An Inquiry into the Justification of Wealth Redistribution

A paper that I wrote in December 2021 as a first-semester freshman.

The question of wealth redistribution has been a contentious philosophical issue, mainly whether the government's power mandate covers it. Firstly, wealth redistribution is the notion of seizing private property from specific individuals to transfer its value to others. Furthermore, the government's power mandate will be constrained to its responsibility to protect citizens' rights rather than serving as a means of providing resources to them. This essay will argue that the government's power mandate does not cover wealth redistribution. It violates people's right to private property, disincentivizes people from accumulating wealth, and crosses the boundaries of the relationship between the state and the individual. 

Firstly, the government’s power mandate does not cover wealth redistribution because it violates citizens’ private property rights. This unjust act neither solves inequality nor falls within the boundaries of the government’s role. However, the seizure of property via taxation can only be justified if a program essential to the nation’s survival requires public funding to function correctly. The essentiality of this program depends on whether it protects people’s natural rights, such as the police, via the protection of private property. John Locke argued on similar lines, stating that “for the preservation of the army, and in it of the whole commonwealth, requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them; but yet we see, that neither the serjeant, that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon, or stand in a breach, where he is almost sure to perish, can command that soldier to give him one penny of his money; nor the general, that can condemn him to death for deserting his post, or for not obeying the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his absolute power of life and death, dispose of one farthing of that soldier’s estate, or seize one jot of his goods.”¹ Locke’s argument fully supports this essay’s position, as he both recognized the unjust nature of wealth redistribution based on the volitions of a higher authority and understood that some taxation is needed to fund essential services. Through this strict definition of the common good, the government’s potential tyranny through unjust wealth redistribution is avoided and fits within the rudimentary responsibility it holds, which is the protection of people’s rights. 

However, critics of this position argue that the common good’s definition is too narrow. They believe that the seizure of the upper class’ property to combat social ills such as inequality is necessary to redistribute its value to the less fortunate. For example, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that the notion of private property created institutionalized inequality, which he saw as the fundamental issue within civil society.² Rousseau states that “the first man, who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘this is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”³ Thus, Rousseau believed that it is necessary to protect people from the avoidable evil that was unfettered wealth accumulation by seizing the upper class’ profits to distribute to the poor.

A common theme amongst this essay’s, Locke’s, and Rousseau’s arguments is the notion of the greater good. This essay defines the term greater good as anything essential for the nation’s preservation. Thus, the seizure of private property is only justified via the state’s power mandate if doing so will fund an essential service. This principle would include taxation to fund services such as the police, who guard citizens’ property against those who wish to violate their rights (such as burglaries and squatting). Critics of this definition, such as Rousseau, believe that the greater good (or the general will⁴) includes combatting wealth inequality. However, the position that the state must fix inequality is dangerous because it allows the state to justify its tyranny through the “general will” as it pretends to speak for the impoverished masses. This expansion of the state’s responsibilities will inevitably lead to tyranny under “defending” the poor from the wealthy. Rousseau’s belief that a citizen should be “forced to be free”⁵ is a license to bend the individual’s desires to favor the state’s tyranny under the illusion that it is best for them. By punishing the wealthy for owning too much property, the creation of an authoritarian state becomes inevitable. To quote the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, Rousseau’s willingness to defend oppression in the name of freedom makes him “one of the most sinister and formidable enemies of liberty in the whole history of human thought.”⁶

Furthermore, wealth redistribution disincentivizes people from accumulating wealth. This phenomenon happens because the threat of being punished for success acts as a roadblock for individuals’ motive of accumulating wealth. The disruption of people’s right to pursue happiness through the disincentivization of wealth accumulation violates the government’s power mandate. Under ideal conditions, the government protects people’s right to accumulate wealth, creating positive externalities. Adam Smith describes this effect, arguing that benevolence in society comes from the self-interest of individuals in realizing their labor rather than being forced to serve others by the state. He says that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”⁷ Through this example, we can recognize that the desire to accumulate wealth drives the benevolence of individuals, as they cannot survive without producing something that people want. Wealth redistribution runs through the very heart of this principle, as it punishes those who both work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Instead, it favors those who were either not as successful or did not bother to produce something society demanded. 

However, critics of this position argue that the worker does not become benevolent by their labor. Instead, their participation in the capitalist system alienates them from their labor, which forces them to sell themselves to survive.⁸ The founder of this idea, Karl Marx, stated that “In estranging from man (1) nature, and (2) himself, his own active functions, his life activity, estranged labor estranges the species from man. It changes for him the life of the species into a means of individual life. First it estranges the life of the species and individual life, and secondly it makes individual life in its abstract form the purpose of the life of the species, likewise in its abstract and estranged form.”⁹ The crux of Marx’s argument is that an individual’s participation in the capitalist system removes themself from their humanity, which turns their consciousness into a means as they provide subsistence for themself through work. Consequently, the state must abolish private property (devices of production) to liberate the worker from their alienation and permit them to eliminate the phenomenon of estranged labor.

Marx’s counter-argument fails to refute the central point of this essay. Even as a premise for the working class’ liberation, wealth redistribution disincentivizes wealth accumulation by disrupting the free market system and ignoring the fundamental reason people work. In a free society, people do not work because they have to sell themselves but rather provide for themselves and their loved ones. Marx’s theory of alienation ignores both of these realities, as it generalizes people’s incentive to work in a manner that assumes that the majority of workers only toil for subsistence. Under a free market system, it is entirely possible to enjoy work and use it to contribute to society through the production that results from their labor. Marx’s theory of alienation directly defends both the elimination of private property and wealth redistribution, under the guise of eliminating the work incentive that exists under the capitalist system. This idea is unjust and supports a tyrannical government, and ignores the ground realities of people’s purpose for working. Simply choosing not to work will not guarantee happiness or the desire to produce something useful for society but will incentivize laziness, ironically creating less wealth to redistribute.

