J. S. MILL'S REDISTRIBUTION POLICY: NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY OR OLD?

Abstract

This paper challenges the new view that J. S. Mill's redistribution policies share the same pro-poor philosophy of modern negative income tax advocates who stress the minimum injury to labour incentives. While they assume a progressive tax structure, Mill wanted a proportionate tax, and, in practice, if his actual tax proposals favoured any group it was the middle class. “The moderns” object to welfare schemes that impose a 100 percent tax on the welfare recipient's own earnings. The New Poor Law, that Mill supported, did just this. The Old Poor Law (under Gilbert's Act), that outraged him, came closest to modern NIT scheme. It provided outdoor relief in cash, whereas Mill wanted indoor relief in kind. And it answered the inefficiencies and indignities of conventional welfare (work-house) administration, a problem in which Mill showed no interest. His scheme did contain incentives; but these were directed to the needs of a future poor, educated according to Mill's own special design.