LAW PUNDIT Wednesday, November 24, 2004 11/24/2004 03:51:00 PM [Home]
The Concept of a "Social Minimum" and Poverty in the United States
The Concept of a "Social Minimum" and Poverty in the United States
Lawrence Solum at the Legal Theory Blog has a posting on "White on the Social Minimum" referring to Stuart White's new entry "Social Minimum" on the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, quoting White:
"'People should not be allowed to starve in the streets.' 'No one should be denied access to a decent minimum of health-care.' 'Every citizen should be able to meet his or her basic needs.' These statements all express a widespread view that a political community should seek to ensure that its members are all able to enjoy at least a minimally decent standard of living. They assert the importance of what is often called the social minimum."
As a political centrist with more right-wing leanings than left, the LawPundit definitely agrees that the concept and the realization of a "social minimum" in modern society is essential to avoid social discontent in the short term and political revolution in the long term.
To take one example, as we have written elsewhere on LawPundit:
"During the Great Depression, Hjalmar Schacht, Governor of the German Reichsbank, 'played a crucial role in bringing the Hitler regime to power' as 'citizens were expropriated, and their living standards brutally lowered', leading to a right-wing dictatorship. The same thing is happening now [in Germany]."
There is in fact absolute empirical evidence that a judicious redistribution of wealth achieves the goal of a social minimum and we find that proof in a publication of The Century Foundation (TCF) entitled The New American Economy: A Rising Tide that Lifts Only Yachts. This publication shows that equitable distribution of wealth is the only viable solution to poverty:
"When considering only household earnings (before taxes and transfers), the United States does not have an unusual proportion of its population living in poverty. However, as the figure illustrates, after considering the effects of public policies, the proportion of the population in the United States that remains in poverty is significantly higher than that for other nations.
[See Figure 7].
As the figure makes clear, other countries do not wait for economic tides to turn, but rely much more than the United States does on active tax and transfer policies to lift families out of low-income status....
Policy decisions affecting income and wealth distributions are complex, both politically and substantively. Some income and wealth inequality is necessary to provide incentives for efficient allocation of time, labor, and capital. But for most Americans, the prospect of these ever-widening income and wealth gaps, coupled with little improvement in the economic well-being of the majority of the population, surely must provoke unease. Is this really the America we want?"
As always on tough questions, the right answer on the question of wealth redistribution is generally a question of degree, not of absolutist proportion. However, "a social minimum" must be achieved, otherwise - as history shows in untold cases - revolution and destruction of the system surely await one down the road. In other words, the redisitribution of wealth to achieve a "social minimum" for all is not - as many believe - a political, religious or moral question, but rather a simple issue of survival, not merely the survival of the have-nots, but also survival of the haves.
In other words, achieving a "social minimum" is a symbiotic "Solomonic" solution. As in the famed Solomonic judicial instance of the child claimed by two mothers, the child - here the society - is not cut into two halves (haves and have-nots), which leads to the death of both halves, but rather, reason prevails and the child survives intact.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 11/24/2004 03:51:00 PM
The Concept of a "Social Minimum" and Poverty in the United States
The Concept of a "Social Minimum" and Poverty in the United States
Lawrence Solum at the Legal Theory Blog has a posting on "White on the Social Minimum" referring to Stuart White's new entry "Social Minimum" on the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, quoting White:
"'People should not be allowed to starve in the streets.' 'No one should be denied access to a decent minimum of health-care.' 'Every citizen should be able to meet his or her basic needs.' These statements all express a widespread view that a political community should seek to ensure that its members are all able to enjoy at least a minimally decent standard of living. They assert the importance of what is often called the social minimum."
As a political centrist with more right-wing leanings than left, the LawPundit definitely agrees that the concept and the realization of a "social minimum" in modern society is essential to avoid social discontent in the short term and political revolution in the long term.
To take one example, as we have written elsewhere on LawPundit:
"During the Great Depression, Hjalmar Schacht, Governor of the German Reichsbank, 'played a crucial role in bringing the Hitler regime to power' as 'citizens were expropriated, and their living standards brutally lowered', leading to a right-wing dictatorship. The same thing is happening now [in Germany]."
There is in fact absolute empirical evidence that a judicious redistribution of wealth achieves the goal of a social minimum and we find that proof in a publication of The Century Foundation (TCF) entitled The New American Economy: A Rising Tide that Lifts Only Yachts. This publication shows that equitable distribution of wealth is the only viable solution to poverty:
"When considering only household earnings (before taxes and transfers), the United States does not have an unusual proportion of its population living in poverty. However, as the figure illustrates, after considering the effects of public policies, the proportion of the population in the United States that remains in poverty is significantly higher than that for other nations.
[See Figure 7].
As the figure makes clear, other countries do not wait for economic tides to turn, but rely much more than the United States does on active tax and transfer policies to lift families out of low-income status....
Policy decisions affecting income and wealth distributions are complex, both politically and substantively. Some income and wealth inequality is necessary to provide incentives for efficient allocation of time, labor, and capital. But for most Americans, the prospect of these ever-widening income and wealth gaps, coupled with little improvement in the economic well-being of the majority of the population, surely must provoke unease. Is this really the America we want?"
As always on tough questions, the right answer on the question of wealth redistribution is generally a question of degree, not of absolutist proportion. However, "a social minimum" must be achieved, otherwise - as history shows in untold cases - revolution and destruction of the system surely await one down the road. In other words, the redisitribution of wealth to achieve a "social minimum" for all is not - as many believe - a political, religious or moral question, but rather a simple issue of survival, not merely the survival of the have-nots, but also survival of the haves.
In other words, achieving a "social minimum" is a symbiotic "Solomonic" solution. As in the famed Solomonic judicial instance of the child claimed by two mothers, the child - here the society - is not cut into two halves (haves and have-nots), which leads to the death of both halves, but rather, reason prevails and the child survives intact.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 11/24/2004 03:51:00 PM
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