Pragmatic Market Socialism

Abstract

Although it is clear from simple observation that the capital property income received by individuals under contemporary capitalism is not earned by the same sort of direct and evident labor which earns wage and salary income, in response to the socialist challenge a variety of justifications for property income have been developed. The most important of these revolve around the contention that property income is in some legitimate sense an earned return. It may be argued that capital property income is a return to capital management effort, either in the form of corporate supervision such as might be performed by a member of a corporation’s board of directors, or in the form of investment analysis, such as might be performed by an investor or an entrepreneur in evaluating a range of capital investment opportunities. It may also be argued that capital property income is a return to saving, and compensates the saver for that personally stressful postponement of consumption which makes available valuable capital investment resources to business firms and government agencies.