A
recent episode of the PBS program
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly addressed the issue of
income inequality. Predictably, the conversation centered on the
question of whether redistribution of wealth is a suitable way to
remedy the purported problem.
Harvard professor Michael Sandel (who teaches a famous
course on justice) suggested that redistribution is warranted
because lots of different kinds of people work hard, but achieve
vastly different results in terms of income. Why should a school
bus driver work hard and make a low income, while a high level
business manager works hard and makes a much higher income? Now,
perhaps Dr. Sandel was limited by the constraints of television,
but this framework for evaluating income inequality seems
unsatisfying.
If effort is the key indicator, then why not give a
superior claim to a man who sets a most arduous task for himself in
the form of tearing down and rebuilding his house? Of course, it
seems silly to reward him because his work doesn’t achieve
anything. So, effort is not the key point. How about useful effort?
A line operator in a factory might contribute something to
thousands of pieces of work each day, but the engineer who designed
the process made a far larger contribution because he enabled the
entire production run. Even though it is true that we can
distinguish levels of work as hard or easy, there are other things
that matter, too. Effectiveness and impact come into
play.
The Federalist Papers recognized
that even if we could arrest the economic progress of all citizens
and pull them back to the starting line, it would only be a matter
of time before differences in motivation, virtue, practice,
creativity, preparation, delayed gratification, and any number of
other factors would lead to some substantially outpacing others. In
Common Sense, Tom Paine identified the difference between
rich and poor as one that could be accounted for with
justice while royal status could not. Does this mean that the rich
always deserve to be rich and the poor always deserve their
relative lack of wealth? No, but very often it is possible to
explain why some people’s efforts warrant their large incomes in a
way that others’ efforts do not.
Sandel went on to single out the estate tax as a way to
remedy the unfair head start given to some citizens that allows
them to enjoy more wealth than others. This view of what is fair
and unfair echoes the one we just examined. It pays little
attention to the question of what is a just cause and/or effect.
If, for example, a woman rises from no great circumstance to become
a medical doctor with a surgical practice, the income she earns is
well-justified. She has to cultivate her mind through education,
train extensively, experience substantial delayed gratification
financially, endure long hours, give up family time, tolerate a
very high level of technical risk and difficulty in her work, and
be prepared to drop anything at inconvenient hours to meet a
crisis. At the same time, the results (or the effects) or her work
can be truly life-changing for patients. How can it be unjust for
this woman to want her hard-earned capital to benefit her child?
Should a very wise person be prevented from passing on life lessons
to his child? Should a very healthy or beautiful person be
forbidden to pass on outstanding genes? Why should money be
different? Does Sandel’s notion of leveling out advantages through
the estate tax actually result in more justice than allowing the
natural effect of a lifetime of highly skilled and technically
difficult work to take place?
Also in the episode, University of Alabama law professor
and progressive tax crusader Susan Pace Hamill argued that
Alabama’s low property taxes, high sales taxes (applying even to
food), and income tax that applies even to low levels of income
constitute a sub-Biblical ethic of revenue collection. Her
reasoning is that the highest taxes apply to consumption, while the
taxes that target wealth, like the property tax, are relatively
low. Her proposal is that the tax system be made more progressive
and the greater revenues (if realized) would go to finance public
efforts like the educational system to improve equality of
opportunity.
Hamill’s method of applying a Biblical ethic to taxation
is highly laudable in that it avoids the pietistic impulse that
individualizes Bible teaching to the point of social irrelevance.
In addition, one can see how Hamill was able to move Alabama’s
Reaganite governor, Bob Riley, to support her efforts to change the
system. Conservatives have long focused on achieving equality of
opportunity rather than equality of results. To the extent Hamill’s
proposal does that, it is morally and rationally superior to
Sandel’s case for redistribution. But the question remains whether
progressivity of taxation (especially in the form of rising
marginal tax rates) achieves justice.
Hadley Arkes, author of First Things (the
book, not the magazine), approached the
issue in the following way. We are all free agents responsible for
our own actions. If one man injures another man, the responsibility
is clear and the one who did wrong must pay. If a man is injured
because of his own mistake in judgment or because of recklessness,
he should bear the cost of his own error. But if a man is injured
in an accident that is no one’s fault, then the community should
seek to help him. And how might we help this man? Should we simply
find a rich man, grab him by the collar and demand he pay for
medical care and income supplements? Not according to Arkes,
because there is no rich man who bears the blame for the injury.
No, if we wish to come to the aid of the injured man, then we
should take on the burden in a proportionate way, as a community.
If one percent from each person is needed to help make him whole,
then we will all pay one percent each. On that basis, the rich man
will still pay far more than a poor one, but the same rule will
have applied to each man. And is that not the very definition of
justice?
This commentary was written for the Acton
Institute and first appeared on its
website.
