Further Thoughts on Confiscation

Abstract

While Professor Bronfenbrenner was quite right in opposing law... that confiscation never paid because it killed the goose that laid the golden eggs,l he nevertheless is guilty of attempting the erection of a new iron law. However much he may complain that I misinterpreted him, he does, in fact, through generation of a simple arithmetical model and some historical examples and non-examples, deduce an inevitability and prescribe policy therefor. That is, he does conclude that through confiscation economic development will necessarily occur at a more rapid pace than it otherwise would without sacrifice to the scale of living of the mass of population, and hence an increasing rash of confiscation should be regarded as inevitable. 2 He further goes on to prescribe a policy of little or no aid by Western countries to the underdeveloped economies because, he argues, among other things, aid as a bribe must become increasingly burdensome over time, and it will assume proportions of twentieth century white man's burden. 3