Pope Calls Latin American Bishops to Center Mission in Christ, Not Ideologies

[manualman]

Distributism is not Socialism. Most of Europe made the socialist/marxist mistake as you well note.

Gates and Buffet aren’t in danger of sloth. But the next generation sure is. Even Buffet sees this and is famous for saying/quoting ‘give your kids enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.’

That’s my point. I think our system works quite well. Better than that of most other nations. But it isn’t perfect. And putting back a hefty inheritence tax and closing the trust fund loophole would do NOTHING to harm the good parts of our system (modest taxes on high acheivers/earners) and would help address the bad parts (inherited wealth amassing a greater and greater proportion of the nations total wealth via insider access instead of personal acheivement and initiative).

 

[JW10631]

All levels of government tax the wealth a person creates throughout his or her lifetime.

Now, in order to continue productivity, one advocates the Government-sanctioned seizing of that wealth when the person dies.

What makes the US Government entitled to the property of a deceased person?

Nothing.

“Heavy” inheritance taxes would never be enacted without loopholes for the well-connected rich. These are called trusts. The people who have small businesses are the ones who are hurt the worst by the death tax.

Just what would the Government do with this wealth? Try to grow onions on the moon? Blow it on congressional junkets?
Waste it on some public works project?
Most likely.

In my humble opinion, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church doesn’t know very much at all about economics. We always hear about “the gap between the rich and the poor”. Poverty is relative. Poor people in Peru and India live in corrugated tin shacks with dirt floors and beg for food while searching through garbage dumps for something to eat.

Poor people here (some, not all) have cell phones, cable TV and cars.

The best way to end poverty is with a job. Not by government redistribution of wealth, not by government confiscation of wealth, not by the government setting wages for work.

I had to read and write a report on a book when I applied for a college scholarship way back in early 1982. I read The Capitalist Manifesto by Louis Kelso. Kelso identified the types of economic systems in the following manner-
Pure Capitalism (lassiez-faire)
Market Capitalism (ideal)
Mixed Capitalism (current US)
Social Capitalism (socialism)
State Capitalism (Communism)

Kelos points out that who owns capital owns wealth. The capitalist uses capital to create more wealth.
When disincentives are put in place by government to inhibit the creation of wealth, the capitalist moves his capital to a place where the capitalist can create more wealth. Thus, confiscatory taxes - such as stiff inheritance taxes - will case capital to be moved out of the US and put in place where the confiscatory taxes cannot be enforced.

Even now, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is causing some business in the US to move their charter of incorporation to the Bahamas, Bermuda, Ireland, etc. so they can avoid its onerous burdens.

“Distributionism” sounds like a watered down socialism to me.