that distribution is to a large degree governed by laws which are under human control, and are therefore moral. "The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them. . . . It is not so with the distribution of wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like. They can place them at the disposal of whomsoever they please, and on whatever terms. The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society. The rules by which it is determined are what the opinions and feelings of the ruling portion of the community make them, and are very different in different ages and countries, and might be still more different if mankind so chose." "1 The ethical progress involved in Mills's position may be estimated by noting the following questions, set forth by the latest political economist of note, Professor Alfred Marshall. These questions, many of which would have been ruled out of the discussion twenty years ago, are declared by Professor Marshall to be "problems of special urgency: "Taking it for granted that a more equal distribution of wealth is to be desired, how far would this justify changes in the institutions of property, or limitations of free enterprise, even when they would be likely to diminish the aggregate of wealth? In other words, how far should an increase in the income of the poorer classes and a diminution of their work be aimed at, even if it involved some lessening of national material wealth? "How ought the burdens of taxation to be distributed among the different classes of society? "What are the proper relations of individual and collective action in a stage of civilization such as ours? . . . What business affairs should be undertaken by society itself acting through its government, imperial or local? Have we, for instance, carried as far as we should the plan of collective ownership and use of open spaces, of works of art, of the means of instruction and amusement, as well as of those material requisites of a civilized life, the supply of which requires united action, such as gas, and water, and railways? "When government does not itself directly intervene, how far should it allow individuals and corporations to conduct their own affairs as they please? How far should it regulate the management of railways and other concerns which are to some extent in a position of monopoly, and again of land and other things, the quantity of which cannot be increased by man? Is it necessary to retain in their full force all the existing 1 Political Economy, vol. i., pp. 257, 258. See, also, Autobiography, p. 246. rights of property; or have the original necessities, for which they were meant to provide, in some measure passed away?" 1 A still further advance is indicated in the recognition of the moral element involved in consumption. Consumption represents the growth of want in the individual, and this growth of want is the chief stimulus to social progress and the measure of it. Here lies the moral principle in all measures for the reduction of working time. Time is really worth more to the workingman than money. "The first condition for increasing the opportunity of the masses to develop their social character, and thereby increase their natural capacity to consume wealth, commensurate with their power to produce it, is more leisure." 2 Another tendency, of immediate practical effect, is seen in the increased care about legislation, which may encourage or allow the further concentration of wealth. Many fortunes in the past have been due to legislation favoring private interests. Something of this legislation has doubtless been pardonable. It is difficult to see how it could have been avoided, without discouraging the material development of the country. But the time has certainly arrived when there is little necessity for bartering the national resources to stimulate the national development. And what is true of the nation is true in degree of the municipality. A city cannot afford to be wasteful of its rights in the growth of the "unearned increment." It is a hopeful sign that the old indifference of citizens in the disposal of valuable franchises is passing away. I do not say that they are not still to be disposed of, but they are no longer to be had for the asking, and they cannot be so easily gained by corruption. Neither can one overlook the tendency to intercept wealth on its way into private hands through corporate bodies, by enlarging the economic functions of the municipality and the state. When Professor Marshall asks, "What business affairs should be undertaken by society itself acting through its government, imperial or local?" he puts a question of growing interest in all highly organized communities. The question is more advanced in England than in the United States, for here it has been held in check by municipal corruption. Birmingham,3 Glasgow, and now London 1 Principles of Economics, vol. i., pp. 96, 97. 2 George Gunton, Wealth and Progress, p. 234. See, also, by same author, Principles of Social Economics. See article by the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain on "Favorable Aspects of State Socialism," in the North American Review, May, 1891. are examples of the economic uses to which city corporations may be put. But these particular corporations do not rest upon universal suffrage, but upon a graduated system of property qualification. American cities have had too serious a struggle to guard the business interests necessarily committed to the city corporation to be eager to intrust new and more unrestricted interests to them. Still the tendency toward the use of municipalities for business purposes is beginning to show itself in this country; and it may be that the necessity for their increased use in this direction will help to their purification. If the economic function of the municipality really ought to be increased, if it can naturally do a part of the business now in private hands at great gain to individuals, it is not unreasonable to expect that citizens will arouse themselves and see to it that the affairs of the city are conducted on business principles. And we may come in time to show a pride in all that pertains to municipal administration and improvement like that which characterizes the better cities of England and the Continent. The growing disposition to apply the principle of