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Show THE AMERICAN WAY INCENTIVE vt'-v j By Georg Peckun l ; ?AiJ IT becomes increasingly apparent ap-parent that all too few present-day present-day Americans realize the dynamic dy-namic force of INCENTIVE, and the tremendous part it has played in creating here the greatest productive economy and the finest fin-est social system in world history. his-tory. Now, there is nothing mysterious myster-ious about INCENTIVE it is quite easy to understand and from that understanding to appreciate ap-preciate why it contributes so much to human welfare wherever wher-ever it is allowed to operate. When INCENTIVE is in action, the more work one does, or the better work one docs, the greater great-er the reward one receives. It's just as simple as that. Many times in this column I have pointed out that even Josef Stalin recognizes the value of INCENTIVE. When he became Dictator of Russia, practically the first thing he did, was to proclaim that the worker who worked harder or better was to have better food, better clothing, a better home to live in, etc. than his less industrious and less skillful fellow-worker. But there is a force at work in America which deliberately or mistakenly is trying to destroy de-stroy Incentive, working through our federal government. When the government, through taxation taxa-tion withholds or withdraws money from a worker, even though such levies are used to provide hirn with goods and services, ser-vices, there is less incentive left to induce him to do more or better bet-ter work. The reasons for this are obvious. The goods and services ser-vices thus provided by government govern-ment are available to him without with-out any need for more or belter work on his part; and in many cases those goods and services are not what he would choose if he had freedom of choice. Money deducted from wages and taken from employers for such things as social security and unemployment benefits, may contribute to a worker's welfare and security, but it does take away considerable of his Incentive Incen-tive to do more and better work. IT follows, therefore, that if the federal government should undertake to give additional goods and services, such as is contemplated under the proposed propos-ed free medical and hospitalization hospitaliza-tion legislation, it will be forced to take more money out of the pay envelopes of the workers and from employers. And in rendering render-ing these additional services, the workers' Incentive to do more or better work will be further decreased. The reward for doing more or better work cannot be greater than the value added to the work. When a man whose work was worth $60 a week begins to produce work worth $75 a week, unfortunately under the present set-up, he cannot be given giv-en a fair share of the additional $15. The tax collector is on hand to take a slice of that $15. While it is true that he gets some benefits bene-fits for those tax deductions, he would still get them even if he didn't work the extra $15 worth. Thus incentive is at least partially destroyed, The danger inherent in this is that Ihere is a point at which deductions from wages would become be-come so great that Incentive would be wiped out. There lies the fundamental defect of all public services paid out of taxes or by any kind of compulsory levy. These taxes or levies purchase pur-chase for the -worker services and things that he may wish to have, or that may be good for him, but they decrease the amount of money which he otherwise oth-erwise would have available to spend on the things he personally personal-ly wantt. Only money which the worker can earn to spend personally is an Incentive to him to work harder or better. No one ever heard of anyone working harder or better in order to be able to pay more taxes. Yes, definitely, there is a limit to how much of the workers' wages can be withdrawn with-drawn in taxes and levies, without with-out completely destroying his Incentive In-centive to do more and better work. And if we ever reach that limit whene Incentive is a "dead pigeon," it will mean economic and social suicide for America. |