure socialism. We seek careful and thoughtful balance at each juncture. We should listen to those who seek pure socialism just as we listen to those who seek pure capitalism, and in the end ignore their extremism and select the most sensible course, whatever it may be.

 

That means sometimes selecting a course of action that appears to be pretty socialistic, or pretty capitalistic, and relying on our good sense not to run too far in that direction.

 

My two bits, anyway. Certainly that's not how most Americans view things. Most tend to be afraid of one or the other without a whole lot of reason involved.

[CaptainPanic]

What policies do you have that exist on the basis of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, for use however they see fit?

 

I believe I gave all the facts already, so I conclude that either the facts were obscured by too much text - or I may still not understand the question... If it's the latter, please be patient with me

 

Taking money from the rich: progressive tax system; Rich people pay not just more tax, but pay a higher percentage of their total income in tax.

Giving to the poor for use however they see fit: money from the state: € 652.19 per month for a single person, double that for married couples.

Giving to the poor for use pre-determined by the government: (partial) refund of health insurances and costs for education.

 

I also know that a budget of € 652.19 per month means in practice there is little left to spend "however you see fit", because most will be spent on a house, food, and the standard bills (phone, energy, water for example). However, the person is allowed to spend this money differently.

 

Does this answer the question?

Edited September 3, 2010 by CaptainPanic

[ParanoiA]

I don't think your interesting distinction between forceable redistribution and voluntary redistribution ultimately solves the issue, since we all begin in a society which already exists and which is prepared to use force to enforce its taxation and redistribution policies. We might imagine some original contract in the state of nature when we all got together and decided to pool our resources to protect ourselves from surrounding tribes and internal lawlessness, and here there would be a voluntary agreement on how much we would pay in contributions for which services, just as though society were the product of an ordinary contract between equally free parties. This is what Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and more recently Rawls have imagined. But this is really only an intellectual model, not something that ever really happened, or if it did, we cannot know now whether these early people came together by agreement or by force. So from this we can't be sure that the taxes we pay are ultimately the product of our agreement. Even the theory that we have all agreed to these taxes because the form of government is a fiction, since not all of us have agreed by voting in favor of all tax programs in operation, and elections are seldom truly democratic, but are instead subject to all sorts of corrupting factors like campaign contributions which in effect give money a vote alongside real people.

 

On the contrary, the distinction between forceable and volutary redistribution is at the heart of it, because that's point of peaceful resource distribution using a private property concept, even though government makes exceptions to his concept in the form of taxation. Taking property by force undermines the social agreement of voluntary trade. When violatons of that social agreement reach critical mass, it will break down into the game of weak and strong, right back where we started. In America, there is as much focus and attention on acquiring property through government manipulation, and thus coercion, as there is voluntary trade. Note the very lobbyists and money you pointed out above, as an example.

 

People take notice to the power of exception and weigh the expected energy output to achieve property through exploitation of the rules verses the energy output to achieve property through cooperating with the rules, as in voluntary trade. It is the popularity of making exceptions to the voluntary design that feeds further attention to causing more exceptions. The more government is influenced to confiscate property, outside of the private property rule structure, the more it attracts others to influence government to do the same. We call it corruption.

 

 

 

Government is a response to human imperfection. If I didn't have to worry about you kidnapping my wife, or if I could trust you to be honest about the goods we're trading, and etc, we wouldn't need government.

 

Government is not something to be proud of, but rather something to be ashamed of. That we require an external entity of force basked in the false notion of legitimacy just to keep from robbing and killing each other speaks to our primitive shortcomings. Thus exercises of force are failures of group cooperation.

 

Taxes are confiscation of property that clearly violate the moral concept of voluntary redistribution. If you rationalize forceable redistribution, then what is the point of morals and ethics? What is the point of developing morals and ethics if the means are irrelevant, and only the "effect" or the ends matter?

 

The first step to any rationalized criminal behavior is to blur the lines between what is considered good and bad behavior by society. To invalidate the moral assumption; to provide room for the fantasy of unfairness, such as the haves and have nots - leading themselves to believe that wealth is finite and the rich are holding resources hostage from the rest of the world. Even though we know that one man could possess all of the tomatoes on the earth, yet the majority of us can go in our backyard and plant tomatoes and create more wealth. The rich could possess all of the couches, yet most of us could build new couches in our garage, creating more wealth. Wealth is not finite. But we lead ourselves to our own delusion, and then create the antagonists within the story, which just happen to be a minority. ( We have a rich history of abusing minorities, and we never realize it while we're doing it. We always have great "reasons" for it too. )

 

Your verbiage is compelling, your writing is beautiful, but your rationalization is typical. Forceable redistribution directly contradicts the reason why we invented private property philosophy. The proper government motivation for taxation, or confiscation of property acquired through work and trade, in my opinion, should be limited to funding what is necessary to maintain the shame of this external arbiter of failed social agreements.

