Welcome friends!
Hey, while we’re on the subject of redistribution can we talk a little bit about the conservative notion of the “death tax?” That one really slays me. (Sorry; couldn’t resist.) What’s my issue here?
OK, well, imagine you’re Huey Duck and your great uncle old Scrooge McDuck passes away one day and leaves you a pot of money. Consider the issue of whether your other uncle, Uncle Sam, should also take a cut. That’s what liberals would call an inheritance tax. Now, supposing Uncle Sam is doing some good work and needs some money I would have to say it seems pretty reasonable to me. I mean, if I were Huey I suppose I would consider the entire pot of money to be in the nature of a windfall. I certainly didn’t earn it, and if I were a scrupulous little duck (which I’m sure I would be) I wouldn’t have expected to receive it as some sort of birthright. Indeed, I’d probably feel a little funny about accepting it given that my brothers, Dewey and Louie, would be working away with no comparable pennies from heaven. Really, by accepting the money I suppose I would be implicitly acknowledging our relative economic power in the marketplace is not, in fact, dependent on our individual efforts, which might make me wonder whether allocating goods on that basis is entirely fair and proper. And I suppose the bigger the pot of money the funnier I might feel about it. It would be one thing for old Scrooge to sign over whatever he earned in his own lifetime but let’s say this has been going on a number of generations with each generation making some investments and adding a bit to the pot. We’d be talking about a pretty big pot of money; certainly a pot of money that would dwarf whatever wealth my brothers managed to sock away during their short working lives. So I don’t know, if I were of a contemplative temperament I might have to think a bit about what type of society I would really like to live in. One where wealth and incomes are roughly in the same general ballpark and differences are due largely to one’s own actions, or one with a hereditary upper class with immense financial resources that dwarf those of working folk regardless of their individual merit or their participation or lack thereof in labor markets. I’d have to think about that one, probably pros and cons both ways.
For conservatives, however, the answer is apparently quite clear. Forget all about Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Turns out the living are not important here. Imagine instead you’re the deceased Scrooge McDuck and you’re looking in from the next world at your nephew’s bank statement only to find your money has been subject to a “death tax.” Now wouldn’t you be outraged? (Well yes, it would technically be your nephew’s money now, which is why it would appear on his bank statement. However, your nephew hasn’t died so he can hardly pay a death tax, can he? If we’re talking about a death tax then I suppose we’re still thinking of it as your money, which is a little creepy if you think about it.) I don’t know, I suppose I would have preferred to imagine old Scrooge moving on to a better place where he develops some interests of a non-pecuniary nature, maybe playing the harp or something like that, and where he might feel comfortable leaving worldly concerns to the living. But that’s just me: the eternal romantic.
But you know what strikes me as the funniest thing about this whole issue? The funniest thing is it’s actually conservatives who tend to argue the loudest the existing distribution of resources is fine and dandy because it’s the result of individual merit (you know, caution, or risk taking, or following one’s true interests, or not following one’s true interests but being practical and working hard, or not being a practical hard working drone but being clever, or not being a hard working drone or being clever but having talent, or ... well, I’m sure anyone with money can come up with some appropriate definition of merit in the marketplace). You know what type of society would really illustrate that particular ethos? Yep. That would be one in which the inheritance tax, sorry, I mean the death tax, were one hundred percent such that no one could inherit any money at all and everyone had to start at financial ground zero and generate (and spend) his or her own money during his or her own lifetime. (Well, OK, I suppose it still wouldn’t be entirely consistent with that ethos because of the various advantages wealthy parents could still pass on to their kids, and I suppose there would still be all of the other various factors that affect income and wealth beside individual effort and merit, but anyway you get the general idea. We’d certainly be a lot closer to that ethos than we are now.) Who knows, maybe we should try that sometime, but that’s not really my point here. My point is the next time you hear some conservative blowhard banging on about how wonderful rich people are and how fair and just our distributional system is because it’s all about the market rewarding individual merit I think you should join me in a hearty belly laugh. Conservative: “We should never talk about redistributing resources because the markets already account for all ethical considerations and unerringly assign resources to the most deserving among us, that’s why we object so strongly to the death tax.” The rest of us: “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” It makes you feel better. It really does.
