So we could have a set of distributive institutions where I owned all of the social product. That’s conceivable. As it turns out, we do not have that set of distributive institutions. We have this other cocktail of things which is kind of pieced together haphazardly: some market wages, some transfers, some in-kind public benefits, and so on.
I guess logically this means that I personally pay the incomes of everyone else. The current distributive scheme trades off with the distributive scheme where I get everything. So when we opt for the current distributive scheme, I am being forced to pay for everyone else relative to this other distributive scheme. The current distributive scheme personally costs me around $15.09 trillion per year, i.e. the GDP of the US. That’s a lot of money being taken from me relative to the other distributive institutions where I get everything, the ones that don’t exist. And, let me tell you, I am pretty pissed about it.