 

The resistance to taxation, particularly in private property models, is a resistance to the exceptions of the voluntary moral necessary for private property models to exist.

Edited September 3, 2010 by ParanoiA

[Mr Skeptic]

Taxes are confiscation of property that clearly violate the moral concept of voluntary redistribution.

 

Yes, but there is also the moral concept of fairness. The government provides services, some of which by necessity benefit everyone. These services cost money, and someone needs to pay for it. Because of our greed, we can't count on the people who benefit from these services paying for them if they have the choice. As you said, this is a failure of group cooperation.

 

Taking the concept of fairness even further, some people have more wealth due to chance (eg who their parents are) rather than anything they have done. This also translates to extra ability to generate or acquire wealth. Wealth is indeed finite, and furthermore one person's wealth may affect the ability of another person to generate or acquire wealth. But this sort of unfairness can only be fixed by violating people's right to personal property. So it comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils, and which choice it is depends on which people value more.

[Saryctos]

Yes, but there is also the moral concept of fairness. The government provides services, some of which by necessity benefit everyone. These services cost money, and someone needs to pay for it. Because of our greed, we can't count on the people who benefit from these services paying for them if they have the choice. As you said, this is a failure of group cooperation.

The concept that incidental enrichment requires compensation is always a tough sell for me. Just because someone benefits from a service should not entitled the provider to compensation. If I drink great tasting(personal benefit) coffee in the morning to reduce my drowsiness(personal benefit) and increase my productivity(benefit to employer), does my employer implicitly owe me a portion of the cost of that coffee? When someone else benefits from a service I purchased for my own benefit, that's just collateral enjoyment. I paid a cost knowing that I would benefit from it. If however, a service is provided at no benefit to those paying the cost, then I'll take issue with those benefiting not paying for it.

[Marat]

Paranoia: When you say that 'the more government is influences to confiscate property outside the private property rule structure,' the problem is that the government always acts within the rule structure that it legislates, which is an easy thing to do as long as you are making your own rules. Once you allow progressive taxation in principle, which is nothing other than permitting government to decide what percentage of whose income it wants to take by law unto itself, where can you draw a logical limit as to how progressive that can be? Norway at one time had such a steeply progressive tax curve that certain extremely rich people would have to pay a tax equal to the total value of the money they were setting in motion every time their money moved and thus became visible to the tax man.

 

So if all these seizures of wealth can be made legal, given the models of taxation already accepted and legally established, how do we define 'coercive' taking of contributions from the public to the state or seizures outside the 'rule structure'?

 

Saryctus: These incidental costs and benefits that any financial action will inevitably have on all other financial interests in the social environment are very difficult to regulate or address in legal or moral terms. I can legally set up a store selling at a discount the same things that you sell in your store across the street, and I can legally run you into bankruptcy this way. However, I can't set up a store across from yours selling at fire sale prices just to drive you out of business. But in some jurisdictions I can't legally bribe away someone already contracted to work for you because I can offer him a higher wage, as long as I know of the existence of that contract. Many of these rules are set only by legal convention, not by any principle of morals or logic.

[Pangloss]

Giving to the poor for use however they see fit: money from the state: € 652.19 per month for a single person, double that for married couples.

Giving to the poor for use pre-determined by the government: (partial) refund of health insurances and costs for education.

 

I also know that a budget of € 652.19 per month means in practice there is little left to spend "however you see fit", because most will be spent on a house, food, and the standard bills (phone, energy, water for example). However, the person is allowed to spend this money differently.

 

Does this answer the question?

 

That's what I was wondering, thank you (sorry I wasn't more clear). So this money is permanent, yes? The receiver doesn't have to, for example, show that they are looking for a better job, or improving their education, or anything like that?

 

It sounds like the government is (and by proxy, the people are) subsidizing low-end labor. Like saying "we need trash collectors and fast-food servers, so we'll subsidize them from tax income". And I guess there are people who are willing to settle for that kind of life, and the dole makes that a little more acceptable, so it becomes more or less permanent. That may well work for the Dutch -- I've read that quality of life there is very high in general.

 

That was the situation in American in 1996, but that low-end workers had such a low quality of life that it was considered repugnant enough that change was desired. So change was achieved through ending the welfare program, which directly lead to the 96% employment, realized within just a few years.

 

How's unemployment in the Netherlands these days? I'm guessing it must be pretty low if folks are happy with the system.