Is income inequality necessarily unjust?

We may not be able to identify thief or victim, but it is a trivial matter to identify those who benefit from such transactions having taken place and those who are harmed by them. In the absence of an identified thief and victim, what could possibly prevent us from simply assuming those who suffer now are de facto victims? — Isaac

This point "it's trivial to identify who benefits and suffers from past transactions", is asserting that wealthy people have benefited and poor people have been injured?

Economic value is best thought of as the maximum return the seller can generate. — Isaac

Free market prices are such that quantity supplied and quantity demand are the same. Real markets are unfree to varying degrees. The distance of real prices from equilibrium prices is a function of unfreeness. Why is your view superior?

the price of the resource they collectively own will still be set my the minimum that person is willing to receive, not the amount the purchaser is willing to pay. Their willingness to pay doesn't figure in the calculations at all because they simply must, on pain of death, pay whatever the minimum available price is. — Isaac

If the seller doesn't turn his property investment into a positive return, then he doesn't make money, so hunger kills him. If the buyer doesn't acquire housing, then exposure kills him. What is the salient difference between buyer and seller position?

Say all landowners set the price of fields at £6,000 an acre. One landowner thinks he might rake in all the sales by accepting £5,500. That then is the price of land. The willingness of farmers to pay that price never entered the equation, they simply have to because they must have land to make food to eat. — Isaac

The willingness of farmers to pay £5,500 rather than £6,000 is exactly what influences the lower price. The defecting landowner thinks, "Farmers are more willing to pay £5,500 than £6,000, so I will lower my price to increase the likelihood of a sale." It's incontestable that more people are willing to buy a product at a lower price than a higher price. Are you pointing out that the lower price is too expensive for some farmer-buyers?

Assume a single landlord owns all farmable properties. He decides to sell each acre plot for £0.001. Most farmer-buyers can "afford" land. Unfortunately, the "line" to buy is so long that most farmer-buyers never get land. What model do you suggest for distributing usage of farmland?

You're just begging the question. Why would we assume the money was acquired justly? Why would assume the transfer was just? — Isaac

Your enquiry has led to a better formulation of the regime: "Assume that all money has and will be justly earned. How is my reasoning about taxation and income inequality affected?"

Usefully, policy recommendations are partitioned into those contingent on unjust distribution of money and those not.

No, because it's rarely the result of a single transfer. It's will usually be the result of several hundred transfers since the original property was acquired by murder or violent supplanting of the previous owner. — Isaac

If you are suspicious that I like the idea of an "unspoiled chain of just transactions", you're right. But I can hardly ignore evidence to the contrary (conquest, police seizures, securities fraud). Strategically, I notice two things: 1) Solutions aiming to fix bad links often have large costs of their own, 2) Often the (perceived) thief and victim are dead, so there are no good candidates for punishment or compensation.

If, as a property owner, I withhold unproductive land from someone who needs it to grow crops I am creating artificial scarcity, the true availability of land for productivity is not as it seems because property owners retain land for no purpose other than to increase its value. Why else do Russian Oligarchs own entire tower blocks in London which are completely empty? — Isaac

This emerges from your general view on who should and shouldn't be permitted to own particular scarce resources. Can you expand this view? It will improve my understanding of your comment.

People need houses and all property is currently owned, so the owners of that property can collectively charge whatever they can get away with (the amount the most generous among them is willing to accept) to the would-be homeowner. — Isaac

All material goods needed or wanted are currently owned by someone else. This is not unique to property.

The amount the home-seeker will pay, therefore, has nothing to do with their 'willingness' (any more than being forced to do something at gunpoint has). It has to do with the minimum generosity of the group of people who own the resource they need (in this case property). If every single property owner were so inclined to demand £x for the property, then that's how much it would cost. It has absolutely zero to do with the home-seeker's willingness to pay, they have no option but to pay whatever is demanded or die of exposure. — Isaac

Yes, it is possible for firms to form cabals. But the incentive for members to silently defect makes cabals unstable. This instability remains until government begins punishing defectors with fines and jail time.

If the amount of money being declared 'too much' is inherited, then it is not translatable into "Work done by group X is too highly demanded by other people" The people being described as having 'too much' money are not the same people as those who did the work to acquire it. — Isaac

Assume the original money maker acquired the money justly. Then I suggest the money as a record of a man's work output stands regardless of who has the money. Maybe you believe the record is destroyed by unjust transfers of the money? But then you'd have to assert that voluntary donations are unjust.

