Social Justice: the mirage of decisions by an abstract concept come to life, otherwise known as “society”

“Fair Share”: The Allocation Process of Fair-Share-Units

Suppose one viewed the political argument of “fair share” as fair-share-units? That is, if one considers the fair share argument, that of transferring [redistribution], what about considering the argument in terms of transferring or redistribution of fair-share-units from some sort of production realm to some sort of recipient realm.

Putting aside one’s political view of redistribution, consider the following:

(1)    In the abstract, regarding these units of fair share, is it possible that one would experience a production problem of fair-share-units as no incentive exists for production?

(2)    On the consumption side of fair-share-units, would one experience a grand incentive to consume?

(3)    Skipping by utility, marginal utility, production frontiers, etc. …. would there be any chance [using particular debate jargon of particular debaters] of these fair-share-units being affected by “greed” or “hoarding”?

(4)    Would there exist a “1%” of fair-share-unit holders and the other “99%”?

(5)    Would the consumption of fair-share-units create “envy” and lead to class warfare distinctions among those consuming fair-share-units?

(6)    If fair-share-units, the production thereof, suffered problems, is it possible that fair-share-unit production would have to be “bailed out”?

Economics is the allocation of scarce resources with alternative uses. If the allocation thereof, with free participants in a free market is politically framed as greed, hoarding, 1% vs. 99%, envy, class warfare, and bail outs…. then the allocation process of fair-share-units would be otherwise?

13 Questions for 12

Donald J. Boudreaux, professor of economics at George Mason University, asks thirteen very interesting questions in his essay And the answer is? One might contemplate these questions as we enter 2012. Below are several of the questions as well as the link to the entire TribLive [Pittsburgh Tribune] column/essay:

“Why do so many "progressives" believe that higher marginal tax rates on incomes will not dampen workers' efforts to earn income, but that higher marginal tax ("tariff") rates on imports will dampen importers' efforts to supply imports?

Why do so many "progressives" who preen publicly about their magnanimity toward the poor want to prevent foreign workers -- most of whom are far poorer than is any American -- from bettering their lots by competing freely against relatively rich American workers?

In the same vein, why do so many "progressives" -- nearly all of whom seem to regard differences in income earnings across workers to be an Olympian injustice -- support protectionist policies that artificially enhance the incomes earned by relatively rich American workers by artificially reducing the incomes earned by much-poorer foreign workers? Why is this greater income inequality of no concern to "progressives"?

Why are "progressives" madly obsessed with inequality of incomes but not with inequality of work effort, risk taking, prudence, courage, honesty, integrity, ambition and dedication? Monetary incomes, after all, are largely a result of the application of these qualities: Those who apply more of these qualities to their lives and careers generally earn higher incomes than are earned by those who apply fewer of these qualities to their lives and careers.”



http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/boudreaux/s_773501.html

Distribution of Income and the Transfer Agent

Distribution of income statistics and statistics in general can be manipulated to make particular arguments the particular presenter wants to represent. That said, a point made many times by Thomas Sowell is that the numbers shown in many, many presentations of distribution of income statistics are not “net”. That is, subtract taxes from the producer class and add back entitlements and transfer payments to recipient classes and you find the numbers flatten.

Consider a third path. Take the numbers, before netting out taxes and adding back transfer payments/entitlements, and create a third category known as state or government. Please see the following:

Scenario One [common depiction of showing “net”]

(1)    X pays Y transfer/entitlement tax and the tax is removed from gross. Hence we might say X’s income is 100 minus 30 transfer/entitlement tax leaving 70. Z’s income is 60 minus 20 transfer/entitlement tax leaving 40,

(2)    Q’s income is 10 plus 20 transfer received equaling 30. P’s income is 30 plus entitlement 10 equals 40.

Scenario two [new path/alternate]

(1)    show X,Z,Q and P’s income,

(2)    show the total transfer/entitlement tax,

(3)    show the true recipient of the transfer/entitlement tax as the transfer agent [state],

(4)    show the transfer agent’s costs applied to the transfer process [administration charge].

(5)    Now we have X and Y in the same position yet Q and P are in lesser positions as less income remains to transfer.

Upon further review, those that advocate class warfare to facilitate the redistribution of income based upon social justice purposely leave out the conduit of the entire process they champion. In this case the middle-man is not a market maker with special knowledge to facilitate markets; the middle man is purely a transfer agent facilitating nothing other than a pure transfer. Stated alternatively, in this particular case a subtraction of value rather than the addition of value [facilitating markets with information] are the product of the middle man.

This subtraction of value is not done so at a bare minimum. We are not gazing at a robust competitive system to deliver the transfer/entitlement at the lowest possible subtraction value. Rather, we have a monopoly delivering the subtraction value. A monopoly is going to deliver the subtraction of value at the highest possible cost. Beware the extraction of consumer surplus by a monopoly.

In the classic case of the economically uninformed “do-gooder”, referred to many times by Milton Friedman, the do-gooder advocates a program yet fails to follow through on the cascading unintended consequences that spider across an economy.

Equality of Income: Richard Epstein of NYU School of Law on the subject of Income Distribution

Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

HT Cafe Hayek blog

Occupy: The 1883 Response.

The excerpts below are from the "forward" of the 1883 book by William Graham Sumner entitled What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. Take special note of the second paragraph below.


“Who are those who assume to put hard questions to other people and to demand a solution of them? How did they acquire the right to demand that others should solve their world-problems for them? Who are they who are held to consider and solve all questions, and how did they fall under this duty?

So far as I can find out what the classes are who are respectively endowed with the rights and duties of posing and solving social problems, they are as follows: Those who are bound to solve the problems are the rich, comfortable, prosperous, virtuous, respectable, educated, and healthy; those whose right it is to set the problems are those who have been less fortunate or less successful in the struggle for existence. The problem itself seems to be, How shall the latter be made as comfortable as the former? To solve this problem, and make us all equally well off, is assumed to be the duty of the former class; the penalty, if they fail of this, is to be bloodshed and destruction. If they cannot make everybody else as well off as themselves, they are to be brought down to the same misery as others“.


“The little group of public servants who, as I have said, constitute the State, when the State determines on anything, could not do much for themselves or anybody else by their own force. If they do anything, they must dispose of men, as in an army, or of capital, as in a treasury. But the army, or police, or posse comitatus, is more or less All-of-us, and the capital in the treasury is the product of the labor and saving of All-of-us. Therefore, when the State means power-to-do it means All-of-us, as brute force or as industrial force.

If anybody is to benefit from the action of the State it must be Some-of-us. If, then, the question is raised, What ought the State to do for labor, for trade, for manufactures, for the poor, for the learned professions? etc., etc. - that is, for a class or an interest - it is really the question, What ought All-of-us to do for Some-of-us? But Some-of-us are included in All-of-us, and, so far as they get the benefit of their own efforts, it is the same as if they worked for themselves, and they may be cancelled out of All-of-us. Then the question which remains is, What ought Some-of-us to do for Others-of-us? or, What do social classes owe to each other?

I now propose to try to find out whether there is any class in society which lies under the duty and burden of fighting the battles of life for any other class, or of solving social problems for the satisfaction of any other class; also, whether there is any class which has the right to formulate demands on "society" - that is, on other classes; also, whether there is anything but a fallacy and a superstition in the notion that "the State" owes anything to anybody except peace, order, and the guarantees of rights“.