Because a policy of "economic equality" requires the seizure of goods from those whose production exceeds the targeted income level, it is necessarily incompatible with the end of freedom as discussed above. Indeed, such systems require involuntary servitude (cf. pp. 4.11:77-8) from such "over-producers." If the theory is consistently applied, then the monetary marginal return per unit of labor to each worker is reduced to zero, since the worker's income is independent of his or her individual productivity. Consequently, labor is expended only insofar as it provides the worker/producer with enough psychic return to outweigh the disutility of labor. Production of consumer goods is therefore sharply curtailed, in comparison with a free-market system. A decrease in the production of capital goods leads to further losses in productivity over a period of years. The extreme scarcities of consumer goods generate poverty and discontent, which if unchecked threaten to result in overthrow of the system. In order to remedy these scarcities, therefore, production quotas must be defined by the ruling authority, together with extreme penalties for noncompliance.      Next page
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