Participation and Income Distribution

Abstract

Rarely has the quarrel over the distribution of income reached such heights of virulence, absorbed so much time and energy of ordinary persons or so dominated the mass communication media as at the present time in the United Kingdom. It is surprising therefore that there has been so little informed comment on at least two errors of logic which underlie almost all the claims and counter-claims put out by sectional interests and which if they were understood would of necessity transform the whole direction of the argument. Scarcely ever is it recognised that:

• (i) Whatever kind of system — socialist, communist, capitalist or lilliputian — we care to choose, money and prices will continue to exist and the implied ‘natural’ income distribution under each and every one would be the same.

• (ii) Even if some ‘just’ distribution of income could be agreed (which it could not) this would not match the ‘natural’ distribution and would accordingly be impossible to implement in the long run without full-scale direction of labour including circulation by some central authority to individuals of hour-to-hour instructions on how to act, reaching down to the minutest details of economic life.