You can purchase insurance for life outcomes. You cannot purchase insurance for pre-life (or early life) outcomes. So if a bunch of people want to enforce equality of outcome, they can do so by signing a contract that shares out their windfall gains. You can't do this for the wealth of the family you're born into or for your intelligence.

You make good points in illustrating why outcomes are not entirely the result of decisions. Two can make the same mistake and only one bear the real consequences. I accept this.

However, making the mistake when you know you don't have a fallback is still a personal choice. You're still asking for one party to pay for the mistakes of another. It's not right to say no one should have a fallback; would that we all did. And it's not right to demand that one provide the fallback for another; you can't make one party responsible for the choices of another.

It's like poker: you make the best decision given the information that you have. We might wish that everyone held the same hand, but we don't. When speaking of a citizen of an impoverished or oppressed foreign country that is a question of foreign policy, not domestic. When speaking of an American citizen the opportunity for advancement is there so long as the killing errors are not made. It will take fewer errors to shipwreck the hopes of the impoverished child but they are still personal choices resulting in personal consequences, to be born personally, imo.

Isn't it the exact opposite? Aren't you really the one who thinks people only care about themselves? If not, why do you advocate creating a structure where things are taken forcefully against peoples will?

You can claim it's unfair and you'd be 100% right. It's the therefore i can xyz where the problem comes in.

Have you ever heart that life is not fair? And hardships build character.
Lol brokaments, and long live capitalism.

Can I buyin for 1/100 the price?

Life is not fair ≠ Life should not be fair
Life is not fair ≠ Life should be fair

Right, but remember what we said in the other thread about voluntarism. Liberty still comes first. I'm not asking for forced to assent to redistribution. And I agree with others that are raising the point that my point certainly suggests some some redistribution is justified, it need not necessarily be as much as I initially supposed.

I also agree that there are, as with any system, going to be difficulties of administration and dealing with people who get out of line w.r.t. to their own promises about their ideals. I'm no genius of practical administration, so my answers about this have frankly been "meh," but I don't think that invalidates the initial point.

As someone who said he used to be a socialist, I'm really curious where you stand on this.

FFS read my posts. By stipulation, no one is forced to live there. Anyone who lives in DrModernland morally believes in redistribution.

Nichiemn,

Re: the difference principle, I selected it only insofar as it applies to the narrow context in which it corrects against scenarios like {100,100,0,0,0}, whereas something like {100,100,100,100,10} is an intriguing case in that the difference principle may be too strong compared to the median insurance people would want. I'm going to read your thread today imo.

Go ahead, what are you waiting for? I'm proposing that we ought to eat ham sandwiches, but I'm going to go ahead and eat mine whether you do or not.

Where are people getting the authority to determine what should be allowed?

Note also that if you decide this is not allowable what you're doing is violently supressing voluntary transactions. You're telling the benefactor that he can't make a transaction with the heir.

The fact that you don't agree with the transaction doesn't give you any right to stop it.

The fact that the heir doesn't have any right to the money or that he didn't "earn" it (both of which I would disagree with) doesn't give anyone else a right to re-appropriate that money.

I haven't read this whole thread but I do think I couple of people agreed that they didn't want to interfere with people who were not violating a non-aggression principle, so if one does hold that position he can't possibly be in favor of blocking these sorts of transactions.

What's fair and equal about some people being taken from more? If Bill Gates kids have billions of dollars taken from them, how is a kid in a third world country going to get billions of dollars taken from them? I mean, we're trying to be fair right? And how do you propose this works anyways? Bill Gates kids are taken immediately when they're born, and placed in an "Equalizer camp" until they're 18? Or wait until Mr. and Mrs. Gates dies and then take away all of the kids possessions?

I already said I don't know how it should work in practice. I've already explained several times over why it's fair and equal. Nichiemn has stated it better than I: the problem is that initial endowment creates a non-voluntary lottery whose adverse consequences cannot be protected against ex ante. Those who believe, as I do, that we should have opportunity to correct for this risk should have the opportunity to voluntarily live in a society in which this risk is corrected for by redistribution ex post.

The theory is not complicated and I am not trying to steal from you. If you don't care about unequal distribution of initial endowments via non-voluntary lottery and think nothing should be done to correct for this effect; i.e. it is not your norm of justice, why not? Please don't just say "because it's coercive, stealing, etc." This is very specifically not what I'm talking about. I am saying we're dispensing with authoritarian/libertarian issues and talking about redistributive capitalist/pure capitalist issues. I am advancing a moral ground for redistributive capitalism for those who want it because they believe it is morally important.

That is, assuming you live in the society voluntarily, why or why isn't unequal distribution of initial endowments a question of fairness? If every thread is just going to be libertarians being like "stop stealing, coercing, etc." then you might as well rename this "ACism is right, stop suggesting other ideas" forum. If ACism is right you have to actually advance arguments for why participating in a non-voluntary lottery that exposes one to risk of, for instance, extreme poverty, is not an unfairness for which an adjustment should be made.

DM,

If you can't conceivably come up with a way that this society would work without unacceptably violating other ethical principles, then something is wrong. Also, I think you'd be hard pressed to find people who'd voluntarily enter into this sort of arrangement.

What other ethical principle am I violating? Sure, the funding must come from somewhere, but redistribution is logically identical to the exercise of an insurance contract where all the future citizens of a nation agree to pay $x before birth to cover the risk they'll incur at the "birth lottery" from the unequal distribution of endowments up to an amount they think is appropriate. They might be comfortable with some risk, e.g. if the distribution of birth outcomes is {100, 100, 99}, they might not require that there be any insurance, but they'll uncomfortable with larger amounts of risk, e.g. if the distribution of birth outcomes is {100, 0, 0}, where they'll want to be able to insure themselves against the consequences of getting 0. If the resources could come from elsewhere and somehow magically be given to them up to the distribution they're comfortable with for a given real-world scenario, they would prefer that, but where there is no choice but to take these resources from others, they all agree it's in their best interests to be willing to give up some funding should they get one of the better outcomes.

