![]() Nor do they have to worry about capital gains or property taxes or the wealth inequalities created by some having the good fortune to buy a house in an up-and-coming neighbourhood or town before the prices rose. So in Utopia it is not resources that are redistributed, but rather people. The optimum figure is easily maintained by transferring members from a household with too many to one with too few.” Naturally there is no way to fix the number of young children. Instead, if the number of people in one of the 54 cities exceeds the optimum number, “the overflow is used to make up the shortfall in underpopulated cities.” Īnd there would be few worries for analysts concerned with how to compare standards of living between households of different sizes – “care is taken that each household has no fewer than ten or more than sixteen adults. There is no complicated system of central grants to local governments to equalise the resources of different areas. But there are lots of forms of distribution designed to keep everything even. A lot of that is achieved by moral pressure and by shaming of selfish behaviour.Īs a corollary, in a land without money, much of our academic interest in redistribution and on the effects of public policy is absent. There are a lot of rules enforced somehow by local dignitaries that ensure that “no one sits around idle but that everyone works diligently at their craft” for the prescribed six hours a day that, efficiently organised, creates the island’s abundance. Utopia was not particularly freedom-friendly (although still a great deal more so, perhaps, than Henry VIII’s England). ![]() As a result, 90 per cent of modern economics would be alien.īut that culture is clearly reinforced by regulation. It relies on a cultural recognition of the common good, not, apparently, individual incentives. It is a very long way from Adam Smith’s tradesmen who did not feed you out of benevolence but out of their own self-interest in what the invisible hand of the market would deliver to them. This is a land not just with an unconditional ‘basic income’ in today’ terms, but one where people – or at least the head of household – get to decide themselves what they need. After all, why should anything be denied him? There is more than enough of everything, and there is no fear that anyone will take more than they really need.” Īt the same time – and making this possible – everyone works, taking their turns in agriculture, but also in learning one of the approved crafts – i ncluding, it is remarked on, women. “the head of each household searches out whatever he or his household needs and carries away their requirements without any payment or recompense. Will people work if they can get an income without having to do so? Do heavily means-tested systems mean that people see little extra gain from doing more so they won’t bother? And do expensive welfare states require such high tax rates that taxpayers will work less, retire early or not bother to take investment risks? There were no such worries in Utopia. Today the debate on social security and anti-poverty strategy is dominated by worries about incentives and disincentives. Today, he explains, this balance has disappeared. Their behaviour was not reinforced by tangible incentives but by a cultural belief in lifetime honours, after death rewards and punishment on one hand, and a fear of being shamed if they behaved badly on the other. Utopians would generally not behave badly, he writes. ![]() John Hills has been part of a European research programme on contemporary poverty reduction in Europe co-ordinated by Antwerp University, and was asked to reflect on connections between More’s fable and today’s debates. Thomas More’s Utopia was published 500 years ago, in 1516, following discussions that had started in Antwerp the previous year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |