EQUALITY OF INCOME
The inevitable effect of equality of income, assuming it could
be accomplished, is discussed.
Two or three years ago George Bernard Shaw had a prize article in the
“Metropolitan” in which he advocated “Equality of Income” as a panacea
for all the ills that afflict civilization. I remember he urged that if
all had equal incomes the race would be improved; for there would be
greater freedom of selection. He seemed to deplore the fact that under
present conditions “men and women meet in parks and other public
places, recognize natural affinity” so promptly responded to by some
but are nevertheless kept apart because of this iniquitous inequality
of income. However much the man may be attracted by the personality of
the lady he will not humble himself to make advances if she gives
evidence of being financially beneath him; while his advances will be
spurned if he bears the marks of a more meagre income than she enjoys.
It was the same old free-love doctrine, and the author argued at length
to show that inequality of income thus seriously interferes with the
free course of “natural affinity” and hence retards the coming of the
“superman.” He did not in that article suggest how he would equalize
incomes. Suppose we study, for a moment, not how to accomplish it, but
the effect of its consummation.
If equality of income would be a panacea now—if it would solve the
ills we have and prevent others—it would have worked well from the
beginning. Imagine therefore that instead of following the divinely
implanted impulse to acquire, to hold, to exercise sovereignty, to
achieve, the race had remained as it was when it had no income, and
therefore when no inequality of income existed. Would churches and
cathedrals have been built? Would colleges and universities have been
founded? Would art and literature have flourished? Would America have
been discovered? Equality of income would have left Queen Isabella with
no jewels to sell with which to purchase the Santa Maria. In fact there
would have been no Santa Maria to purchase. The race would have
remained where the race started. Inequality of income began when
incomes began. Inequality of income marks the birth of civilization,
and if civilization ever dies “_equality of income_” should be the
title of its dirge.
The wealth of the United States is about twenty-five hundred dollars
per capita. Assume, if you please, that all our property could be and
has been converted into cash. Then assume that the rest of the world is
able and willing to supply our every need and our every want so long as
our money lasts! We would eat up and wear out the accumulation of the
centuries in about three years; and henceforth would go about clothed
in skins, and our own skins at that. The world lives from the income
and accretion resulting from the accumulations of the ages, but in
order to make it effective it must be kept in circulation, going first
to labor, thence to the producer—the manager—by way of the merchant,
and again to labor.