There are metaphysical problems of the age of rational agency here and practical problems when someone grows up and decides he or she doesn't care for a redistribution scheme, but that person would be allowed to leave provided he or she returned all benefits paid by the birth insurance administrator (call it the state) to him or her (he or she doesn't believe in such schemes, so there should be no problem here). But if we studied people and found how they responded to various risks of adverse outcome, we could come up with a median, and use that as a means for determining how much redistribution a person should get based on birth outcome.

Yes, I'm repudiating my argument that they need to be absolutely equal at the outset; they need to be as equal as people would want. If people are naturally really risk averse, they'll choose to have a lot of insurance against crappy initial endowments. Maybe not, but I think it's pretty likely that this is how it would come out.

Then, this is exactly the same scenario as full libertarian anarchy without coercion. Anyone who wants to contribute to the programs you advocate can do so and those who don't can pass on it. Is that not what you are describing?

It sounds like you're trying to advocate for some form of coercion that requires the society members to contribute in some way but then you say that it's not required so basically it's the same wholesale free anarchy that the other ACists are describing, no?

Yes, if you believe it's fair to correct for inequality of initial endowment by redistribution, you participate; if not, you're free to depart from the area occupied by DrModernland as long as you return the amount given to you by redistribution, which should be unproblematic for you anyway.

For convenience, the citizens of DrModernland would probably seek some persons to administer and enforce the redistribution program against those who try to wiggle out of their own contract by not paying, which essentially amounts to a transaction cost. This unfortunately either reduces the efficacy of the endowment-at-birth insurance or raises its price, but unless someone can come up with a clever way to effect redistribution that minimizes or eliminates these transaction costs, I don't know what better can be done.

When you're born in DrModernland, the Department of Redistribution sends you a letter saying this:

"You have been born with initial endowments worth $X. In order to correct for the effects of unequal initial endowment in accordance with the median observed risk-aversion across all possible ways of being born as reported in our Initial Endowment Study 2008, [you are being awarded/please pay] $Y, which is determined on a progressive basis according to endowment."

What if the baby doesn't pay? What if it goes on the lam? Do you hunt it down, toss it in jail, and throw away the key?

The way the letter really reads:

Dear Sir,

It has come to our attention that you are a new parent. Congratulations.

We also notice you are wealthy.

Now give us the money.

Sincerely,

Beloved Ruler

The parents don't owe anything. Presumably they've already paid or received their benefits.

Why would there be a problem of people running away from paying? People are exclusively self-interested and have no moral concern for adjusting for inequality of initial endowment? If so, they're free to go.

Is what you're saying that DrModernland will have no (or few) citizens because all (or most) humans are exclusively self-interested? This rings really false to me. I would be happy to be born in DrModernland. I think other people share my moral sentiments. If I'm alone, so be it, but I highly doubt it. Why is it far-fetched to believe that someone will voluntarily do what he or she believes is morally right?

This is getting bizarre. You can't send the letter to the baby because the baby can't read. You can't tax the baby because it owns no property. You can't enforce punishment on the baby because it has not reached the age of accountability.

Of course the parents owe the tax. The money comes out of their personal production, and they will be the ones charges with evasion if payment is not made. You are assessing a birth tax on the parents.

What if these parents suffer financial reversals soon after paying the birth tax? What if the beneficiaries of the redistribution enjoy an unexpected windfall? We are back to square one where things are unequal.

I said above there were metaphysical problems of the age of rational agency, didn't I? I'll try to answer this later, maybe in another thread.

I know I haven't answered questions about childhood, but I'm very specifically saying in DrModernland this is not how it works.

Well, that's unfortunate, but none of these are risks associated with initial endowment. All those effects can be covered by reevaluating the possible outcomes at birth regularly. They're all by definition encompassed within the scope of my idea. There are only a certain number of outcomes. If there are sharply unequal possibilities among them and the people asked want to insure themselves against the risk of getting a crappy one, the Department of Redistribution does its best to handle this; if everybody's equal some year, Y is 0 for everyone.

Why does geography determine membership in your society? Why not simply have a voluntary society of people living the way you propose, regardless of geography? What about all those people who want to participate in your equality scheme but live somewhere else?

I'd do it. I don't think you'd be hard-pressed to find people at all. For one (and I'm guessing this ground has been covered many times before, but I'm new to the debate so the ACists can ready their Louisville Sluggers for this fat pitch I'm about to serve them), we already do live in a society like this, or at least one much closre to this than ACism.

The US, Canada, and Western Europe all have progressive tax brackets and practice varying forms of welfare of the impovershed, even the LAZY impovershed (zomg!).

Yet, the rich seem happy, and remain rich, and I'm not seeing a mass movement where the rich stop working hard because welfare decentivizes them. Of course, this may be because wealth and hard work rarely correlate, even with uninherited money.

By contrast, in places like areas of Somalia or wherever there is a high degree of lawlessness and no real government...well, life is rough there, even for the warlords, and I'm sure none of us would like it. I realize that is not the model of ACism as described on these boards and it is not a fair comparison. I'm just saying its components (no welfare, survival of the fittest, nominal government) has more in common with the components of ACism than the wealth-redristibuting modern Western state that almost all of us here were born in, raised in, lived in, and are not miserable in.

Second, there's communes that are so cooperative and resdistributiolicious that it makes Dr. Modern look like Ayn Rand. Probably not a lot, and these planned societies have high failure rates, but people enter into them initially because they do hold deep communal values.