The charity of the uncharitable

Abstract

If I understand the common view among modern intellectuals, income redistribution is considered to be a rather simple and almost entirely ethical matter. There are, basically, two theories. The first is that those of us who are well-off use the state as a mechanism for making gifts to the poor. This is well represented by James Rodgers and Harold Hochman in their article, ‘Pareto Optimal Redistribution’.¹ The second view, which I shall call the ‘Downsian’, is that in a democracy the poor are able to use their votes to obtain transfers from the rest of society (Anthony Downs [2, esp. pp. 198–201]). These two views are sometimes combined into the view that the bulk of the population takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor by use of the democratic process.