Abstract
In this chapter I shall discuss some practical measures for the improvement of distribution. Progressive income tax and social welfare systems are very popularly used in most capitalist countries to effect redistribution, the former to take more from the rich than the poor, and the latter to give more to the poor than to the rich. Moreover, these two measures seem to be the only redistributive measures that are taken in capitalist countries. In this and the following sections I shall discuss these two measures, respectively. Since income tax and social welfare are important topics and are abundant in literature, it is impossible to cover even just the major issues of them in this book, let alone in one section. I shall restrict my discussion to their philosophical justification and in so far as they affect distributive justice.
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Notes
David Hackett Fischer, Growing Old in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 160.
Ibid., pp. 199–200.
The salary has to be adjusted for the number of family members one has to support. For a society with zero rate of increases of population, the average number should be around four. In Taiwan, R. O. C., where the rate of increases of population is slightly more than 1%, the average number of persons per family is known to be about 4.7. The salary of a senior full professor in Taiwan, in terms of American dollars, is about $17,000 per year. Divided by 4.7, the adjusted income per family member is $3,617, which is way below the average per capita income $5,000. Therefore professors in Taiwan are underpaid, or the salary system of civil servants (with professors included) is bad.
1987 Directory of Salaries in the Republic of China (Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C.)
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, The Three Principles of the People, Part III: The Principle of the People’s Livelihood.
David Kelley, “Life, Liberty and Property,” Social Philosophy and Policy, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (Spring 1984), pp. 108–118.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 149–182.
See Note 6, p. 112.
Ibid., pp. 112-115.
Hugh LaFollette, “Why Libertarianism Is Mistaken,” in Justice and Economic Distribution, ed. John Arthur and William H. Shaw (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1978), pp. 194–206.
See Note 1.
Ravi Batra, The Great Depression of 1990 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 118.
Ibid.
See Note 5.
See, for instance, Allen Buchanan, Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market (Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985), pp. 104–117.
See Note 7, p. 168.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Sheng, C.L. (1991). Income Tax, Social Welfare, Salary Systems and Private Property. In: A New Approach to Utilitarianism. Theory and Decision Library, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3192-6_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3192-6_16
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