Equal liberties and the resulting optimum income distribution and taxation

Serge-Christophe Kolm

A chapter in Inequality and Opportunity: Papers from the Second ECINEQ Society Meeting, 2008, pp 1-36 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: The relevant basic principle for overall distribution in macrojustice turns out to be the relevant equality of liberties. This study shows the consequence of this fact for the optimum distribution, taxation, and transfers of income. The liberties in question are social liberty (freedom from forceful interference, basic rights), and the possibilities offered by domains of choice which can provide equal liberty while being different for individuals with different productivities. The method is deductive from the basic relevant concepts. The result is that this distribution consists of an equal sharing of the proceeds of the same labour for all individuals (with their different productivities). The individuals choose freely their total labour (with no other tax). This redistributive structure is Equal-Labour Income Equalization or ELIE. It also has a number of other important meanings, such as: general balanced labour reciprocity (each yields to each other the proceeds of the same labour); equal basic universal income financed by an equal labour of all; and uniform linear concentration to the mean of the distribution of total incomes (including the value of leisure). This result extends to multidimensional labour (duration, education, intensity, etc.), and to partial labour including unemployments. The practical application relies on exemption of overtime labour from the income tax, and a tax credit. This is successfully applied in some countries. This constitutes a new paradigm of optimum income distribution and taxation. The old paradigm was based on welfarism not found relevant by society for this application, and it has therefore never been applied.

Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:reinzz:s1049-2585(08)16001-x

DOI: 10.1016/S1049-2585(08)16001-X

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