EFFECT OF AN EQUAL DIVISION OF THE NATIONAL INCOME.
The best distribution of the national income among a people is that which enables them to enjoy the greatest amount and variety of real goods, and permanently to produce real goods in an increasing quantity and variety.
If the income of a people were divided equally among all, each one would indeed, be, to a very great extent, independent of all others. But then, no one would care to devote himself to the coarser and less agreeable occupations, and these would be either entirely neglected, or people would have to take turns in engaging in them.[203-1] (§ 9.) And thus would disappear one of the chief advantages of the division of labor, viz: that the higher orders of talent are devoted to the higher orders of labor. Besides, it is very doubtful, whether, under such circumstances, there would still be any solvent (zahlungsfähige) demand for the achievements of art.
Nor would the saving of capital prosper, where such equality prevailed. Most men consider the average outlay of their equals as an unavoidable want, and save only to the extent that they possess more than others of their class. If, therefore, every one had an equal income, no one would consider himself in a condition to save.[203-2] The same consideration would deter most men from every economic venture, and yet no great progress is possible where no venture is made.[203-3] [203-4]
[203-1] According to Schäffle, System, II, 379 ff., "the distribution of the social return of production which conduces to the attainment of the highest measure of civilization in the moral association of men and in all the grades of that association, and thereby to the satisfaction of all true human wants in the highest degree." Thus only can a satisfactory line of demarkation be drawn between the profit of capital and the wages of labor (384).
[203-2] See Aristoph., Plut., 508 ff. Not taken into consideration sufficiently by Benjamin Franklin, in his eulogy of the equality of property: The internal State of America, 1784.
[203-3] The essential characteristic of the desert is, according to Ritter, Erdkunde, I, 1019 seq., its uniformity. No break in the horizontal plain, and hence no condensation of atmospheric vapor into bodies of water of any considerable size. The composition of the soil is everywhere the same; nothing but masses of silex and salt, hard and sharp. Lastly, extreme mobility of the surface, which undulates with every wind, so that no plant can take root in it. Nearly every feature in this picture finds its analogon in the extreme political and economic equality of men.
[203-4] Les supériorités, qui ne sont dues qu'à, un usage plus intelligent et mieux réglé de nos facultés naturelles, loin d'être un mal, sont un véritable bien. C'est dans la plus grande prospérité, qui accompagne un plus grand et plus heureux effort, qu'est le principe de tout développement. (Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail, IV, 9, 10.) But, indeed, the rich man should never forget that society "inasmuch as it permits the concentration of wealth in his hands, expects that he will employ it to better advantage than the mass of mankind would if that same wealth were equally divided among them." (Brentano.)