taxation very vigorously to estates represents in a pronounced way the tendency to restrain the further concentration of wealth. This principle meets with Mr. Carnegie's unqualified approval. He refers to it as a “cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. . . . Of all forms of taxation this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for public ends would work good to the community, from which it chiefly came, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death, the state shows its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life." This principle has now become well established in legislation. It is recognized in England under the term "death duties." Estates above $50,000 are taxed, and Mr. Goschen recommends that the tax be a graduated or progressive one. The same principle, under the form of a "collateral inheritance tax," is in operation in one or more of the States of the Union, and bills for its adoption are pending before several legislatures." 1 Two years ago I refused to sign a petition asking for legislation allowing cities to supply gas to private buyers, on the ground of the present municipal corruption. To-day I should be inclined to favor such legislation in the interest of municipal purity. 2 "The bill pending at Albany to tax all inheritances over $5,000 has been But the theory of a progressive tax on inheritances carries with it logically the theory of a progressive income tax. There are minor differences; but there is no valid reason why a great fortune should not come under the same principle with a great estate. Much stress cannot as yet be laid upon the actual results gained by coöperation, profit-sharing, and various other methods for effecting a better distribution of wealth while it is being made, but they all show the tendency upon which I am dwelling. And no one can forecast the possibilities which they represent. I have often thought that such a method of better distribution as profitsharing is like a channel cut to change the bed of a river. In ordinary times it seems of little use. The overflow may fill it, but its waters are stagnant. The next flood may fill it with a rushing current, and make it thenceforth the bed of the stream. Certainly no one can foretell what one, if any, of the present experimental methods for the better distribution of wealth under production will yet be adopted, but they all have a certain capacity, and above all else they evince a certain sense of obligation or necessity to effect the end they seek to accomplish. It has been my object in this article to call attention to the moral significance of great fortunes, to show the ethical bearing made the subject of loud objurgation and protest, as though it were primâ facie an act of spoliation. We are accustomed to consider the estate of every deceased person as the rightful property of his next of kin, and hence to conclude that the state has no more right to help itself to a portion of the property than to seize arbitrarily the earnings of a living person. But the fact historically is that it is the state, and only the state, that enables surviving relatives, even children, to enjoy the possessions of the deceased. Without the state, i. e. organized society, all property is the prey of the strongest, and most especially property whose owner no longer has any need of it. It is the state that enables the owner to make disposition of it after his death. The question whether the state should take some portion of it for its own uses is one of detail, and not of abstract principle. Most civilized communities recognize the fact that the death of the father or mother leaves the family in a worse position than it was before, since it is deprived of the earnings and care that it formerly received, and hence that the estate, so far as concerns the direct heirs, should not be the subject of a special tax. Most communities, New York among the number, consider the property of decedents passing by will or inheritance not in the direct line as property subject to a special tax. The tendency and drift of enlightened opinion at the present day is towards the special taxation of large inheritances both in the direct and the indirect line. Of course, such taxation may be perverted and made an instrument of gross injustice, but it is not to be classed as spoliation per se." — New York Nation, March 19, 1891. of the amassing of private wealth. I have not cared to enter the field of the methods of social relief and reform. Methods belong to economists and legislators. The concern of moral and religious teachers is with principles. They have to do legitimately with the ethical factor which is put into, or which is left out of, all proposed reforms. They are bound to test all theories which are offered in aid of society, and to test them all the more if they are offered with moral earnestness and under religious names. They have the right to ask of any new scheme whether it will leave society better or worse in the end for its adoption. My criticism of Mr. Carnegie's scheme has been that, to the degree in which it is organized and made the ruling method of adjusting wealth to society, it becomes a vast system of patronage, than which nothing can in the final issue create a more hopeless social condition. And further, that the assumption upon which it rests, that wealth is the inevitable possession of the few, and is best administered by them for the many, begs the whole question of economic justice now before society, and relegates it to the field of charity. But charity, as I have claimed, cannot solve the problems of the modern world. And the point is reached at which this claim is seen to be valid, whenever any scheme is proposed for the redistribution of wealth through charity, leaving the question of the original distribution of wealth unsettled, or settled only to the satisfaction of the few. What the ethical question of to-morrow in the economic world may be I know not. But the ethical question of to-day centres, I am sure, in the distribution rather than in the redistribution of wealth. I would hinder no man's gifts in the largest charity; I would withhold no honor from the giver; but I would accept no amount in charity as a measure of the present social need, or in settlement of the present economic demand. ANDOVER. William Jewett Tucker. |
