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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
This is, of course, a theme that Patrick J. Buchanan’s has explored in recent years, especially in reference to free trade. What I am beginning to consider — just consider — is whether there is a need to take things even further than Buchanan, to go so far as to question the long-standing conservative argument that the government has no business redistributing wealth.
For many conservatives, a debate about progressive taxation, food stamps, or welfare is settled as soon as it can be demonstrated that the program in question is directed toward wealth redistribution. It has been a truism for many of us on the right: the government has no business using its taxing powers to push egalitarian goals, to punish those with talent who have worked hard to lift themselves above those who have not contributed as much to society.
The premise is that our wealth is ours, private property, and that the government has no business tapping it to benefit groups viewed as “needy” by the government, especially when the politicians taxing and redistributing our money are likely to be motivated by a quest for votes in an upcoming election. Those who hold this position do not usually take issue with the idea that the government had a rightful role in helping the truly needy — the proverbial widows and orphans. But they do not accept that the government has a role in determining who has “too much” money, in order to tax a portion of it away to give to those who were shortchanged by “unfair” breaks in life; that such fine-tuning of economic status smacks of socialism and gives to the government a degree of power it is likely to abuse.
Syndicated columnist Walter Williams makes this case as clearly and as forcefully as anyone. In a recent column, he wrote, “In a free society, income is neither taken nor distributed, it is earned. Income is earned by pleasing one’s fellow man. The greater one’s ability to please his fellow man, the greater is his claim on what his fellow man produces.” Williams continues: “Contrast this principle to government handouts, where a person is told: ‘You don’t have to serve your fellow man. We’ll take what he produces and give it to you.’”
Central to Williams’ thesis is the notion that we earn our wealth on the basis of our talents and drive; that it is a personal accomplishment upon which society has no rightful claim, except to finance legitimate governmental activities that serve us all, such as building roads and military protection; that when the government taxes away our property to raise the standard of living of anyone else it is a form of legalized theft.
And what is wrong with that line of thought? I repeat: I am not sure there is anything wrong with it. But here is what I am beginning to question: Is it true that our personal wealth is a truly personal accomplishment? Isn’t it more accurate to hold that the way we shape our society determines who will be economically successful, at least as much as the personal attributes of those who become wealthy? Isn’t it true that there is no “natural aristocracy,” as much as there is a societally determined aristocracy? The corollary, of course, would be that, if the way we construct our society determines who will become wealthy, then society is within its rights to redistribute some of that income to those left behind.
Consider just a few of the more prominent individuals who have achieved great wealth in modern America: Bill Gates of Microsoft, the comedian Woody Allen and the billionaire investor Warren Buffett. These individuals have achieved great success by taking advantage of the high-tech, media-centered, investment-driven economy that came to life in the middle years of the 20th century. Their talents were uniquely suited to achieving success in that world.
But what would have been the fate of these men if they had lived in, say, the warrior society of Charlemagne’s France, or on the frontier of the 19th century American West. One might argue that their intelligence and cleverness would have enabled them to do something of value with their lives. Perhaps Allen would have been a favored court jester of a medieval warlord or song and dance man in a cowboy saloon. Maybe Gates and Buffett would have achieved a fairly comfortable life as seneschals, keeping track of the household of some medieval baron or as enterprising dry goods shopkeepers in a western cow town.
But they would not have become the powerful and wealthy men they are today, not in societies where physical strength, bravery and daring determined rank and privilege. Indeed, one could go so far as to say that many of the physically imposing men you see working on road crews, or for that matter languishing in modern prisons and in the homeless flop-houses, would be among the leaders in a warrior society or in a frontier village, where their physical vigor would count for more than they do in our modern world.
Let me repeat. I am not calling for Catholics to ponder the lures of socialism or some other form of a command economy. The Soviet Union, Red China and Fidel Castro’s Cuba have demonstrated the futility of seeking to make those schemes work. But job programs for the poor? Increased funding for education in economically depressed areas of the country? Protectionist tariffs? Is it sufficient to reject such programs because an element of wealth redistribution is present within them? Maybe. But I am not as sure as I used to be.
I remain convinced that it is counterproductive to tax successful individuals to the point where they lose their entrepreneurial drive – to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. But I am less sure that it violates fundamental individual property rights to tax their wealth to raise the standard of living of the less successful. I submit that this is what Pope John Paul II means when he wrote in Centesimus Annus that “in developed countries, where the constant transformation of the methods of production and consumption devalues certain acquired skills and professional expertise” there is a need for “the market to be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the state so as to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are satisfied.”
He’s right – right?
