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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Redistribution of income and wealth
Message-ID: <28200101@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 00:50:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.28200101
Posted: Tue Sep 24 00:50:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 06:20:00 EDT
References: <186@gargoyle.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Sep 24 00:50:00 1985


>/* Written  9:08 pm  Sep 18, 1985 by carnes@gargoyle in inmet:net.politics.t */
>Rick McGeer writes:
> [Confusing discussion of whether one can measure aggregate
>  satisfaction, and whether A's want can be said to be 
>  measurably greater than B's.]
>...  To be sure, the interpersonal comparison of
>wants does not always work.  At the same time, it can hardly be
>denied that it makes objective ECONOMIC sense to help starving people
>by taxing those who spend their summers at luxurious resorts.  There
>is economic sense even in taxing the latter more heavily than those
>who cannot afford any luxuries.  

I suppose the folks who work at the resorts, and thus
face unemployment should the resort's usage go down have no say in
this?  Suppose, for example that the job they hold is what's keeping
them from being among the starving.  In that case, you've replaced
one bunch of starving people with another, probably larger group
of starving people (remember, the rich protect themselves, and the
government always takes a pretty big cut of "charitable" transfers).

>
>>(any transaction
>>which is voluntary axiomatically increases [ASS], but who knows by how
>>much...what are the units?), and I don't understand the relationship
>>of such a thing to any measurable quantity.  Unless and until I do
>>understand these things, or you can explain them to me, I'm really
>>not interested.  
>
>This raises some rather large questions.  Why should we not be
>interested in something unless we can measure it?  Not everything can
>be reduced to numbers, as far as I know.

It would seem to me that in any taxing situation, somebody, somehow
must decide how much tax there is to be.  Unless that number can 
be defended, it can hardly be used, so the degree of taxation must
be reducible (however indirectly) to a number.  The question of how
just a given degree of taxation is will, of course, depend upon the
numbers.  What I THINK Rick is pointing out is that unless some
mechanism for defending a particular degree of taxation can be found,
then folks are just flaming when they propose ANY taxing scheme.

>... [discussion of "apologetic" function of zero-empathy economics.]

>If you don't believe there is any sense in the statement that the
>world would be worse off if one person possessed all the wealth that
>now exists and everyone else was starving to death than if the wealth
>were distributed more equally, then I don't know what I can say to
>you.  But if you do believe there is some sense in the statement, you
>should try to make sense of it in terms of economic theory.

Ahem!  I don't believe anyone has ever proposed that such a situation would
be a good idea.  On the other hand, socialists (and other statists) must
face two problems:

1. A situation in which one person (or even a few people) possess all the
wealth is not stable economically.  Even in the absence of political revolt,
the wealthy, to employ their wealth to it's greatest usefulness, will
find it worthwhile to hire the poorer sorts -- the market is a POSITIVE
sum game.

2. Socialists and such face the problem of precisely how wealth should
be distributed.  If the poor can simply hold a vote and despoil the
rich, there is still to be hammered out the exact degree to which 
the rich may be "fairly" despoiled.