If the money the government is taxing is inherited then it cannot be translated into "More government activities should be funded by group Y's trades" because the group being taxed (group Y) are not being taxed on the basis of their trades, but on the basis of trades by a completely different group (their predecessors). — Isaac

My regime is surely imperfect, but do you agree that the money is such a record before the transfer (inheritance)?

Why would property owners be allowed to enforce 'willing' (by removing all other options but to pay for their services), but governments not allowed to similarly enforce 'willing' by giving employers no option but to pay a certain price for labour? — Isaac

Property owners did and do not create the scarcity of property. The scarcity is a property of the material world. The amount of inhabitable land is finite and each person could find some alternative use for it.

Additionally, does your prior justify any and all government "enforced willingness" on firms? How do you decide which such "arrangements" are just?

Indeed. Economic structures distribute resources. One of those structures is supply and demand (the basis of the OP). — Isaac

To what degree is the "supply and demand structure" real? In my view, only resources, agents and their decisions are real. Supply and demand is a map for reasoning about these real things. But it is not like a physical law which "makes" things happen.

It's not even the most important one. As the old Fry and Laurie sketch goes - 'The Market' is like Santa Claus, most people eventually grow up and stop believing in it. — Isaac

Like my Uncle Bob says, if you aren't a conservative by 30 the Doc missed an extra chromosome.

Maybe I just legally owe you because you had the power to do something bad to me if I didn't agree to owe you. Maybe I owe you because someone with more power than either of us just declared that I do — Pfhorrest

I agree, in practice some income is better thought of as "unearned". To turn the issue back to you, what features must a society have in order for "most" income to be "earned"? Then given such a society, is my regime a useful tool for policy analysis?

What about inheritance? — Isaac

The inherited money is the donor's record. I think this amendment preserves the regime,

"Money is a record of men's willingness to trade for another man's work output."

No - so that rather undermines the whole project doesn't it? — Isaac

To the contrary, I suggest it undermines the coherency of statements like "The government should increase the minimum wage".

For the employee “most efficient means” doesn’t come into it. He/she applies for a position. On the basis of their potential contribution to the objectives of the company they’re hired. — Brett

The employee and firm are independent entities each having their own goals. The individual agrees to work if and only if he believes the arrangement is beneficial to him. The firm agrees to hire him if and only if the arrangement is beneficial for them. Neither party's goals are subsumed in the process.

The individual doesn't account for the company's goals in his decision making. And likewise, the firm doesn't account for his.

You might have to define “efficient means”. — Brett

The individual has scare resources: time, money, favors owed, etc. He must choose how to allocate these resources to achieve his goals. The "most efficient means" is the allocation that maximizes achieved goals, that is, it the allocation of resources that maximizes his utility.

In this case, the individual must decide how much of his time to allocate towards labor.

The individual does not submit. “I am an individual. Therefore I submit to nothing, even if it’s in my own interests”. — Brett

I don't think "submission" is a special type of action. For the individual, the action either maximizes his utility or it doesn't. Maybe you are making a criticism of modern preferences. "Modern people ought to get more subjective benefit from obeying God."

The company has an objective that everyone plays a part in achieving. The employee doesn’t go off on his own tangent or belief in what’s good for the company. — Brett

It's the other way around. The company has become part of the individual's tangent. The individual determines his goals and the most efficient means for achieving them. The individual then trades his work for cash if and only if laboring for the company qualifies as "most efficient means".

Put another way, the trade only happens when it is the most economical path to his goal. Given that, I do not think his trade is usefully characterized as "submission". But I am interested in your definition of "submission".

The irony is that a communal effort achieves success in a capitalist environment. — Brett

Voluntary cooperation is a necessary condition for any capitalist regime. I do not observe any irony.

Isn’t it an irony that in a place of business or corporation the individual, with their skills, submits to the greater good of the company for its success. — Brett

I take this as your proposition: "In business, individuals submit to the greater good of the company."
Without a definition for "submit" that proposition lacks meaning.

Alternatively I offer, an individual can choose to allocate his scarce time into labor or something else. If labor best maximizes his utility, then he works. The employee doesn't "submit to the greater good of the company". He sells his labor because it is the option that best maximizes his utility.