Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of WealthRyan, John A. (John Augustine)
PhilosophyChristian
Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth
Ryan, John A. (John Augustine)
Economic history; Income distribution -- Moral and ethical aspects; Wealth -- Religious aspects
The third and last of the intrinsic justifications of interest that we
shall consider is _abstinence_. This argument is based upon the
contention that the person who saves his money, and invests it in the
instruments of production undergoes a sacrifice in deferring to the
future satisfactions that he might enjoy to-day. One hundred dollars
now is worth as much as one hundred and five dollars a year hence.
That is, when both are estimated from the viewpoint of the present.
This sacrifice of present to future enjoyment which contributes a
service to the community in the form of capital, creates a just claim
upon the community to compensation in the form of interest. If the
capitalist is not rewarded for this inconvenience he is, like the
unpaid labourer, subordinated to the aggrandisement of his fellows.
Against this argument we may place the extreme refutation attempted by
the Socialist leader, Ferdinand Lassalle:
"But the profit of capital is _the reward of abstinence_. Truly a happy
phrase! European millionaires are ascetics, Indian penitents, modern
St. Simons Stylites, who perched on their columns, with withered
features and arms and bodies thrust forward, hold out a plate to the
passers-by that they may receive the wages of their privations! In the
midst of this sacro-saint group, high above his fellow-mortifiers of
the flesh, stands the Holy House of Rothschild. That is the real truth
about our present society! How could I have hitherto blundered on this
point as I have?"[140]
Obviously this is a malevolently one-sided implication concerning the
sources of capital. But it is scarcely less adequate than the
explanation in opposition to which it has been quoted. Both fail to
distinguish between the different kinds of savers, the different kinds
of capital-owners. For the purposes of our inquiry savings may be
divided into three classes.
First, those which are accumulated and invested automatically. Very
rich persons save a great deal of money that they have no desire to
spend, since they have already satisfied or safeguarded all the wants
of which they are conscious. Evidently this kind of saving involves no
real sacrifice. To it the words of Lassalle are substantially
applicable, and the claim to interest for abstinence decidedly
inapplicable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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