REALIZATION, IMPLEMENTATION, INFORMATION

The realization of the required distribution or policy depends on the information, motivation, and power of the appropriate agents. This chapter considers the question of the realization and implementation of ELIE schemes, and in particular that of information. The basic issues are presented in Sections 2 and 3 and the various aspects are more fully developed in Section 5, whereas Section 4 shows the problems of an alternative conception influential in economics. Section 2 notes the required information, the fact that ELIE can be achieved by purely interindividual rights, the various moral aspects of this distribution, the various ways in which people's motives associate self-interest and social and ethical views, and the consequences for implementation and information about individual capacities. Section 3 discusses the question of obtaining the required information, which concerns wage rates for given capacities, in observing labour markets, paysheets, and the characteristics of labour, as concerns, notably, the questions of education and training and the intensity of labour (effort). The conclusion is that this information is, on the whole, more easily obtained than that needed for other taxes or aids. The economic literature about “optimum income taxation” puts forward the issue of information, but raises a number of logical and conceptual problems that are noted in Section 4. Finally, an Appendix considers more in depth the issue of obtaining the information about the value of given capacities. It shows how the nature of ELIE favours individuals'participation in this respect.