The Equity-Efficiency Tradeoff under Capitalism and Market Socialism

This paper utilizes a simple general equilibrium tax policy model and empirical data on labor income and capital wealth distribution in the United States to examine the equity-efficiency tradeoff under capitalism and a specific variant of market socialism designated "pragmatic market socialism." Under this variant of market socialism, property return produced by a publicly owned, but commercially oriented, business enterprise sector would be distributed on the basis of labor income rather than financial capital ownership. Under arguably reasonable assumptions, the pragmatic market socialist economy would display both higher output and greater consumption equality than the equivalent capitalist economy.