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Re: OWNERSHIP: Moral principles and Binary Theory of Property
The issue is not the cause but the solution. Is it better to distribute the opportunity to invest in capital, to distribute a social divided/credit to every citizen or to change the tax system so that every worker receives a wage large enough to support his family while at the same time receiving a stock ownership benefit so that at retirement he or she will be supported by this ownership in his or her workplace and have a just share of control in the workplace?
My problem with B.E. is that it distributes control to non-owners and to some workers unequally based on the number of children. I would provide a more robust negative income tax than the BE folks (although they do propose one) and would give stock to workers rather than have them borrow to buy it. I would then leave it to public employees to demand an equally large old-style pension benefit and would leave it to the market to have small business adopt these measures (since workers would naturally flock to the best ownership-control deal if offered). My problem with SOCRED is that it does not link reform to control.
Finally, I like my proposals (beyond pride in authorship, which I concede) because they play into the current debate on Social Security more than any of the others. While Norm has a history of success in getting things passed, I don't think the moment for BE has arrived, while a solution which is linked to Social Security reform will likely be ripe in the second half of the Bush term, especially if he is forced to deal because the Dems return to power in one house.
Mike Bindner
John Médaille <john@medaille.com> wrote:
At 11:58 PM 6/28/2005 -0400, Norman G. Kurland wrote:
>Ed,
>
>My problem with your handling of rents on land and natural resources is
>that it cedes too much power to the state, although both Kelso and I would
>agree that there is a difference between that which is contributed by
>nature and that which humans contribute in the form of their labor and
>their non-land form of asset inputs.
But it is not merely that there is a difference, but that capital and land
operate under different economic laws. So what do you do with the law of
rents? It doesn't cease just because we don't like it. At least George
accounted for it, which neither BE nor neo-classicism does.
> (See Kelso's treatment of land in his critique of Marx at
> http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/almostcapitalist.htm).
But Kelso doesn't address the law of rents, and hence his discussion is
incomplete.
> And, as you know, I find Kelso's binary theory more compelling for
> solving the income distribution problem, as well as more consistent with
> the democratic ideal of structuring the diffusion of power from the
> individual up, rather than from the state down.
Here the problem with BE is not economic, but political. Under an ESOP (and
related forms), current owners must agree to dilute their ownership either
out of benevolence or compulsion. But since property is made sacrosanct,
you eliminate compulsion. Of course, the theory is willing to contemplate
minor forms of government compulsion, such as tax breaks, etc., but I think
that few pretend that these alone will be effective on a wide scale. That
leaves benevolence. Therefore the problem is one not of
economics, but of
evangelization.
>For years I have been promoting the Community Investment Corporations
>(CIC) as a strategy for dealing locally with land and natural resources
>with maximum citizen participation and limited or no governmental
>control. ( See
>http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/community/cic-full-nk.html
>and articles linked to this paper.) We're working in several cities to
>launch CICs.)
I am curious about how you would get cities to launch CICs (I really am--I
know a perfect candidate for them) when it requires funding by the Federal
Reserve. Have you another version of this that doesn't require such funding?
John C. Médaille
"A dead thing can go with the stream...
but only a living thing can go against it."
-G. K.
Chesterton
http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm
john@medaille.com
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