I have a question posed to all viewers, to be answered in the comments section.
In a free capitalistic society, is extreme income inequality a necessary by-product? And if not, how can it be mitigated avoiding medieval income redistribution?
Is a more fair distribution of income even an appealing objective? Why or why not?
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3 comments:
As long as capital well used creates capital then the answer is yes, in my opinion.
Any attempts to mitigate that fact will make it a less free capitalistic society. Now, that is not necessarily an innately bad thing. It just generally is.
Obviously the communist answer of "every man produces what he is capable of and receives what he needs" even if perfectly implemented brings forth the issue that without incentives, man does not work to his full potential. Never has, never will. I read an old book once (I'm scrounging for a title) that provided a "utpoian" alternative to the Randian "red in tooth and claw" capitalism. The solution for the problem of capitalism creating inequality was to shift the question. They didn't resort to shifting the incentives, but worked to shift how the incentives were able to used.
I'm going to go find it and i'll report back.
Looking Backward: 2000-1887, by Edward Bellamy. Copyright 1887 :)
http://books.google.com/books?id=oVQLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=looking+backward&ei=kVHDRopxipSiAqid5LsG#PPR2,M1
I love google.
Looking back on this book it has many, many flaws, and is FAR less freely capitalistic than i remembered, but while obviously fantastical in many aspects ("government efficiency," and "no wars, or corruption" and frightening in others "the vast industrial labor army" it is a very interesting tale. Check out pages: 50-55, 75-77, 92-93
Changing the incentives to honor and recognition is eerily soviet, but understandable. Changing work choice inducements to "time worked" also makes sense. As many business men know, they can always make more money but they cant make more time.
Overall i remember this book as being one of the most believable possible utopian success stories (most of the distopian ones are frighteningly believable). Like macro evolution (personal opinion), the process of getting their seems the most fantastical, but the system seems very logically viable.
The system takes care of producers, eliminates looters and empowers the parasites (to some extent).
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