Lastly, wealth redistribution violates the line between the state and the individual. The role of the government is to protect people’s rights, not serve as a service provider. The government should not coddle its citizens but rather defend their rights so that they can elevate themselves. This idea introduces the concepts of positive and negative rights. Positive rights require other parties to provide an individual a good or service¹⁰, whereas negative rights require others to abstain from interfering with an individual’s actions.¹¹ The government can only enforce negative rights by its power mandate, as they require enforcement. If it provides positive rights, it will violate the distinction as it becomes a paternalistic figure in the individual’s life. Friedrich Hayek argued a similar point, as he believed that collectivism creates a hole within the virtues that construct a society. The state would then coddle the individual through coercion to fill this hole. Hayek stated that “it is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now--independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one’s own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one’s neighbors--are essentially those on which the working of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it already has destroyed then it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to what is collectively decided to be good.”¹² If the state begins to provide positive rights, then the social fabric will fall apart as the paternalistic state rises in its ashes.

However, John Stuart Mill argued on the opposite lines, stating that the government must provide for the people’s subsistence. Mill wrote that “if society . . . lend their physical force to protect individuals in the enjoyment of superfluities, they are entitled to . . . tax those superfluities for purposes of public utility; among which purposes, the subsistence of the people is the foremost.”¹³ While Mill was not radically in favor of redistribution programs, he certainly did not believe that the social fabric could provide for the poor. The definition of Mill’s idea of achieving “subsistence” is providing people the resources they need to survive, which would require the state to provide positive rights.

However, Mill’s idea of a welfare state is flawed due to the broad definition of the term “subsistence.” His arguments would lead to the downfall of the private sphere and the rise of the state’s enveloping presence over the individual. “Subsistence” could include positive rights like healthcare, which requires the coercion of labor by the state. The state must force people to work at the taxpayer’s behest under a nationalized healthcare system rather than giving them the choice of working for private interests. Furthermore, these positive rights would have to be funded by wealth redistribution programs using money that private charities could use instead, who are more in touch with the community's needs than the bureaucratic state. Instead of enabling the state to become a paternalistic figure in people’s lives, it should defend people’s negative rights (such as private property and free speech) so that the nation’s social fabric can be consolidated, alongside empowering individual choices over state coddling.

In conclusion, wealth redistribution is not covered by the state’s power mandate because it violates individuals’ right to private property, disincentivizes wealth accumulation, and violates the line between the state and the individual. Wealth redistribution threatens individuals’ natural rights by “protecting” the poor, which acts as a license for tyranny. While taxation can be justified to provide for essential public services, the definition of essential is constrained to the point where they only protect people’s negative rights. The protection of people’s natural rights is the essential function of the government, and giving it the power to become an enabler runs the risk of creating a behemoth that threatens individuals with a metaphorical and literal gun to their head.

Bibliography

1. Cahn, Steven M. “Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” Essay. In Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, 418-65. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 

2. Cahn, Steven M. “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.” Essay. In Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, 701–8. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 

3. Cahn, Steven M. “Adam Smith.” Essay. In Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, 492–506. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 

4. Crowder, George. “The Betrayal of Freedom.” Essay. In Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism, 61–61. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Polity, 2008.

5. Kimball, Miles. “John Locke: Legitimate Taxation and Other Appropriation of Property by the Government Is Limited as to Quantity, Procedure and Purpose.” Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal. Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal, December 30, 2018. https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2018/12/16/john-locke-legitimate-taxation-and-other-appropriation-of-property-by-the-government-is-limited-as-to-purpose-procedure-and-quantity. 

6. Nathanson, Stephen. “John Stuart Mill on Economic Justice and the Alleviation of Poverty.” Journal of Social Philosophy43, no. 2 (2012): 161–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2012.01556.x. 

7. Skoble, Aeon. “Prof. Aeon Skoble Describes the Key Differences between Positive and Negative Rights.” Libertarianism.org, June 21, 2011. https://www.libertarianism.org/media/around-web/negative-rights-vs-positive-rights. 

8. von, Hayek Friedrich August. “Material Conditions and Ideal Ends.” Essay. In The Road to Serfdom, 486–87. Chicago, Illinois: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999. 

1. Miles Kimball, “John Locke: Legitimate Taxation and Other Appropriation of Property by the Government Is Limited as to Quantity, Procedure and Purpose,” Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal (Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal, December 30, 2018),

2. Steven M. Cahn, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” in Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 422-437.

3. Ibid, p. 428

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid, p. 441.

6. George Crowder, “The Betrayal of Freedom,” in Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Polity, 2008), p. 61.

7. Steven M. Cahn, “Adam Smith,” in Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 497.

8. Steven M. Cahn, “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,” in Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 701-708.

9. Ibid, p. 704

10. Aeon Skoble, “Prof. Aeon Skoble Describes the Key Differences between Positive and Negative Rights.,” Libertarianism.org, June 21, 2011, https://www.libertarianism.org/media/around-web/negative-rights-vs-positive-rights.

11. Ibid.

12. Friedrich August von Hayek, “Material Conditions and Ideal Ends,” in The Road to Serfdom (Chicago, Illinois: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 486-487.

13. Stephen Nathanson, “John Stuart Mill on Economic Justice and the Alleviation of Poverty,” Journal of Social Philosophy 43, no. 2 (2012): pp. 161-176, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2012.01556.x.