METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION § I. The problem of distribution. § 2. Distribution by force and by status. § 3. Social effects of the right to transmit property. § 4. Ef fects of the right to inherit property. 15. Broader social effects of in heritance. *6. Limitations upon intestate inheritance. § 7. Some merits of competition. 8. Wide acceptance of competition. § 9. nomic harmonies" and discords. § 10. Competition modified by charita ble distribution. § 11. Competition modified by authoritative distribu tion. § 12. Progressive versus reactionary. ˘ 13. Progressive versus radical.
§ 1. The problem of distribution. The great economic progress of the past two centuries has been mainly in lines of technical production. The developing natural sciences and mechanic arts have given men a marvelously increased control over forces and materials. This has multiplied the quantities of goods of most kinds at the disposal of men, collectively con sidered. All men, with rare exceptions, have been gainers; but the increased production has been very unequally dis tributed among the members of the community. More and more insistently the plea and the demand have been made for better methods of distribution that will give to the masses of the people a larger share of the goods produced. Production is largely a problem of the technical arts; distribution is a problem of social economy. Distribution as a problem of in comes is not to be confused with distribution of physical goods by transportation (as on the railroads) or by commercial agencies transferring goods from producer to consumer (as .11 cooperative stores and marketing).
Personal distribution is the actual movement of incomes into the control of persons. Personal incomes, whether
monetary, real, or psychic, are the sum of a number of elements. Some parts are due to services performed by the person himself. When one combs his own hair he is per forming for himself a service that is a part of his income. Benjamin Franklin said it was better to teach a boy to shave himself than to give him a thousand dollars with which to pay barbers for a life-time. Other parts of income are the uses and fruits of legally controlled wealth ; chance finds, as gifts of value or lost and abandoned goods; goods as signed to one by authority ; wealth inherited ; illegal gains by robbery; goods secured on credit; gifts either of things or of services. The many methods by which incomes are distributed to the persons making up a society may be grouped in the fol lowing five general classes: (1) force, (2) status, (3) charity, (4) competition, and (5) authority. These will be discussed in order.
§ 2. Distribution by force and by status. Distribution by force is the most primitive mode of distribution. The stronger takes from the weaker. Slavery is distribution by force, as is the levying of war indemnities from a conquered people. Forceful distribution still persists in the form of crime, and, if we include fraud within the term, it still affects an enormous amount of income. The lawless take whatever they can, and the supporters and officers of the law do what they can to check the acts.
Distribution may be by status, or set rules and customs. In 1 Treated throughout Vol. I.
this case men receive incomes that are independent of their efforts and outside of their control. Distribution by status is guided neither by the personal merit of the recipients nor by the value of their direct services, but by the merits and acts of men not living. Feudal society was built on status. Men were born to certain privileges and positions; they inherited property which could neither be bought nor sold; they fol lowed trades which could rarely be entered by any outside of favored families. Caste in India and in other Oriental coun tries regulates a large part of the life of the people.