Guest Post: On The Economic Calculation Of "Fair Share"

Via Dusan Petrovski of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada, When one speaks of a concept it is important that it is properly qualified so as to be correctly understood. Failure to accomplish that makes impossible for either the problem to be identified or a desired solution to be found. Perhaps this is why politicians have a tendency to speak of ill-defined and oft muddled concepts, like “social justice,” “a living wage” or “fair share.” These concepts are impossible to define in a way consistent with how they are represented, since their proponents represent them as definite, rather than abstract matters. In our time the demand for “the rich” to pay their “fair share” through higher taxes has become a standard war cry broadcast from every public and crony source of media. Yet, there is no objective means of defining either what constitutes “the rich” or “f...