Glamor Economics

Chapter 128

Chapter 17 Letting Everyone Have Sunshine——Taxation and Wealth Distribution
Section 1 Common Prosperity is Real Prosperity—Economic Fairness

There is a fable called "Cornflower" in the elementary school textbook. The fable is written like this: The cornflower that is about to wilt quietly raises its head and looks at the gorgeous world around it. earth.In this way, you can save yourself from death.Seeing its appearance, the grasshopper next to it said disdainfully: "The sun won't pay attention to you. It has neither the time nor the mood. The sun only uses its own light and heat to warm the tall oak trees and cedar trees, while you , a little cornflower, stop wishful thinking."

Not long after, the sun rose, and to the grasshopper's surprise, everything was bathed in the warm sunshine, and the cornflower was also revived under the sunshine.Cornflower moved and said: "The sun is too great. As long as the light can reach it, it always makes all things happy and happy, and treats everyone equally. Although I am not as tall as a cedar, I am also a member of all things." , so it is also bathed in warm sunshine."

In this fable, the sun is fair, and it bestows its light on all things, whether they are tall or small, stout or thin.In society, we advocate harmony and emphasize fairness.In social justice, the most important thing is economic justice.Only when economic fairness is realized can it help to realize real social fairness.

The most obvious manifestation of economic inequality in modern times is the widening income gap, which makes the difference in living standards among members of society more and more wide.Some people earn more than one million yuan a year, while most people can only get a monthly salary of a few thousand yuan, and some people are even on the verge of food and clothing.Economic fairness is related to the stability of a country. To achieve economic fairness, the most important thing is to solve the problem of income gap.Of course, we have always advocated fairness, but fairness in the full sense does not exist.Let's first look at an example of "dividing wealth between two sons" in the "Hundred Metaphors" in ancient India.

In ancient India, there was such a custom that after the death of parents, property should be left for their children, and the property should be divided equally between children.There was a wealthy businessman who was seriously ill in his later years and knew that he was going to die, so he told his sons to divide the property equally.According to his will, the two sons put forward various plans for dividing the property equally after his death, but no matter which plan, the two brothers could not be satisfied at the same time.

Just when they were worrying about sharing the inheritance, a stupid old man came to their house as a guest. Seeing the situation, he said to the two brothers: "I will teach you how to divide the property, and you will be able to share it fairly. Put everything together How to divide? The clothes are torn from the middle, the plates and bottles are knocked from the middle, the pots and jars are opened from the middle, and the money is also sawed, so that everything is in half.” The two brothers heard this The fool's suggestion, suddenly awakened, and finally found a way to divide the inheritance fairly.But when they divided the inheritance in this way, they found that everything was useless...

From this fable, we can see that absolute fairness does not exist.If all are divided according to quantitative equality, this kind of metaphysical joke will appear.Therefore, efficiency and fairness must be balanced.So, how to deal with the relationship between fairness and efficiency?
1. Efficiency principle
Efficiency comes first.For enterprises, efficiency is the key to the survival and development of enterprises.In order to survive, enterprises must formulate practical and feasible development strategies according to market demand.Within the enterprise, it is necessary to reduce costs as much as possible and improve product quality.Fully explore the advantages of talents, mobilize the enthusiasm of employees, so as to improve efficiency.Only in this way can we have an advantage in the fierce market competition.From this, we can see that in order to develop the economy, we must pursue efficiency.

2. Principle of fairness
Of course, when we talk about efficiency and economic development, we cannot ignore fairness.Today, in today's society, fairness has received more and more attention.In any society there will be some disadvantaged groups.For these vulnerable groups, the government should pay attention to fairness and achieve fairness through various measures.For example, collect personal income tax from high-income earners and transfer this part of funds to disadvantaged groups: distribute unemployment benefits, help laid-off workers find jobs again, and help out-of-school children return to classrooms.These measures all help to promote social equity.

Fairness promotes efficiency and is conducive to the realization of efficiency. Efficiency provides a material basis for the realization of fairness. The two are interrelated and indispensable.mutually reinforcing.Fairness helps to stimulate the enthusiasm of every individual in society, thereby improving efficiency and promoting economic development.At the same time, the improvement of efficiency can promote economic development, provide a solid material guarantee for the realization of fairness, and help promote the realization of fairness.

[links to related words]

Fairness theory was proposed by American psychologist Adams in 1965.The basic point of this theory is that people's work enthusiasm is not only related to the actual remuneration of individuals, but also closely related to whether people feel that the distribution of remuneration is fair.People will always consciously or unconsciously compare the labor price they pay and the reward they get with others, and make judgments about whether it is fair or not.The sense of fairness directly affects employees' work motivation and behavior.Therefore, in a sense, the motivating process is actually a process in which people compare each other, make judgments about fairness, and guide their behavior accordingly.

Benefit Principle The principle that people should pay taxes based on the benefits they receive from government services.This principle strives to make public goods resemble private goods.For example, in some states in the United States, part of the gasoline tax revenue is used to build and maintain roads, because people who buy more gasoline also use more roads.

(End of this chapter)