Dear Editor
Dear Editor Nicaragua I have read Abraham Brumberg's "Cautious Optimism in Nicaragua" (NL, April 30) and was tremendously impressed with its balance and fairness—such a rare phenomenon when issues...
...The most acceptable explanation of the phenomenon would influence the social choice among tax policies...
...Middlebury, Vt...
...the exposition is self-subverting...
...Not until there is a radical reordering of American priorities can we expect the mildest reforms suggested by the ingenious " 'natural' law of lognormal income distribution" that Inhaber has uncovered...
...I have often quoted Morris Raphael Cohen on the obligation of scholars to pursue the truth wherever it may lead: Brumberg's article is a good example of the practice...
...Surely the solution suggested by Inhaber—to require that the top 3 per cent of the wealthy conform to a lognormally distributed after-tax income, not only assumes that a "natural" law is a reality but amounts to one of the mildest "attacks" on social integrity one could imagine...
...The fact is, however, that those few who make up our superwealthy class possess the means, including the political clout, to preserve a situation that in many respects amounts to a modern-day version of 19th-century England...
...I expect the Rawlsians to speak for Rawls, so I shall mention only one other point...
...In the Reagan era, we would do well to remember, even yesterday's died-in-the-wool Democrats dismiss the modest goals of the New Deal as old-fashioned, while the gap between the haves and have-nots grows...
...NL, April 16), Herbert Inhaber repeatedly places quotation marks around "natural" in phrases like " 'natural' law of earnings" but nowhere expresses his implied doubt that such laws actually exist...
...Dear Editor Nicaragua I have read Abraham Brumberg's "Cautious Optimism in Nicaragua" (NL, April 30) and was tremendously impressed with its balance and fairness—such a rare phenomenon when issues affecting our foreign policies are addressed...
...Reformist and radical traditions in politics of course take Mill's views as a given...
...Still fewer would want everyone to earn exactly the same...
...According to Inhaber, Vilfredo Pareto "was not interested in why his distribution occurred...
...Pareto's theories helped provide a philosophical basis for Italian Fascism, an elitist, antidemocratic form of government...
...And the irony is that their task is made easy by what has long been a national fear of everyone earning "exactly the same"—a euphemism for that much misunderstood old bugaboo, socialism...
...He was persuaded that there is a "natural" law of earnings, universal in character...
...To the contrary, it is clear that a theory of elitism informed Pareto's work on distribution...
...The rich will giggle all the way to the bank as they recite Goldsmith...
...In his "How Rich Should the Rich Be...
...Washington, D. C. Marvin Dambrot...
...And if there is a "natural" law of earnings, which one is the most plausible explanation of its operation—a genetics hypothesis, the laws of inheritance, the ideas of George Gilder, marginalist theory, random events a la Lester Thurow, exploitation by the bourgeoisie, or a monopoly-saturated economy...
...New York City Samuel Hendel Earnings It was John Stuart Mill who observed over a century ago that while laws of nature may govern the production of goods, laws of society govern the distributive shares of those goods...
...But if there is a "natural" law of earnings, does it apply only to corporate America or, for example, to Albania, China, Lapland, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and the Indian reservations in South Dakota as well...
...Los A ngeles Louis Altschuler Kitman Marvin Kitman's column on Michael Jackson going up in flames ("Pepsi's Hot News," NL, April 16) was worth the price of admission—although that whole issue sparkled...
...John V.Craven In his thought-provoking article on the distribution—or, really, maldistribution—of income in this country, Herbert Inhaber writes: "Few would want a society reminiscent of mid-19th-century England, with enormous fortunes presided over by a handful and millions toiling for a pittance...
...If Kitman is the first NL critic to write with one white glove, as he says, you ought to urge the others to follow suit (or glove...
Vol. 67 • June 1984 • No. 12
