Re: Welfare and scientific ethics

["David Spitzley" <dspitzle@gw.wash.k12.mi.us>]

IPGmail@aol.com wrote:
I don't want to flog the issue of redistribution to death, but if 
economists' distaste for it is a significant problem in advancing proposals 
to broaden capital ownership, I think we need not only to ask whether 
proposals are redistributive, but whether this distaste for redistribution is 
well-grounded.

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Well, drawing upon Kelso's arguments (since they were the first coherent 
argument that I had seen), redistribution is undesirable given other 
alternatives for the basic reason that it represents a concentration of 
economic power in the hands of the state, which is on all fours with 
concentration of economic power in the hands of individuals, compounded by the 
state's monopoly on force.  Thus, any mechanism which can help broaden capital 
ownership without recourse to redistribution is preferable to one which 
accomplishes the same thing through redistribution.

However, Kelso himself acknowledged that given the extensive dependence of the 
industrialized world on redistribution, it would be logical to tackle to 
problem of turning redistributive policies which concentrate ownership into 
redistributive policies which broaden ownership as a transitional step to a 
fully democratic economy.

In my mind, the most important consideration in evaluating any redistributive 
programs, new or proposed, from a Kelsonian perspective are a) is the policy 
required in order to maintain a stable society today, and b) does it act to 
reduce the long-term necessity of redistributive policies.  Thus, policies such 
as corporate welfare would probably be considered wasteful and unjust given 
that the answer to both questions would probably be a resounding No;  income 
stabilization programs, whether farm subsidies or AFDC would probably be 
considered at best a necessary evil for the time being, with an answer of Yes 
to a)  but a No to b); and existing tax policies which encourage the expansion 
of ESOPs, even when they do result in share dilution, and even when they do 
absorb significant tax revenues, should probably be considered flawed but 
acceptable until better policy windows arise, given that both a) and b) could 
be answered Yes.  While purely Kelsonian policies for promoting democratic 
ownership patterns are to be strongly prefered, it would be foolish to think 
that no other methods are justifiable for achieving that end given the current 
state of economic policy.